ANCIENT THREAT

Science Fiction

The Kantaki Saga

Book 2

ANDREAS A. BRANDHORST

PART I

One: Forgotten

Existences

APRIL 421 SN (SINCE THE NEW BEGINNING)

Kerberos, 3rd Planet of the Hades System

The thing saw without eyes, heard without ears, and felt without skin. It thought without a brain, and it perceived its environment without a nervous system to receive and transmit information. Time did not matter to this not-yet-being. Minutes were like hours, hours were like seconds. It floated in an in-between world, as a possibility, a biological eventuality that already had substance but not yet structure. The cells of the base mass formed an amorphous structure that rested in a special container, surrounded by heat and nutrients dissolved in liquid. Low-energy impulses and neurotransmitters stimulate the formation matrix, causing the cells to grow according to the dictates of a program. Genetic data whispered through the microcosm of becoming, instructing the stem cells to gather and specialize.

The thing thrived, carrying the seed of diversity in every single cell. As it grew, it became aware of its surroundings without having a consciousness. It sensed that there was more than its own existence. Things were moving in an external world, and some of those things were related to it because they affected the way it grew, and therefore they were important. This realization brought a new kind of insight. The thing understood that there were important things and unimportant things - this was the first step to classifying the world.

More time passed, and gradually it became important to the thing that it began to seek more knowledge - they allowed it to continue to grow and become more. Structures began to form within it, controlled by the formation matrix, and at certain points in the still largely undifferentiated body mass special cells gathered, executors, which received special instructions from the matrix and caused structural changes as a result. In turn, memorants were formed in the formation matrix, memory cells for the data that continued to come in from the outside world, controlling, correcting, stimulating, and preparing for a later time, the details of which remained hidden from the thing, but about which it felt a sense of destiny. Its growing existence was no accident; something was waiting for it, a task, a purpose.

And then, suddenly, there was a dramatic change.

The data stream abruptly stopped, and the quiet growth ceased as the formation matrix stopped receiving neurotransmissions. The previously static environment abruptly changed. Heat came, a heat that vaporized the nutrient fluid and threatened to burn it away. Cracks formed in the container, and the thing slipped through one of them, falling to the floor as flames flickered above. Several explosions thundered and everything shook. Hot shock waves shattered glass and other containers, tore apart webs of base mass, shredded programming modules and energy stimulators. Voices sounded, creatures squealed, life gave way to death. The thing absorbed all these impressions without any way of processing them, relating them to each other, gaining further knowledge from them - it lacked experience and a distinct conscious self for that. In a residue of nutrient fluid, it slid across the floor, shielded behind several consoles and incubators from the fire that continued to spread through the lab until it finally reached a programming module. The contact caused another change, no less drastic than the first. Another data stream appeared, much wider, faster, and more abundant than before. The thing's formation matrix received myriads of information, stored it in its memorants, and created more memory cells when the data stream exceeded the capacity of the pre-existing ones. There was no selection; the matrix was not capable of that in its current state of development. It absorbed the data and stored it.

Danger. The thing realized that the changes in the outside world threatened its existence, and the formation matrix, with the help of the executors, activated the basic program of self-preservation - life had begun and had to be preserved at all costs, otherwise, it could not fulfill its task.

The burning lab's sensors detected faulty seals and biological contamination, prompting the surveillance server to initiate neutralization measures. Toxic gas hissed from nozzles; harsh radiation came from projectors.

The last voices - their screams - fell silent, as did the squealing. Fire extinguishing foam streamed from the valves, smothering the flames. Slowly, silence spread through the lab.

The peripheral cells of the thing that had come in contact with the poison gas died, and at the moment of their death, they transmitted information about the toxin to the formation matrix. The matrix immediately responded by causing the executors to alter the structure of the next layer of cells so that the toxic gas would be ineffective.

Simultaneously, it activated correctors and repairers to repair cell damage caused by the harsh radiation.

The thing detached itself from the programming module and moved on, driven by the dictates of self-preservation. It had lost part of itself - the dead cells - but the information it had absorbed allowed it to continue to grow. It no longer needed special nutrients; organic matter was enough.

It crawled through the sticky snow toward the airlock, coming in contact with several dead creatures along the way. The thing did not hesitate, absorbing their matter into its own mass, adding the information about their structure to its memory, secreting toxins, and using the cellular matter for its own growth. Upon reaching the airlock, the basic program of self-preservation reduced the molecular binding forces, causing the outer cells to secrete acid. Seals that had withstood heat and radiation dissolved, and the thing - now a low-density liquid - slipped through pores only a few molecular widths wide.

There was darkness on the other side of the airlock, but the darkness did not hinder the thing. Based on the self-preservation program, the matrix initialized a temporary cell specialization to allow the thing to orient itself. It maintained its low density and moved farther and farther away from the laboratory where it had been created. Self-preservation gave it a purpose, processing the organic matter it ingested gave it strength. It passed through two more doors, corroding pores in the seals, and then reached a filtering station connected to the outside - this was evident from the information stored in its memorants.

The thing increased its molecular binding forces, became more compact again, and slipped through the narrow spaces of a bundle of tubes. Without ears, it "heard" voices and other sounds, most of them unidentifiable. It knew how to interpret the slowly growing noise. It came from a river, and the river meant a significant reduction in the danger that threatened its existence.

The thing increased its density, reduced the adhesion of the outer cells, and surrendered to gravity. It detached itself from the rough metal and disappeared into the river with a muffled splash that was lost in the much louder noise.

"How did this happen?" asked Rubens Lorgard, director of the NHD branch on Kerberos. He and his security chief stood in an observation booth that offered the best view of the lab.

"The investigation is ongoing," Edwald Emmerson replied. A short, lanky man with thinning hair, he appeared alert and focused. "A fire occurred and spread quickly. The high temperatures caused chemical reactions and several explosions. Sensors detected biological contamination and safety systems were activated."

Lorgard looked at the scene of devastation. Fire extinguishing foam had spread like a white blanket over the entire lab, but it could not hide the devastation. Equipment had cracked, vats and retorts had burst, and displays had shattered. Not a single incubator had survived the disaster unscathed. Lorgard thought of the many cell cultures, the creatures that had grown in the large lab - many of them based on his own genetic designs - and grief rose within him. He felt cheated of unborn children, robbed of paternity. The damage done... that was another matter he would deal with later.

"Five people died," Emmerson continued, pointing through the window of the alcove - a transparent part of the lab's ceiling - at several small mounds beneath the fire extinguishing foam.

"How did this happen?" repeated Lorgard.

"Normally I would not have informed you until tomorrow morning, after the first examinations," said Emmerson, whose composure seemed unshakable. Lorgard sometimes wondered if there was anything that could shake the man. There was no better security chief. "But they were working on Project Double-M in that lab."

My finest creation, Lorgard thought. Full of aesthetics, unsurpassed. He looked at Emmerson and waited.

"Growth had begun on a prototype," the security chief added, and for the first time, there was something like concern in his voice.

"What happened to it? The security systems..." Lorgard imagined poison gas and harsh radiation destroying his greatest work. Something inside him refused to believe it was possible.

"We're looking into that, too. I ..." Emmerson interrupted himself as a young man in the steel-gray uniform of NHD security entered the booth. He held a data module in one hand.

"Yes?" Emmerson asked.

"We were able to recover some of the data," the young man said. "The other modules were badly damaged. Restoring the data stored in them will likely take days, if not weeks."

The security chief accepted the module, nodded to Lorgard, and left the booth with the NHD director. They crossed a control room with dozens of screens, passed several subaltern technicians, and entered the supervisor's office. The man, also a subaltern, seemed to have been waiting for them, coming out immediately from behind a small desk and looking extremely nervous. Perhaps he feared being blamed for the accident.

"I assure you that we..."

"Please leave us alone," Emmerson interrupted. "I expect a detailed report from you later."

"Of course." The supervisor left the office, and as the door closed behind him, for a few seconds there was a strange silence. Lorgard was still upset, and here, in this quiet room, he could almost believe that the scene in the laboratory had been part of a bad dream.

Then there was a low hum and images appeared on the pseudo-realistic desk display – Emmerson had inserted the data module into a reader.

The information bar at the bottom of the screen showed the time: 15 April 421 SN, 01:21. Five people in gray lab coats - two men and three women, none of them under fifty - walked around the large lab, checking instrument readings, adjusting controls here and there. Everything seemed to be running perfectly.

"Two hours ago," Emmerson said. "Just under an hour and a half past midnight." A keystroke sped up the scrolling of the recording, and the soft footsteps of the men and women turned to frantic scurrying. When there was a flash in a corner, the head of security switched back to normal speed. "Maybe a short circuit," he muttered as if talking to himself, not taking his eyes off the images. "Or some unforeseen chemical reaction. It happens."

The flash became a fire that spread incredibly quickly. The warning sensor, of course, immediately sounded an alarm, and the five people in the lab grabbed fire extinguishers. But before they could use them, the flames reached a certain container and a violent explosion occurred, killing the two men and one of the three women instantly. The other two lab technicians escaped with their lives only because they were behind a large incubator at the time of the first explosion. Other explosions followed a short time later, not as powerful as the first, but allowing the fire to spread even faster to other areas of the lab.

"Look at this," Emmerson said, pointing to a particular area of the display. Lorgard leaned over and saw a tank connected to the cluster of instruments belonging to a stimulator used to accelerate cell division and growth. "That's where the prototype was growing."

The fire reached the tank, which was cracked and a liquid was leaking from one of the openings. Lorgard hardly dared breathe.

The general safety servers responded, and fire extinguishing foam poured from valves.

A few seconds later, the contamination alarm sounded.

Edwald Emmerson nodded, and again his eyes remained fixed on the screen as he said, "We should review our safety procedures. In my opinion, the control servers reacted too late.

The two surviving women tried to open one of the doors, in vain of course – after a biological contamination alarm, the locks could only be released from the outside. Shortly thereafter, they began coughing and staring up in horror. The poisonous gas killed them within seconds, along with every other living organism in the lab.

"They're dead," Lorgard said softly. "They're all dead." He meant not only the five lab technicians but also – and most importantly – the creatures growing and maturing from the programmed base mass. Again he felt the pain of a father. His creations and plans, his visions... burned, poisoned, and irradiated.

"No," Emmerson replied, showing no emotional reaction to what he had observed. "By that door there..." He pointed to the other side of the lab. "...the sensors registered a breach in the seal. Something escaped from the lab, despite the poison gas and radiation, and went through two other doors. I had them investigated as soon as I learned of the seal breach on the door. Their sensors did not react because the holes in the seals were too small – only a few molecule widths in diameter". He hesitated briefly before adding, "After the third door, the way is clear – all the way to the river."

Jerkily, he reached for the controls and paused the display. "There, in the fire extinguisher foam. Something moved."

Lorgard looked closer. Sure enough, something hidden in the white mass was gliding slowly across the floor, stopping at a programming module - indicators suggested it was still active.

"Can it record data in that state?" asked Emmerson. As head of security, he was naturally aware of ongoing projects, but he wasn't a scientist and didn't understand everything down to the last detail.

"I'm pretty sure it can," Lorgard said, his thoughts drifting in a direction that made him increasingly uncomfortable. Until now he had assumed that the disaster was confined to the laboratory. But if it went beyond it. What if what was beginning to be suggested had happened... He thought of consequences and implications, of possibilities.

Emmerson gave him a quick, serious look. "We need to find out what information it might have picked up."

With renewed interest, Lorgard watched as the thing continued to slide along under the extinguishing foam, pausing again when it reached one of the small mounds of dead test subjects. It changed shape, flattening out and almost disappearing.

The NHD director knew exactly what he had just witnessed. "It was ingesting the organic matter for food," he said.

"The poison gas and radiation don't seem to bother it much."

"It adapts to everything," Lorgard said, sounding almost proud. Worry and joy created a roller coaster of emotions in him. For a few seconds, Emmerson watched him intently, perhaps sensing what was going on inside him. "It escaped, didn't it?"

The head of security pointed to the screen: The movement under the foam continued, reaching the door. The information strip showed new data indicating that a seal had been broken. "I think we should assume it has." He pulled the data module out of the reader and stood up. "Perhaps further investigation will turn up new clues. I'll keep you posted."

Emmerson walked to the office door and hesitated again. "All indications are that the metamorph prototype is alive and well and out there somewhere, Director. I think the highest contamination alert is appropriate."

Rubens Lorgard nodded and stared at the blank screen. "Yes, yes," he said quietly. "Agreed. Take care of it."

"And one more thing, Director..."

Lorgard turned his head and looked at the head of security.

"If I may, you should consider informing the NHD Global Director. If Project Double-M is out of control - and all indications are that it is - I'm sure he'd like to know."

Lorgard nodded again, even more pensive than before.

Without another word, Emmerson opened the door and closed it behind him, leaving Lorgard alone in the supervisor's office.

The director sat down at the desk. For more than thirty years he had worked for the New Human Design branches on Kerberos, first as a simple creator full of enthusiasm, then as a developer and designer where he had been able to unleash all of his creativity. For quite a while now, he regretted his decision to accept the promotion to planetary director. He had been flattered, he recalled, rewarded after long decades of toil and dedication. But as head of the NHD branches on Kerberos, he had to devote too much time to administrative matters and found less and less opportunity to design new biological structures, to create new life that had not existed before in this form and shape. Lorgard was not so presumptuous as to think of himself as some kind of god. He saw himself as an artist, as someone who created living art, who succeeded in unleashing the organic potential and using all the biological resources that resided in individual cells. Every creature that developed according to his plans made him a proud father and every success challenged the artist in him to do more, to create better, and to outdo himself.

The metamorph was not to be outdone. At least not if it lived up to expectations. But, whispered the – quiet – voice of the skeptic in him, it also contained the seeds of disaster.

Lorgard turned on the large three-dimensional display on the supervisor's desk. Images scrolled across the screen, and Lorgard gazed at them absentmindedly as he tried to sort out his jumbled thoughts. After a few seconds, he realized that the display was showing him footage from the visual surveillance sensors. He saw the dark mass of the continental forest, a jungle that stretched more than six thousand miles to the shores of the Emerald Sea. This tropical and subtropical jungle contained myriads of life forms yet to be cataloged and studied – a treasure trove not only for biologists and evolutionary researchers but for creators as well. How fascinating it was to study, compare, and improve upon nature's diverse blueprints.

As a young man, Lorgard had taken great pleasure in this, but later, after the discovery of basic mass, he had begun to move away from nature's blueprints and create something new.

A ribbon glistened in the light of the stars and the two moons cut through the dark wall of the continental forest: the Acheron, a broad river that flowed directly past the laboratory and emptied in a vast delta into the nearby Reef Sea. On the countless islands and headlands of this delta, the megalopolis of Chiron spread out like a tumor, its lights appearing in the three-dimensional display moments later. How clean they looked, colorful gems scattered across the vast delta. But Lorgard knew there was no such thing as cleanliness. The darkness of the night was like a merciful curtain, hiding all sorts of dirt, disappointed hopes, and misery. There was, of course, cleanliness and elegance in the central business districts and the sheltered residences of the magnates, rulers, and autarks – that beauty also remained veiled by the veil of night. Lorgard knew from personal experience how close the beautiful and the ugly could be; he had sometimes even felt that one could not exist without the other. The autocrat, nominal head of Kerberos, was a good example.

The narcissistic fool was dumb enough to think he was an artistic genius, and he loved to surround himself with beautiful things, not realizing he was defiling them just by looking at them.

Again, the image changed to show the latest footage from another surveillance sensor. Bright lights pushed back the night on the spaceport's artificial island at the western edge of the Delta. Beyond the terminal buildings, Lorgard saw not only several interplanetary spacecraft, including a number of NHD shuttles but also two Kantaki ships – black, asymmetrical colossi that gave the impression of being assembled from hundreds of barely matching parts – and an onion-shaped Horgh jumper.

The image changed again. The mountains of the Pillion Range to the east and south of the city appeared, almost as dark as the continental forest or the giant spaceships of the Kantaki. Except for one spot. Halfway up, it glowed here and there, and Lorgard knew that those lights came from chemical lamps that glowed at the entrances to what was called the Citadel. Members of the Enlightened Community lived there: people of all faiths who had access to a special power that seemed to exist only on Kerberos, a power that allowed them to heal other people. Lorgard wondered briefly what it might be like to live such a life, not to create new life as he had, but to ease the suffering of existing life.

He stretched out his hand, and a keystroke ended the sequence of images on the display. But he did not turn off the display; he stared into the waiting gray, trying to give himself an inner jolt, to find the strength for whatever action was needed now. Lorgard sensed that a new change was about to take place in his life, perhaps with consequences as far-reaching as his promotion to planetary NHD director. The metamorph was his finest work, a creature perfect in every way, perfectly planned, perfectly constructed, the masterpiece of the artist within. And it was this perfection that made it dangerous now.

Rubens Lorgard rose and began a restless pacing of the office. He paid no attention to the window that looked out into the night. Thoughtfully, he walked around the desk, gazing into the void. He had lost many of his "children" that night, and their loss hurt. The prototype of the metamorph had not perished, and that realization brought relief to the paternalistic part of his self. But it was also a weapon, Lorgard reminded himself – he couldn't forget that, not for a second. There was a strategic concept behind his design, even if Lorgard had only ever considered its other use: the development of organic servers that could adapt to new tasks and applications at will, with an exceptionally high auto-regenerative capacity to boot. All it took was finding a way to replace the base mass with stable cells – that was the only problem. And undoubtedly, sooner or later, a solution would be found; of this, Lorgard had no doubt.

A weapon, Lorgard repeated to himself. And this living weapon had made its way into the river - at least that was what they had to assume based on the current information. The Acheron was teeming with life, so there were plenty of nutrients to feed the metamorph.

"It will grow," Lorgard said quietly. "And it will evolve as the programming of the formation matrix dictates." He thought of the details of the strategic concepts that were part of the base program. A creature like the metamorph was not like a data servo in which new programs could be installed and launched at will. That could be done, to a certain extent. But the basic program had to be contained in the very first cell, as an integral part of the formation matrix and thus the fabric of the creature.

Rubens Lorgard sighed, took a deep breath, stepped to the display, and contacted the spaceport. The image of a young woman appeared on his display. She recognized him immediately. "How can I help you, Director?"

"A trans connection with Lukert Turannen, Global Director of New Human Design and Coordinator of the Consortium. He should be on Rodriguez in the Panthon system. If you can't reach him there, try Tintiran in the Mirlur system. Maybe he's already settled into Valdorian's villa, he thought. "That may take a while, Director."

Lorgard nodded. "Top priority. I'll wait."

Window to the past

14 JANUARY 340 SN

Kerberos

As Eklund gazed through the expansive windows of the spaceport terminal at the black hulk of the Kantaki ship that would take him and his adoptive parents away, the tingling restlessness inside him ripened into a decision.

The thirteen-year-old excused himself by saying he had to go to the bathroom, but before he got there, he stepped into a side corridor and left the terminal through a side exit. He walked slowly at first, in the shadow of the black ship that towered like a mountain, surprised and pleased with his courage. For some reason, he expected the people he encountered to point at him and shout, "There he is! There he is!" but nothing of the sort happened. No alarm sirens sounded; the world was unimpressed by Eklund's escape. But his young imagination made him believe that dozens of eyes were watching him. And so he walked faster and faster, until finally he was running, in the sweltering heat of the afternoon, and through the city that stretched along the delta of the River Acheron, further and further along the banks of the wide stream and the many islands. He ran as fast as he could, despite the heat that drove sweat from his pores, but he could not escape his memories.

We've finished installing the networks, Miliana had said. That means we can leave Kerberos ahead of schedule.

Levitator cars whirred above Eklund, and for a few seconds he feared that his parents had already notified security and sent out a search for him.

A world of irrationality, Primor had added. I am glad to be leaving.

Eklund walked and walked, over footbridges and small bridges that connected islands in the wide delta.

You are coming with us. We are your parents. We decide for you.

"But you're not my real parents," Eklund blurted out, running through traffic lanes where there was hardly any traffic at this time of day. Farther ahead, behind several buildings of synthomass, stretched an area of coastline, and he could already hear the waves of the reef sea lapping against the rocks there.

Still no one stopped him, still no energy tether was thrown over him. The world remained indifferent.

Back to Maximilius, the home of Miliana and Primor? After his encounter with Kerberos, the thought horrified Eklund. He had been born on Maximilius, as had his adoptive parents, but unlike them, he was not one of the New People. He still wondered why they had adopted him after the death of his birth parents. Given their emotional coldness, sympathy or compassion was hardly an option. He suspected that by adopting him, they felt they could compensate for their lack of emotion. A very irrational decision by people who had made rational thinking their philosophy in life. Maybe they felt they had to take on the responsibility.

As he ran - not quite as fast as before, for he was running out of breath, the light clothes wet with sweat - memories flashed before his mind's eye, showing him the world they had left a year ago. Miliana and Primor were data servo experts, specializing in networks. In ways Eklund didn't understand, they could connect to data servers and install and program them far more efficiently than normal humans. At times, Eklund thought they even thought like machines. Their world might offer them everything they wanted, but to him it was a cold world, without emotions, without dreams, without imagination. A world where even a smile had no place. A sterile world where life only followed the laws of logic and expediency.

Kerberos was the opposite of Maximilius - there was plenty of room for dreams, even if most of them were illusory and dangerous, created by the planet's many drugs. But that wasn't what Eklund was after. It was the warmth he felt here for the first time in his life, deep inside, a warmth that made him feel like he was being held by a loving mother. Yes, it was like that, and also different, different in a way the boy could not find words to explain. Something welcomed him here. Something was telling him, "This is your home. Stay."

The buildings of synthomass were left behind, and Eklund reached the shore. There he paused, gasping for breath, and noticed several boys - a few years younger than himself and clad only in bathing suits - jumping from tall rocks to smaller ones, climbing between them, trying to outdo each other in daring and skill. They cast curious glances at him, but he paid no attention, taking a seat on a boulder, turning his face to the breeze, and enjoying the coolness it brought.

While the other boys nearby continued their acrobatics, Eklund looked out over the sea and enjoyed the wonderful, almost intoxicating feeling of freedom. He had escaped! A new life lay ahead.

But then doubts began to stir deep within him, and with a rationality that would have made Miliana and Primor proud, he wondered if he had done the right thing. This was a strange world he had only known for a few months; how could he make it here alone, without a family, without anyone to take care of him?

He turned his head, looked back at the black mountain of the Kantaki ship at the spaceport and realized: He had escaped, but the final decision still had to be made here and now. He could still return...

... to the domed cities of Maximilius, to the rooms and corridors of synthomass and steel ceramics, to the cold, artificial light, to a world with clear rules that guaranteed safety but not security. And again he experienced it, the feeling of being welcome on Kerberos, the impression of motherly warmth. But was it right to give up the life he had led, based on that impression alone? And how would his adoptive parents react when they realized he had run away? Would they be sad? Could they even be sad?

As Eklund sat there, listening to the sound of the waves and wrestling with his conscience, he heard a startled scream and out of the corner of his eye he saw one of the boys fall. He jumped to his feet and ran to where he had fallen.

The fallen boy was kneeling between two rocks in the shallow water, holding his right arm, the elbow cut open and bloody.

"You should have been more careful, Bruni," said one of the boys.

"Does it hurt?" another asked sympathetically.

The injured boy nodded, his face filled with pain.

Eklund stepped closer. "Let me see," he said, feeling almost like an adult in the crowd of smaller boys. He approached the injured boy, touched his arm and...

The feeling of warmth grew stronger, and in his mind's eye he saw a gate, an ancient portal, opening before him. He tried to hold the image, but it slipped from his mental hands and disappeared.

"Hey!" one of the boys yelled. "He's okay!"

Eklund blinked. No more than a few seconds could have passed, but the injured boy's arm had changed - there was no longer any sign of injury.

Bruni moved his arm, amazed and pleased. "It's all right. It doesn't hurt anymore."

"Are you a healer?" asked one of the other boys.

"No," Eklund replied, confused. "No, I..."

"Maybe you are."

Eklund turned his head. A middle-aged man stood a few feet away, dressed in an ochre cowl-like robe. Accompanying him was a young man, lanky, three or four years his senior, a smile on his face that seemed as natural there as the sun in the daytime sky of Kerberos.

"I am Brother Darius, and this is my novice, Terod," the man said, coming closer. His voice was soft, gentle, and patient. "You healed the boy. With the Power."

"I don't understand," Eklund replied, but that wasn't quite true. He began to understand when he heard the crashing of the waves nearby, and for a second or two he felt as if he were swimming in a vast ocean.

The other boys stood nearby, including the one who had hit his elbow. As they listened intently, Eklund clearly sensed that they had become the audience, while Brother Darius and he stood on the center stage.

"Have you ever heard of the Enlightened Community?" asked Brother Darius.

Eklund looked to the Pillion Mountains to the south and east of Chiron, to the sheer cliffs a thousand feet high. There was a cave system called the "Citadel" where the members of the Enlightened Community lived.

"You are healers," Eklund said.

"Yes. We heal with the power you just tapped into." He spread his arms. "There is more to this planet than we can perceive with our normal senses. There is a ... world above the world, a special sphere created in unique ways for each of us, filled with a power that we can use to heal, to ease suffering. You obviously have the ability to use that power. I should speak to your parents.

And suddenly Eklund found himself at a fork in the road: one side led back to the world that frightened him with its cold practicality; the other path led to a whole new life that was as disturbing as it was enticing.

"I am ... alone." With that, the decision was made.

Brother Darius arched his eyebrows and fixed him with a look that seemed to see more than Eklund would have liked.

"There is no one to take care of you?"

"No, I'm all alone," he repeated, and a weight lifted from his shoulders - he knew he had made the right choice.

"What do you think about joining us?" Terod came closer, with a look that Eklund had never seen before: carefree, content, at peace with himself and his world. "A brother of the Enlightened Community can have two novices, can't he?"

"I believe so," replied Brother Darius. He looked at Eklund again with a searching, thoughtful gaze. "If you are alone... I could train you to be a healer."

"Perhaps we can explore the world above together," Terod added.

Brother Darius extended his hand.

Eklund did not hesitate and took it immediately.

The question of whether his adoptive parents had searched for him remained unanswered forever - he never saw Miliana and Primor again.

Kerberos

17 APRIL 342 SN

Six hundred and fifty feet up the steep face of the Pillion mountain range, fifteen-year-old Eklund sat on a ledge in the warm sunshine and looked out over the city. Chiron continued to grow, expanding into the broad delta of the Acheron, an urban creature taking up more and more space.

At this point, Eklund felt a part not only of the enlightened community in the Citadel but also of this world called Kerberos. He had never regretted his decision not to return to Maximilius with his adoptive parents. The sense of belonging here had grown stronger over the past two years, but beyond that special warmth of welcome, there was something else. This impression had grown stronger in the last few months since he had been consciously healing under the guidance of Brother Darius and experiencing the satisfaction of being able to help others. Sometimes he thought he heard something, like a call from afar, but when he tried to focus on it, the voice faded.

Resting on his hands, Eklund leaned back and raised his face to the sun, whose light was changing, becoming a golden glow...

Something shifted reality, connecting past and future across the present. The golden light enveloped Eklund, who blinked in amazement as he realized he had made the shift to Elysium. A golden humanoid floated before him in the void, a creature neither man nor woman, slight yet strong, filled with a power that was as calm and powerful as an ocean on a windless day, full of life, full of possibility. The power of creation...

Awe joined Eklund's curiosity.

I need you.

The golden glow expanded, and Eklund stood before an ancient portal of weathered wood. He remembered it - the first time he'd seen it was when he'd healed the boy with the injured elbow.

Open it.

He raised his right hand, and as he touched the portal, a panel swung open, and beyond it stretched a world like ... over the world - that was Eklund's first impression. The golden figure was waiting for him there, with a face without eyes, nose, or mouth. It raised its hand, stretched it out to him...

I need you, Eklund heard, but not with his ears.

He raised his hand, too, and when he touched the golden figure's hand, he thought he was swimming in that calm ocean of power.

I have a task for you.

"Who are you?" asked Eklund, and his voice sounded different in this world above the world, older and more mature.

One day you will understand who I am. Be ready when that time comes.

The golden figure retreated. Eklund wanted to follow, but something stopped him.

"Who are you?" he shouted. "What do you want me to be ready for?"

Take the power, it whispered from a distance. Feel it. Remember it. Remember. And be ready when the time comes.

"Who are you?" cried Eklund again.

"I am still Brother Darius."

Eklund blinked again and found himself standing on the ledge. Darius stood beside him, a man who had become a father to him - he couldn't have asked for a better one.

"I saw... someone," Eklund said. "A golden figure without a face. Like... the soul of the world." He didn't know where those words came from. They came from inside him, from where his own soul touched the Power.

"The soul of the world," Darius repeated thoughtfully.

"That's what it felt like. Can you explain it?"

"There are many things in the world above that we don't understand," Darius said as Eklund stood up. "Maybe one day we'll be able to answer all the questions. Time will tell."

Kerberos

25 MARCH 369 SN

Brother Darius was dying, and no one could help him.

What a cruel irony, thought Brother Eklund. We are healers, but we cannot heal ourselves.

Darius lay in his little cave in the citadel, the light of a chemo lamp falling on his sunken face. His cheekbones were clearly visible beneath the colorless, wrinkled skin.

"Maybe we should take him to Chiron, to a hospital," Terod said sadly.

"It's too late for that," said Nurse Rena, who had been crouching beside Darius and now stood up. "He's running out of time."

"But ..." Terod began and fell helplessly silent. Rena knew such things. The power of Elysium enabled her to know when death was inevitable.

Darius breathed heavily and lifted his eyelids. The gaze of his dull eyes wandered around the cave, finding Terod, Eklund, and the Seeress. He sighed deeply and closed his eyes again, and for a moment Eklund thought he had died. But then the eyelids opened again. "My two novices..." he said. "I have come to the end of my journey. It is time to say goodbye to people and things. Terod..."

"Yes?"

"My amulet... I left it with the shepherd. Please go and get it. I want to touch it one last time."

Rena seemed to hear more in those words, for she nodded curtly. "I'll go with him."

A few seconds later, Darius and Eklund were alone in the small cave, accompanied only by shadows, the light of the lamp fading like the dying old man.

"By the time Terod returns, I will be dead," Darius said quietly. "I didn't want him to feel left out." A scrawny hand came out from under the blanket and reached up, trembling. "I want to go to the world above the world with you one last time. Please join me on this last part of my journey."

Eklund stepped closer to the narrow bed, sat down on the chair beside it, and took his hand. It was cold and damp.

And the cold flowed out of it, into Eklund's hand, up his arm, and finally through his entire body. The light of the chemo lamp flickered, grew brighter, and the walls of the cave receded, dissolved...

"The Elysium is more than a metaphysical sphere from which we draw the power to heal," said Darius, and it was not an old, dying Darius who spoke these words, but a man of middle age, the one who had reached out his hand to the thirteen-year-old Eklund on the shore of the Reef Sea twenty-nine years ago. He wore thick clothing, and a fur-trimmed hood covered his head.

Eklund looked around in amazement, his gaze sweeping across dozens of snow-capped mountain peaks. Long slopes of ice glittered and sparkled in the light of two small suns in the deep blue sky. It was so cold that Eklund's breath condensed, and he noticed that he was breathing faster than usual - at this altitude, the air contained less oxygen.

"Where are we?" he asked.

"This is Alikant in the Double Sun Halmur system," Darius replied. "The world of my birth. As a young man, I often climbed the mountains." He gestured to the panorama. "Beautiful, isn't it?"

"We're in one of your memories?"

"Pick up a handful of snow. Go ahead."

Eklund complied, feeling the cold white and watching his fingers turn red and some of the snow melt.

"How does it feel?" asked Darius. "Can you tell the difference? No? This is Elysium, the world above the world, and in its way, it is no less real than the other one we think of as 'real'. Come."

Darius trudged through the snow, and Eklund followed him up the slope. He watched the man's sweeping movements, and for a moment he deeply regretted that this was not the reality of the everyday world. For the past nearly thirty years, he had seen Darius as a father, and his approaching death hurt deeply.

Further up, a hut nestled against the steepening slope, half hidden in the snow. A thin trail of smoke came from the chimney, and under normal circumstances would have indicated that other climbers were in the hut, but Eklund knew that was not the case. This hut was for Darius and the people he brought with him.

The door opened creakily, and pleasant warmth greeted them inside. A fire was burning in the large fireplace, a real fire, not a simulation, and the table was set for two. Next to the plates were mugs made of synthomass, and an aromatic scent emanated from the hot liquid inside.

"Elysium can be like this too," Darius said, smiling and brushing off his thick jacket. "Comfort."

The meal consisted of a spicy soup of things that looked strange but tasted good. The hot drink proved to be stimulating, not intoxicating. Eklund felt that only a few minutes had passed, but when he looked out the window, it was already dark outside. Either the days were shorter on Alikant, or he had just experienced a time jump of an hour or two.

The two men sat across from each other at the table, their plates pushed aside, their hands clasped around their mugs, while the fire in the fireplace burned without the logs turning to ash. They burned and burned, in a moment that repeated itself forever, but always a little different, for the flames were like the waves of the sea, unique and individual. "You touched it."

"What do you mean?"

For a few seconds, the only sounds were the crackling of the fire in the fireplace and the soft voice of the wind blowing over the snow and ice slopes outside. Eklund felt a strange kind of security here in the cabin, which owed its existence to someone else's imagination.

"The energy of creation," Darius said slowly. "The central essence of what we call Elysium. For most of us it's just a source of power to heal with. But why does it only exist here, on Kerberos? Why does Elysium not exist on any other known planet?"

Eklund waited patiently, watching Darius's face, the glow of hope in the man's gray-blue eyes. "I believe in a sacred presence on Kerberos," he finally said, and Eklund felt something sigh deep inside him. "I believe that here, after the creation of the universe, some of the pure energy of creation was preserved and can be used by those who, like us, are able to connect with it. Perhaps one day we will learn to use it for purposes other than healing. This..." He waved, and his gesture referred to the hut and all of Alikant. "...is really just a gimmick, a place I sometimes retreat to when I need peace and quiet. But it shows the true potential of the Elysium. Maybe one day we'll manage to become part of the creative Power."

Darius leaned forward a bit. "You touched it too, didn't you?"

And suddenly Eklund understood. Brother Darius, who had been like a father to him and had served as a role model with his calm, gentle assurance, reacted with deep uncertainty to the approach of death. He feared the imminent end and longed for nothing more than confirmation that everything he believed in was true. Doubt gnawed at his certainty, and he hoped that former novice Eklund could renew his certainty.

Eklund remembered the feeling of swimming in an ocean of dormant power. Remember. Never forget.

"The energy of creation touched me."

"That's how it feels the first time," Darius said. "In puberty, when the hormones mess everything up.

But you felt something more, didn't you? So what did you see in your vision?"

Outside, the wind grew louder, perhaps a sign that Darius' tension was growing.

"You believe in the World Soul," Darius said when Eklund fell silent. "Have you seen it? Did you really meet it, in Elysium?"

"I saw a figure," Eklund finally answered. "A golden figure without a face."

"The soul of the world?" Darius leaned forward a little more, hope shining brighter in his eyes. "Does it really exist?"

Eklund looked at the man across the table, and a second realization joined the first. Darius feared death, but he feared having been wrong even more. He feared that there was nothing but black emptiness on the other side.

"Yes, there is," Eklund said, watching wrinkles form on Darius's face, watching the middle-aged man turn into an old man in a matter of seconds. "It exists. I don't know if it's identical to the golden figure, but I know that the living soul of the world exists. I am absolutely convinced of that. And he didn't just say that to relieve Darius of the terrible burden of doubt; it was the truth.

Darius sat back, looking extremely relieved as the wrinkles formed complex patterns on his face. "Thank you," he said quietly. "Thank you, Eklund."

And then he disappeared.

Forty-two-year-old Eklund sat alone in a mountain cabin from an alien dream world, part of Elysium. The fire continued to burn without burning the logs, and for a while Eklund gazed into the flickering flames, seeing rapidly changing patterns in them, just as he had seen patterns in clouds moving across the sky as a child.

Finally he got up, opened the door of the cabin, and stepped out into the clear night. Stars twinkled in the sky above the snow-capped peaks of the mountains, like little blinking eyes in the darkness. The wind had stopped blowing. There was peace, a peace that affected not only this place but his soul.

"It exists," Eklund said again, speaking as if to the listening night. "And perhaps you can meet it now."

Another step forward, away from the cabin, through crunching snow...

Waves ran onto the beach, gentle as a mother's hand caressing her child. Eklund turned around, and everywhere he looked, the sea stretched to the horizon. He was standing on a small island, a tiny white hill in the endless blue of the ocean. This, he felt, was the center of Elysium, the sea of power, the energy of creation that he had first touched twenty-nine years ago, the resting center of the world above the world.

Something made him reach into his pocket and pull out the colored stones he sometimes carried. He crouched down, took the stones in both hands and let them fall.

Their pattern...

They formed an oval, a face without eyes, nose, or mouth.

As Eklund looked up, the waves of the sea rose before him and became walls, the glittering walls of a house of water, and the sand beneath him became a forest floor of tall, shady trees. Someone stepped through the door of the water house and reached out to him...

The destination.

And the way to it was through life.

But another way had come to an end.

Eklund closed his eyes, and when he opened them again, he was sitting in the small cave, and the light of the chemo lamp fell on Brother Darius, who was dead. His face looked... relaxed and peaceful - he had overcome his doubts in the last moment of his life and found the peace he had hoped for.

Rena stood nearby, as did Terod with the amulet. "I'm sorry," he said. "I'm sorry we were too late."

"He died in peace." Rena looked at Eklund. "And he has you to thank for that."

Eklund looked into her eyes and knew that she understood.

"Darius had come to the end of his journey," he said. "And I believe he found what he was looking for there."

"What about you?" Rena asked, proving that she was rightly called a seer.

Eklund smiled weakly. "I am still traveling. But I too will reach my destination one day."

Experience shadow

15 APRIL 421 SN, 02:45

Kerberos

The thing floated, surrounded by water and darkness, two environmental conditions it had no names for, but was clearly aware of thanks to its peripheral cells. After the confrontation with the poison gas and the harsh radiation, these cells possessed a particularly high self-regeneration potential, and in addition, the formation matrix had given them aggressive defensive capabilities: Whatever it touched was absorbed or neutralized, depending on the nature of the substance.

If it was organic, it served as food from which valuable energy could be extracted, or it could be used as building material for what would gradually become a body. The vast, mighty Acheron, thousands of miles long, was full of hungry predators who at first ignored the thing, then mistook it for something edible, and finally fled when given the opportunity. At no stage in their evolution had they been prepared for an encounter with such a creature, while the thing simply obeyed the general directives of its base program in order to survive. Several times teeth bored into its cell mass and tore it apart, but the supposed morsel drilled through the stomach walls, ate the eater from the inside out, grew, and reunited with the rest of the cells, which received new structuring instructions from the executors and converted them into form. The differentiation of individual cell groups increased, and so did the neural area. The thing no longer just reacted to its environment, it began to plan, at a level still far below consciousness.

After some time - time being something that was still largely meaningless - the attacks on the thing subsided: Word seemed to have spread among the river's predators that it was best to stay away from the mysterious new creature. When the environment changed, when the thing left the Acheron at the edge of the delta and reached solid ground, the experience was repeated. The land dwellers living in the foothills of the jungle first thought it was a meal, unaware that they themselves would become the meal.

The abundance of food was an opportunity the thing seized. It continued to grow as it crawled through the night, surrounded by lush vegetation in a world where all that mattered was to eat and not be eaten. Receptors gathered information and passed it on to an increasingly complex neural system, which processed it according to the basic instructions of the base program. There was still no consciousness in that sense, but a new kind of purposefulness was sprouting in the thing's rudimentary self, directly related to the task, the purpose of its existence.

The thing crawled and grew, growing and crawling, as small legs formed to aid its movement. Gradually, the thicket of the jungle was left behind, and the glow of the two moons was soon joined by the lights of Chiron. The thing stopped at the edge of a traffic lane and the neural system tried to make a decision. Following the orders of the formation matrix, the executors had stopped the differentiation of cells - the structure of the already formed limbs was to remain temporary in nature, related only to the circumstances of the now. The thing waited, not knowing who or what it was waiting for.

Eventually it began to move again, following the path of the traffic lane hidden in the tall grass at the edge of the smooth synthomass. Things approached, some fast, some slow, inorganic objects that, like creatures in water and on land, were nonetheless characterized by purposeful mobility. The thing's rudimentary brain tried to process the new visual and auditory data as it decided to change direction and instructed the body to cross the lane. One of the mobile objects approached faster than expected, and the thing was unable to avoid it, getting caught under the wheels of a large long-distance transporter bringing precious wood from the depths of the continental forest to Chiron.

Any other creature would have been crushed under the heavy vehicle and died instantly, but for the thing, the confrontation with the mobile object was just another experience. The formation matrix reacted, and with the help of the executors, it caused an immediate reorganization of cells. Stored energy was used to repair and restructure damaged cells. For a few seconds - time played a role this time - the thing lingered on the polymer strip of the roadway. Then it began to move again, crawling into the grass beyond the synthomass, where it stopped to complete the restructuring. Where strands of cartilage had previously provided stability to the firmer and larger body, flexible fibers now stretched out to withstand greater pressure. After a brief pause, the thing continued to crawl along the narrow strip of tall grass between the roadway and the jungle.

Its receptors received external data with heightened alertness, for the thing did not want to repeat its recent experience. It passed the first buildings, little more than rickety shacks, and the sounds changed. The thing heard sounds for the first time. Its brain remained rudimentary and still largely undefined, but the basic program of the formation matrix knew what to do with the acoustic information. The thing reoriented itself by interpreting sounds it could not really interpret. It kept moving, looking for something, an opportunity, and it put more emphasis on stealth than before. It avoided areas lit by lamps and the source of music and voices.

The olfactory receptors also registered changes. The smell of the brackish water where the Acheron flowed into the Reef Sea mixed with the stench of untreated feces. The thing crawled under some stilted huts, touched the feces, and found that it could extract nutrients from it. It knew no disgust - human sensibilities were alien to it. Usefulness was the guide to its behavior. Behind the huts, the strip of synthomass described an arc, and here the edge was wider, partially covered by another layer of polymer. Voices could be heard, but they sounded different from the voices that came from the shacks. There were several bangs, accompanied by short flashes in the half-light, followed by the roar of an engine - a vehicle speeding away.

The thing hesitated. Had its opportunity come?

More voices sounded, and organic beings moved, rushing to where there had been bangs earlier. In an effort to gain more information, the thing approached, away from the gutters of feces, hiding again in the tall grass.

The light from the two moons fell on a simple ground car, not equipped with a levitator, but with an internal combustion engine that drove the wheels. Bullets from firearms had left holes in the body.

The thing perceived these things without being able to recognize them and assign names to them. It did not yet think, and its ability to associate was limited to elementary things directly related to its own survival.

"My God, they got him this time," said one of the organic beings - humans - who had rushed to the scene. The thing heard the voices, but of course, it did not understand the words. It stayed in the grass and waited again.

"Who do you mean?" asked another.

"Rico. He's as full of holes as his car. And Rita's gone too. Had the misfortune of sitting next to him."

"Oh, man!" The second voice sounded very agitated. And young. Too young for an adult. "Who did it?"

"Well, who do you think? Only Bobby comes to mind. Rico's been fishing in foreign waters lately. Been acting all grand. Guess he didn't even have time to regret it."

Sirens wailed in the distance, getting louder.

"Let's get out of here!"

"Hey, there's someone else! Over there!"

The two young people ran to a figure lying on the ground a few feet from the vehicle. "It's Raimon. Boy, oh boy, he really was in the wrong place at the wrong time."

The two people bent down. "Good heavens, to die like that..."

"Raimon, of all people. It could hardly have happened to a more innocent person. He was probably waiting for customers."

Again the sirens wailed and the light from the headlights approached.

"Come on. I don't want to spend the next few hours in an interrogation room."

"Man, I'm really sorry about Raimon ..." The two young people hurried away, and the shadows of the night swallowed them up. Other figures who had approached the road scurried away, disappearing into huts and shacks.

On a subliminal level, the thing knew it had to act immediately. This was an opportunity. It crawled out of the tall grass, approached the body lying a few feet from the vehicle, and once again altered the structure of its own body. A probing spur emerged, thin enough to penetrate the figure's body without causing a wound. The result of the first quick analysis was clear: there was no life left in the body. A bullet had pierced its chest and hit its heart. A certain sequence of the base program was activated. The thing released a large, non-essential part of its body, liquefying it so that the unneeded cells disappeared into the ground so that they wouldn't be noticed if the area were examined. The core of the thing - formation matrix, memorants, executors, correctors, repairers, and other essential cells - invaded the dead body, spreading out and adapting the foreign dead cells to its own structure. The formation matrix took over the role of RNA and DNA. A transformation took place. The thing expanded within the corpse without taking up additional space. It copied itself into the foreign cells, preserving their differential pattern so that nothing changed in the body's blueprint. The damage to the heart tissue was repaired, and the bullet that had entered the body was pushed aside a bit. Special messengers provided the necessary stimulation, and the heart began to beat again – a dead body filled with new life.

The process began slowly, but with each converted, reprogrammed cell, it sped up, like an avalanche crashing down the mountainside with ever-increasing speed. The police from the two levitator cars that had landed in the meantime were unaware of any of this. Their attention was initially focused on the two young people in the car, and that gave the thing a few extra seconds to complete its most complex task yet: taking over the brain. It found foreign memory traces and added them to its own memories, creating new neural connections to preserve foreign experiences, observations, and knowledge. The human had died a few minutes earlier, and the lack of oxygen was already affecting the memory structures. The thing followed the instructions of its base program in an attempt to preserve as much as possible.

The brain became an integral part of the thing, allowing it to think, to develop a self. Its first thought was: I'm alive.

"What about that boy over there?" asked one of the police officers.

The other turned away from the vehicle carrying the people who had been shot and approached. "A lot of blood," he grumbled. "A wound in the chest. I think he's gone too."

The man crouched down, took the boy's hand, and felt for a pulse.

The repaired heart was beating.

"Hey, he's alive!" the officer gasped in surprise. "Notify the paramedics. He needs to be taken to the nearest hospital immediately."

The thing had become human.

Tintiran

15 APRIL 421 SN

3rd Planet of the Mirlur System

Lukert Turannen paused on the large terrace in front of the levitator Villa and looked down on the city of Bellavista, which was separated from him by a long slope of lush greenery. The city did not seem obtrusive, but rather discreet, almost a part of the natural landscape. Parks, both large and small, invited passersby to linger. A long promenade stretched along the partly rocky shore, behind which the sun reflected on the Scarlet Sea. Boats bobbed on the waves at the docks, and all seemed very peaceful. Tintiran, third planet of the Mirlur system, central sector of the Consortium - or what was left of it. From this distance, the Alliance troops in the city were not visible, but Turannen knew they were patrolling down there. Enbert Dokkar, head of the Alliance, had ordered them to keep a low profile, and Turannen expected them to leave soon - the situation had been under control for some time. The war started by Valdorian, Primus inter Pares of the Consortium, had ended with the Alliance taking over hundreds of Consortium worlds. Almost everywhere, things were back to the way they were on Tintiran: no more fighting; it was business as usual, back to business and profit. There were only a few pockets of resistance left; they hardly counted.

"Valdorian..." said Turannen quietly. "He stood here," he turned to his secretary, Amadeus, who like a shadow did not leave his side, waiting for instructions, a small, weasel-like man who ignored all remarks that did not require him to do anything. "He breathed this air and looked out over the city from here. This was his world." Turannen sighed softly. "Now it's mine." As head of the New Human Design group, part of the Consortium, he had worked for many years to one day replace the hated and envied Valdorian as Primus inter Pares. But then, just before the crucial Consistory meeting to choose the new Primus, Valdorian launched a mad war against the Alliance - a war that could not be won after the devastating military defeat in the Epsilon Eridani system. Turannen had no choice but to ally himself with the Alliance. In a way, he saw himself as the executor of Valdorian's legacy, and there was no worse position from which to continue the journey upward, to the very top.

"Did you know that Valdorian mausoleum is here on Tintiran?" asked Turannen, not expecting an answer from Amadeus. "Valdorian's eighteen predecessors are buried there, including his father. The whole dynasty." He hesitated for a moment, gazing across the Scarlet Sea, his mind elsewhere. "Who knows where he is now. Who knows if he's even alive."

Amadeus waited patiently for words which would make sense to his servile existence.

Lukert Turannen turned with a jerk, crossed the terrace and entered the villa. Judith wandered through the foyer, twirling like a ballerina, not quite sure where to look first. "This is a fitting house for us, don't you think, Lukert?" she gloated. "Perfect for receptions. Finally we can be seen the way we deserve to be seen."

Turannen ignored his wife's words. Years ago he had set up a mental filter to keep most of Judith's remarks from registering in his consciousness. In this respect, he behaved much like Amadeus did with him: He only paid attention to things that directly affected him. Judith was the exact opposite of him: purely superficial. If you scratched the surface hoping to find substance, you were quickly disappointed. Occasionally, Turannen wondered why he had married her, but some things just happened.

Slowly Lukert Turannen walked through Valdorian's mansion, accompanied by Amadeus and Judith's voice.

"Oh, look, Lukert, a blue drawing room, furnished in the dynastic style..."

Turannen looked around. Wherever he looked, there were objects of art and luxury. He had no use for art. He knew about its aesthetic value, and he knew about the complex metaphors that more or less gave meaning to works of art of all kinds, but in Turannen's thoughts and feelings there was only room for the concrete, the real, and the immediate. Anything else was a waste of precious time, and those who wasted time never got anywhere. All his life, Lukert had striven to work his way up without distractions. He had started out as an autarch, then a sovereign, and finally a magnate. Status meant something to him. That was another reason why he insisted on the conformist you in his marriage, common among magnates.

So much for art. As for luxury... It had meaning only when it could be used as a means to an end, or to symbolize something. Luxury for luxury's sake was as alien to him as art.

"It amazes me that Valdorian would surround himself with such things," he said, continuing his walk through the villa.

"I would have thought he would be more focused on his work. After all, he was the Primus inter Pares... Amadeus, I will give you a list of things that need to be removed. I would like to have more functionality."

"All right," the secretary said, making a note on his infonaut. Even his voice had a weasel-like quality to it.

"The red salon will be my music room and the green one will be my personal meditation room. And the great hall, have you seen the great hall, I imagine a long banquet table in there..."

Turannen opened a large door, and beyond it stretched a room that took up an entire wing of the villa. It didn't deserve to be called a study - it was more like a workroom - but it had a distinct atmosphere that made Lukert immediately think that Valdorian had worked here.

"Oh, and this is..."

"My office," Turannen said just loud enough.

"...Your office," Judith finished the sentence. She stopped in the doorway, and Lukert found her a distracting foreign body.

He waved. "Explore the rest of the villa. Amadeus will accompany you and take note of your wishes."

"Oh, yes. Of course. I have so many ideas ... Come, Amadeus, let's start in the foyer ..."

She wandered off, happy as a queen who had finally gotten her castle.

Turannen stood alone in the large room and let it sink in. Several podiums rose from the floor of the hall, which was made of marble and precious wood. Plants grew everywhere, in pots or recesses filled with soil, some of them reaching the high ceiling. Bright light streamed in through wide windows, gliding over ornate columns and statues. Here, as in the other rooms of the villa, art and luxury reigned supreme.

But not for long, Turannen thought and decided to prioritize the functionality of this room as well.

He descended the short staircase and approached a podium containing several consoles and a wide desk. Behind it, nineteen paintings - not pseudo-realistic representations, but real paintings - took up most of the wall. The dignified expressions of Valdorians looked as if they were watching from the past to the present. The nineteenth painting showed Rungard Avar Valdorian: large gray eyes, his short hair also gray, his face serious, a man used to making important decisions affecting hundreds of worlds. "Where are you now?" asked Turannen quietly, using the disrespectful form of address. He had ordered Valdorian's immediate arrest and extradition to the Alliance, wherever he was - that was one of the conditions of the truce offered by the Alliance. "What has become of you? And Cordoban?" The hatred and envy of Valdorian the Nineteenth was almost as old as he was, fueling the ambition that had brought him from virtually nothing to the head of the New Human Design. "I had to work for everything," he said. "Unlike you. You had everything handed to you. The table was set for you from the beginning. And yet... Here I am, in your house, taking your place."

Well, that wasn't entirely true, he had to admit. He was not the Primus inter Pares of a powerful, independent Consortium that, before the disastrous war against the Alliance, had consisted of nearly six hundred solar systems with two thousand resource planets and seven hundred and nineteen inhabited worlds, managed by eighty-seven major corporations, themselves composed of thousands of individual companies like NHD and Valdorian Group of Companies. Rather, he was the coordinator of a Consortium now under the control of the Alliance, a similarly large interstellar business community. The real power lay not with him, but with Enbert Dokkar, the head of the Alliance, and also with Benjamin, Valdorian's surviving son, who had tried several times to kill his own father.

Perhaps he had succeeded. Turannen had no children, which he sometimes regretted in rare bouts of sentimentality, but a son like Benjamin - spoiled, excessive in his demands, an egomaniacal hedonist - he certainly did not want.

Lukert Turannen looked away from the paintings, stepped behind the desk, and looked at the blank screens of the consoles. For two or three seconds he toyed with the idea of turning them on and running a file search, but then decided against it. He was not a data servo specialist and thought it better to leave the analysis of the stored data to his experts. Much of the information could be used to improve the position of the New Human Design within the Consortium, and that was one of his goals. But even more important was the future balancing act on the tightrope of power between the Consortium and the Alliance. Enbert Dokkar and Benjamin Valdorian probably intended to divide the Consortium between them, and there was almost certainly no room in their plans for a third man. Turannen wanted to keep climbing his way up, and the change in circumstances demanded a new strategy. He needed tools, and one of those tools was the Arsenal planets.

Twenty years ago, he and Rungard Avar Valdorian had signed a contract providing for close cooperation between New Human Design and Valdorian Group of Companies within the Consortium. This contract was the basis for a project that Cordoban, the chief strategist of the Consortium, had initiated a few years later: in exchange for the acquisition of new industries, NHD would provide the know-how for the production of genetically modified soldiers who were absolutely loyal, unwavering, and ready to go into battle and sacrifice themselves at a moment's notice - ruthless fighters, enhanced with new abilities and special resilience. These soldiers had been created not in the labs of the New Human Design, but in those of Valdorian Group of Companies. Their numbers were unknown, but Turannen estimated them to be at least a hundred thousand. Subsequent discreet investigations had revealed that Cordoban planned to establish a total of three arsenal planets, equipped with stasis rooms where the soldiers slept and waited to be deployed. In addition, there were enough weapons stored on these worlds to equip a powerful military force. Unfortunately, Turannen had not been able to find out where the arsenal planets were. He saw them as a trump card in the game with or against Enbert Dokkar and Benjamin. In the meantime, he had free access to Valdorian's data, so it certainly wouldn't be long before he knew the coordinates. What he would do with the Arsenal planets and their potential then... Well, that depended on how things played out.

Turannen stepped down from the podium. On his way to one of the large windows, he passed an ornamental mirror and paused to look at his own image, mentally adding it to the nineteen Valdorian images. He saw a man with short ash-blond hair, a high forehead, gray-green eyes, a straight nose, and a thin-lipped mouth that rarely smiled. The natural expression of this face was calm seriousness, and the rest of the appearance reflected the inner nature of Lukert Turannen. Inside the gray clothes - he always wore gray clothes, mouse gray, slate gray, lead gray - was a body nearly seventy years old, but a strict diet and daily, carefully planned exercise had preserved his youthful vigor and made him look twenty years younger. So far, he only had one resurrection behind him - a genetic regenerative treatment that rejuvenated all the body's cells, but also affected their stability - and he was proud of that. All the things he had achieved through his own efforts filled him with pride.

He looked out the window at the park-like garden with its many tropical plants. Satisfaction filled him because he had reached an important milestone: he had taken Valdorian's place. But he also knew that he could not rest on the soft cushion of this success. The near future required careful planning if he was to stand up to Enbert Dokkar and Benjamin.

The door on the other side of the large room opened and a voice sounded. "...We could hold the first reception in a week's time to present ourselves to the Tintiran society, I will wear a red dress, as you know, red suits me well, Lukert, it goes perfectly with my dark hair..."

Judith hardly seemed to breathe as she spoke.

Amadeus approached hurriedly, the infonaut in both hands. "Rubens Lorgard, NHD Director of Kerberos, would like to speak with you, Primus," he said. The title was really reserved for the Primus inter Pares, but Turannen thought it appropriate - he was the coordinator of the Consortium, after all. "A high-priority trans connection," he said.

"Kerberos..." Turannen repeated, trying to remember. There were so many planets, so many names...

"The third planet of the Hades system, on the edge of the Consortium, nearly fifteen thousand light years from here, near the loose confederation of spiritualist worlds," Amadeus said, glancing at the infonaut's display.

Turannen pointed to the podium with the consoles, and his secretary immediately understood, hurried ahead of him, activated the data server, and started the necessary programs. Several screens came on. Some showed background information about the planet and the solar system, and the largest display showed a ready icon.

"... Or maybe I should wear a green dress, green suits my dark hair, yes, a green dress, floor-length, maybe with a train, oh, what do you think of a train, Lukert? There's something majestic about a train, with gold braids..."

Lukert Turannen nodded in the direction of the door. "See to it that she gets her wishes. As long as they stay within reason. You know what I mean."

"Yes, Primus."

"And instruct our data server specialists to take a thorough look at the databases of Valdorian Group of Companies. Have them work around the clock if necessary. I need the AP information."

"Yes, Primus." Amadeus hurried off, closing the door behind him.

Turannen took a seat at the desk to talk to Rubens Lorgard.

KiTamarani

BILLIONS OF YEARS AGO

Rupturing Space, Rupturing Time

The twenty-seventh jump through the web of probabilities of possible worlds landed the Council in a hole, no doubt dug by the Omnivore.

It was not very large, barely more than a hundred thousand light-years long and only a tenth as wide, and one end remained connected to the Origin, the fire that gave birth to light and darkness, but it held the Council in place, preventing it from continuing its pursuit through eons and infinities.

It eluded us, whispered the voice of the multiple We/I through the rooms and grottoes of the sphere, where the light of creation glowed, still and unquenchable. It lured us into a trap.

Agent: The sphere must escape the hole so that the chase can continue.

The We/I reacted immediately, releasing thousands of space and time eaters. They left their home, the living and revitalizing Sphere, buzzing away like cosmic insects, also filled with the Light of Creation, ready to sacrifice themselves to help the Council fulfill its mission. The Omnivore could not be allowed to escape if the Cosmos were to find and maintain stability. Purposefully, after a final salute to the Sphere, a final affirmation from the We/I, they hurried away, leaped across light-years, reached the edge of the hole, and began to eliminate time and space. They neutralized the virtual foreign matter left behind by the Omnivore, erasing it from the fabric of the universe and neutralizing themselves in the process. Both perished, like matter and antimatter in a destructive encounter.

After a thousand years, during which the Council nursed itself and gathered strength for a new confrontation with the Omnivore, the hole in space and time no longer existed, and the Sphere flew again. It listened to the whispers of eternity, listened for a discord, a disharmony in the murmuring symphony of universal becoming and ceasing, from which the Council remained unaffected. Distant songs announced solar births and dying stars, solar masses forming galaxies, collapsing matter, and radiation storms, but there was no special note, no scratch in the ethereal music of the cosmos that pointed to the Omnivore.

We have lost its trail, the We/I noted sadly and stopped outside the galaxy clusters to receive voices from the past and the future. After twenty-seven jumps in time, the Council had visited all the great epochs of the Universe - the opaque beginning, when the heartbeat of the cosmos began and the energy of creation still bubbled freely, even the last era, when the oldest stars died and true darkness spread - and left its memories, the voices of which it now received. The Temporal Labyrinths were not empty, these voices reported: The farther into the future, the more life evolved, life still untouched by the Omnivore, and a few creatures traveled through time and space like the Council, among them the Kantaki, one of the oldest races of all. The epoch in which the sphere now found itself marked the beginning of the Fourth Cosmic Age for the Kantaki, which was under the influence of understanding and the rapid development of life. An ideal epoch for the Omnivore, who fed on reality, but preferably on experienced, observable, lived reality.

Agent: Sphere, situation report. Sphere must locate Omnivore. Urgency.

The We/I listened to the voices, its own voices from the past and the future. At the same time, it spoke to a Kantaki Nexus that hung in the void between clusters of galaxies, many millions of light-years from the nearest stars and planets. From there, trans connections carried the Council's questions to a solar system whose central star was called Urirr and where there was a planet called Munghar, the homeworld of the Kantaki, whose roots stretched back to the Third Era, the Third Cosmic Age, and who knew more than many other races because they lived in multiple dimensions.

We need a clue, the We/I said, and hundreds of millions of light years away, in the subplanetary labyrinths of Munghar, Mother Nrah, one of the Five Great Ones of her time, stepped in front of the lens that provided a glimpse into the Plurial, into all that could ever exist.

The Omnivore devours reality, leaving chaos in its wake, echoed the ethereal voice of the Council through space and time. We must find it and render it harmless before it destroys this universe.

"Other universes have already fallen victim to it," Mother Nrah clicked sadly. The We/I understood her clearly; there were no language barriers for the Council. "Non-linear time has spread and threatens our ships if the pilots are not careful."

Agent: Hole dug in time and space by the Omnivore, trap. Intent: To gain time.

For what? asked the We/I immediately.

Agent: Omnivore pursuing unknown plan. Neutralization, urgency.

"I see no sign of it anywhere," Mother Nrah clicked on Munghar.

Concern grew in the Council as the situation report continued, a vague vibration gripping all the components and parts of the We/I.

Fragmentation, the Council finally said. That is the only explanation. The Omnivore knew we were close. It dug the hole to buy time for fragmentation.

"What do you mean?" asked Mother Nrah, still crouched in front of the lens. She was old, ancient, but knew the Council only through the traditions of her people. She had never spoken to the We/I herself, but their voice, speaking to her soul, sounded strangely familiar. Normally, the Kantaki would look down their noses at all other creatures, no matter what race or hierarchy they came from, but the Council and its members deserved the utmost respect.

The Omnivore surrendered to avoid neutralization, the Council declared. It died to live. In doing so, the We/I used terms that were foreign to her, but whose meaning was well known to the creatures of this universe. It fragmented into countless seeds, and from each seed a new Omnivore could emerge.

"The Seed of Darkness," Mother Nrah clicked in front of the lens, and her insectoid body shook, causing a fluorescent glow over her limbs.

Agent: Urgent action required. Seeds must be located and destroyed.

"But there are so many, so many," came Mother Nrah's voice over the translink. The old Kantaki still looked into the lens that showed her the plural, and her posture expressed sorrow. Perhaps she feared that the beginning of the Fourth Era would bring the end of the universe as she knew it, without the cosmic cycle reaching its conclusion, without the spirit that had once become matter being able to learn and experience before returning to spirit.

We must act, said the We/I. We have no choice. Like the Omnivore, we must give up unity and fragment.

The insectoid figure in front of the telescopic lens trembled as she realized, or at least guessed, what such a move meant to the Council. "I wish you luck," Mother Nrah clicked. "We will continue our search for the seeds."

Thank you, the We/I replied, and the translink between the Kantaki Nexus in the void between the galaxy clusters and the planet Munghar was severed.

The sphere, several light months across, slipped away from the cylinder of the Kantaki Nexus, and unease spread through it.

We will not die. The voice of the we/I permeated all components. We are merely changing the nature of our existence.

Agent: Necessity.

The Council understood the concept of death - the negation of being - but had always seen it as something limited to purely organic life. Here, the negation was not of being per se, but of shared being.

We are not dying, the We/I affirmed, as if to convince itself. The split is necessary.

Agent: The split is initiated.

In the void between the galaxies, alone and unobserved, the sphere split and became a swarm of countless components, each shining with its own light. They glided away, each in a different direction, slowly at first, as if reluctant to leave the unit, but then they became faster, much faster than the fastest Kantaki ship, racing through time and space, toward the galaxies, in search of the seeds of the Omnivore.

The We/I of the Council was now an I/We.

All components experienced the pain of separation and the discovery of individuality. KiTamarani, Counselor and a tiny part of the whole flew like the others through the void, toward a very specific galaxy. Though the distance to the other Council members grew, the self-connection between them, the gentle whisper of emotion and rationality, remained undiminished.

A consolation...

Agent: Necessity.

"Yes," KiTamarani answered the voice of the capsule that carried her through eternity, through a universe that was expanding faster and faster, threatening to lose its reality as the seeds of the Omnivore grew. "Yes, I know it's necessary." Actually, she had to admit, she only answered that to test the word "I". It sounded strange, full of exoticism.

Agent: Necessity. The capsule repeated the remark, sensing that the counselor was distracted.

KiTamarani thought of her task and pushed everything else aside. She gazed through space and time as she prepared for a jump that would place her in close proximity to the target galaxy. The task was to find and destroy the seeds of the Omnivore.

Simulation games

15 APRIL 421 SN

Tintiran

Before making the trans connection, Lukert Turannen looked at the displays that showed information about Kerberos. The Hades system had been colonized nearly a hundred years ago by colonists who seemed to have a penchant for names from Greek mythology. There were several colonies in the solar system, the most important of which was on the third planet, Kerberos. Sixty years ago, New Human Design had established a branch there, primarily for basic research. They worked with what they called the base mass, which was derived from local organisms and could be properly programmed: Its cells behaved like stem cells, with the possibility of developing in any number of directions in terms of morphology and physiology - the type of differentiation was not subject to any restrictions. There was only one major drawback: for some unknown reason, the cells died when they left Kerberos. The base mass allowed for extremely interesting design studies and evolutionary analysis, providing valuable insight into the biological design of new creatures. This was of great importance to the strategic concepts of New Human Design.

Turannen reached for the controls, and the ready icon disappeared from the main display.

It gave way to the worried face of a man of about sixty, so thin that he looked downright haggard. Watery blue eyes lay deep in their sockets, and gray-white hair fell frizzily across his wrinkled forehead.

"Shielded link," Rubens Lorgard said in a very dry-sounding voice. "Status Alpha Alpha Nineteen."

This communication status scrambled all transmitted signals, and its use indicated that something very important was involved. Turannen acknowledged and waited.

"There has been an incident in one of our labs," Rubens Lorgard began. "It concerns Project Double-M."

"Double-M?" repeated Turannen.

Astonishment flashed across Lorgard's hollow-cheeked face. "You know nothing about it? Cordoban assured me he would brief you."

Turannen glanced at the data screens as his hands slid over the terminal controls. Information about Kerberos disappeared from one screen, giving way to columns of NHD data. A quick search for the term "double-M" yielded no results. "I don't recall ever hearing of such a project."

Lorgard hesitated for a few seconds, seemingly searching for the right words. "Cordoban came to Kerberos two years ago with plans for Project Double-M, or 'metamorph.'" He waited.

"I'm not familiar with that term either." Suspicion arose in Turannen. Cordoban - Valdorian's right hand man.

Rubens Lorgard took a deep breath and the aura of concern around him tightened. "The plans made specific reference to the contract signed twenty years ago, which provides for close cooperation between New Human Design and Valdorian Group of Companies."

"Special projects must be approved by NHD reviewers."

"I know, Global Director." Turannen noted that Lorgard did not use the title "Primus." "Cordoban indicated his intention to keep you informed of all the details. At the same time, he ordered the highest level of secrecy, citing the Consortium's order of priorities. Three months ago, he sent me instructions to stop working on the project and make preparations to eliminate all traces of it. That was strange enough. But then, a month ago, Cordoban contacted me again and instructed me to continue with the project. We've been working on it ever since, and I haven't heard from him again.

"What about the metamorph?"

"As I'm sure you're aware, the special base mass we extract from local organisms here on Kerberos allows for entirely new designs in genetic structuring and biological programming. I began designing it immediately after Cordoban's visit. The metamorph is a completely new creature, nothing like the genetic manipulations and new developments NHD has been involved with. In fact, we would need a whole new category for it. The metamorph is neither animal nor plant - it is both at the same time and yet something completely different. Imagine an organic data server that can program itself, change shape, and take on alien functions."

"A...shape-shifter?"

Lorgard nodded, shaking his head half a second later. "More than that, much more than that. The metamorph is capable of extracting energy from any organic substance - and some inorganic substances as well - and using it both for its own growth and for further development and modification of its structure. Toxins, radiation, and other destructive forces from outside pose no threat to it as long as they remain within a certain range - even the metamorph could not survive a thermonuclear explosion."

A thin smile indicated that the last words were meant as a joke. Turannen remained serious and listened.

"Every single cell in its body has a differentiation potential far beyond that of stem cells," Lorgard continued. "It is characterized by a very high capacity for self-regeneration and an enormously high capacity for adaptation."

"Some kind of superbeing," Turannen said in a neutral tone.

Lorgard hesitated. "Any way you look at it. It's certainly our finest creation. There's no doubt about it. A very survivable creature."

"Sounds like a project that took a lot of time and money to develop," Turannen said coolly. "I take it Cordoban was not doing basic research."

Again, the NHD director of Kerberos hesitated. "We developed the metamorph as a weapon for him. The base mass makes it... programmable."

"What did Cordoban want with it?"

"The task was to build a prototype. If all tests were successful, several copies would be created and used against the Alliance. Cordoban planned to eliminate the entire top leadership, starting with Enbert Dokkar. The metamorphic specimens would kill him and all key administrators and assume their roles. Assimilating their individual body structures would have made them indistinguishable from the originals."

Turannen thought about it, and the full meaning of the words he had just heard began to sink in. Extremely survivable and adaptable creatures, with the ability to change the structure of their own bodies and thus their form, to assimilate other living beings - other people - and take their place... A perfect organic weapon.

"With all this information?" he asked, not letting his excitement show. "I mean, when the metamorph takes over someone... Does it have access to that person's memories as well?"

"Yes," Lorgard confirmed. "Provided there is no tissue damage to the assimilated person's brain."

"So a metamorph taking on the role of Enbert Dokkar would have free access to all of his knowledge?"

"Yes."

"And he would take orders from his masters and carry them out?"

"Yes."

"That's... interesting." A thousand possibilities came to Turannen's mind, each more intriguing than the last. Cordoban's Project Double-M would have allowed Valdorian to take over virtually the entire Alliance from one day to the next without anyone noticing. And without firing a single shot. And that would have been just the beginning. With enough metamorph specimens, he could have not only eliminated all of his competitors but subjugated their corporations to his own influence. He would have been able to... assimilate every economic bloc in human-populated space. And not just in human-populated space, Turannen thought. If a metamorph can take on any form... There were many other intelligent species out in the galaxy, colonizing numerous planets, the Horgh, Taruf, Ganngan, Kariha, Quinqu, Pintaran, Grekki... Turannen tried to imagine their economic potential, which would then be under human control.

And then he thought of something else.

"The Kantaki," he said.

"Yes," Lorgard confirmed. "Cordoban's plan goes far beyond eliminating Enbert Dokkar and his administrators and taking over the Alliance and the other man-made economic conglomerates in this spiral arm of the Milky Way. Within twenty years, all Kantaki pilots are to be gradually replaced by metamorph specimens.

To the thousand imagined possibilities were added tens of thousands more. Only three races were known to practice or have practiced interstellar space travel. The Horgh used jump ships, but each jump created mental shockwaves that were unbearable for humans. The Xurr had used semi-organic faster-than-light ships in their exodus from the galactic core a hundred thousand years ago, but they disappeared for unknown reasons ten thousand years ago. The insectoid Kantaki used hyperdimensional ships piloted by specially gifted pilots outside the time stream through trans-space. For a fee, they transported passengers and cargo in their transport bubbles; this seemed to be one of the mainstays of their economy, although they sometimes charged for passage odd, even seemingly worthless things. All efforts of human science to develop its own technology for faster-than-light space travel had failed - the economies of the numerous human-populated worlds depended entirely on the Kantaki ships and their pilots. Whoever controlled the pilots controlled the entire interstellar infrastructure. It was said that the Kantaki were all over the Milky Way, not just in this spiral arm. They were even rumored to have connections to the Magellanic Clouds, Andromeda, and other galaxies. If metamorphic specimens were piloting their ships, artificial creatures that obeyed humans, determined humans...

"That's why Cordoban called the project 'Double M,' Lorgard said. "The name does not refer to the name 'metamorph,' as one might think. Double M stands for 'manpower.'"

Lukert Turannen remembered an important piece of information. "But the cells of the base mass are not viable outside of Kerberos. The metamorph could not be used on other planets or aboard starships."

Lorgard's watery blue eyes clouded slightly. "He assured me that he would inform you," he insisted again. "Why he didn't is open to speculation. As for me... he had to give me the details of Project Double-M, because I was supposed to design the metamorph. What I think of it is another matter entirely."

Turannen lifted his eyes from the display and looked past the large potted plants, statues, and pseudo-realistic ornaments to the room's wide windows. Outside, the sun still shone on the tropical plants of the garden. Everything looked the same as it had ten minutes ago, but his perspective had shifted. Lukert Turannen suddenly felt like he was in another world. He was used to thinking in a concentrated way, ignoring trivialities and focusing on the essentials, coolly evaluating and analyzing in order to plan his next actions. But right now, he was experiencing mental turmoil the likes of which he had not seen in many years. The metamorph sounded like a godsend - or an immeasurable catastrophe. One thing was certain: Turannen would have to rethink his entire strategy for the road ahead.

"You mentioned an incident..."

"Yes." There was a change in the haggard-looking face of Kerberos' NHD director that Turannen didn't know how to interpret. "An accident. That is the real reason I contacted you. A fire broke out and destroyed much of the lab where the prototype was being grown. Despite all safety precautions, the metamorph escaped."

"What?"

"Before it escaped from the lab, it had contact with a programming module. We don't know yet what data it recorded; our investigation is ongoing."

Turannen took a deep breath. "If I understand you correctly ... you have created a super-being with tremendous defensive and offensive potential, with a mission to kill Enbert Dokkar and his administrators, people with whom I work closely as coordinator of the Consortium. And this being, this living weapon, is now roaming free on Kerberos. Is that correct?"

"You... could put it that way."

"What happens now?"

"The prototype will grow - there is undoubtedly enough food for it. The rest depends on what data the programming module has transferred to its memorants and the formation matrix."

"It's made of base mass, isn't it?"

"Yes."

"So it can't leave Kerberos."

"If it tries, its cells will lose stability."

Turannen nodded slowly. "At least to some extent. But the situation is delicate enough as it is. If the metamorph becomes active on Kerberos, if there are incidents that attract Enbert Dokkar's attention, and if the head of the Alliance learns that my company, New Human Design, has created a being to kill him... Do you realize the position that would put me in?"

"Not a very pleasant one, I'm afraid," Lorgard said. He sounded tired.

Turannen thought he felt the metaphorical tightrope of power between the Consortium and the Alliance, on which he was balancing, begin to vibrate and move. There was no safety net stretched out beneath him to catch him if he fell. A fall meant the end, irrevocably. The metamorph - or rather Project Double M - could become an important tool, helping his continued ascent and enabling him to maintain his position against Enbert Dokkar and Benjamin. A potential trump card, perhaps even better than the three Arsenal planets. He had to assess and evaluate the new situation, re-plan, and that took time. But the current situation on Kerberos demanded immediate action.

"The metamorph needs to be found as soon as possible before it can do any damage and attract attention," Turannen said. "I will send one of my specialists to you with orders to locate it and either return it to the lab or, if that is too dangerous, eliminate it."

Again Lorgard's expression changed, and this time Turannen thought he detected distress.

"I will come to Kerberos myself as soon as I find the opportunity," he continued. "Then I expect you to fill me in on all the details of Project Double-M. I'm sure I don't have to tell you that the strictest secrecy is required, do I?"

Lorgard shook his head, and there was still a shadow on his features.

Turannen glanced at the data displays, which gave him another important piece of information. It concerned the political structure on Kerberos.

"You should contact the Autocrat. He is the nominal leader of Kerberos."

Lorgard's features continued to darken.

"If there are any incidents and he learns that they are due to an accident in an NHD lab, there will be trouble, and we must avoid sensationalism at all costs. Alert him to ... biological contamination. He will feel strengthened in his supposed role as leader, and we are covered. Of course, he won't find out what the metamorph is all about."

"Understood," Lorgard said curtly.

"And one more thing, Rubens..." Turannen stressed his first name. "Continue Project Double-M internally, with increased security. We'll talk about it when I get to Kerberos." With that, he cut off the shielded and encrypted translink.

KiTamarani

BILLIONS OF YEARS AGO

Into the Pit

KiTamarani jumped through space and time again and reached the Solar Gate, which consisted of twenty-one red giants arranged in a circle in the sea of stars at the galactic center. Her capsule floated closer without being caught by the gravitational forces.

Agent: Launch probe. Continue tracking.

The self-connection to the rest of the Council was still there, but KiTamarani thought she sensed that the whispers of emotion and rationality had grown quieter. She longed for the community back, for the We/I that she preferred to the I/We.

Agent: Probing. Important.

"Yes," KiTamarani answered the capsule's voice and approached the Sun Gate. Her thoughts touched certain components of the capsule, and immediately she touched the cosmic strings that still vibrated in the tone of creation, singing the song of life, the song of purpose. Here they were pure and untainted, without any contact with the Omnivore and its fragments, the seeds. KiTamarani listened to the melody, letting it tell her what had happened here, at the center of this galaxy, while her mind continued to search, wandering through space, groping for stars and planets and... finding something.

The equivalent of a blink changed the whereabouts of her primary self, while the secondary remained in the capsule, connected to the agent. Gliding inside something created by intelligent life, by the products of creation: a space station, not nearly as large as the sphere of We/I, but still of staggering proportions, considering the limits placed on most organic beings. Without physical structure, only thought, KiTamarani glided through halls large enough to hold small moons, through engineering workshops where massive assemblies had been decaying for millennia. Nothing lived here anymore; in this place, dark and cold, there were only memories. The counselor listened to them, relayed through the vibrations of strings, and learned of the Chiovan efforts, whose reality singers had, over many centuries, created with complex melodies the Solar Gate of twenty-one red giant stars, within it an artificial singularity that would use the energy of the gate to open space and time and create a tunnel for escape. Escape from something that ate their dreams and robbed the Singers of their voices.

"It was here," KiTamarani said aloud, though she had not acquired speech organs. And the words rang out, even though there was no atmosphere in the vast Chiovan control station in which sound waves could travel.

"The seed I am looking for - it was here. But it didn't leave any marks on the cosmic strings. How is that possible?"

Agent: Localization. Consider the possibility of camouflage.

"Camouflage?" repeated KiTamarani. "How is that possible?"

The Chiovan lost their dreams, their singers lost their voices that could influence reality. And reality ... shrank. They could no longer escape through the gate, through the tunnel that the singularity was supposed to create for them. They succumbed to the nothingness created by the seed, which, like the Omnivore before it fragmented, ate reality, leaving empty places in the fabric of dimensions.

It had robbed the Chiovans first of their dreams and then of the reality that surrounded them, in which they had lived and hoped.

Strange dreams...

Agent: Confirmation. Disguised with strange dreams, with strange thoughts.

"That's why it left no mark on the strings," KiTamarani said. "It hid its mark in stolen dreams."

And after the death of the Chiovan, after the end of these people, in whose culture the reality singers had played such a large role, the Solar Gate created by the singing had become unstable. The artificial singularity at its center became as voracious as the Omnivore, devouring first the energy radiated by the Red Giants and then their mass. Hot gas jets formed. Streams of plasma flowed through space, spiraling ever closer to the singularity and disappearing at its event horizon. It would not be long before the black hole opened its maw even wider, swallowing the suns in its vicinity, and with them this great station from which the singers of Chiovan had changed reality with their songs.

KiTamarani continued through halls, corridors and shafts, finally reaching the room where the singers of the Chiovan had sung. Like a bubble, it bulged out of the octahedrons of the station, which once had a transparent ceiling, but of which nothing remained. The vacuum of space touched the furnishings: couches, molded into segmented shapes, vibration amplifiers for the singers' voices, once sparkling crystals, now clouded by harsh radiation, the remnants of inorganic mechanisms whose job had been to ensure the singers' physical and mental integrity. They had offered no protection from the Omnivore's seed.

In the center of this room, the counselor paused and looked out into space, at the blazing Solar Gate, which was losing more and more energy and mass to the singularity. Her capsule, with her secondary self aboard and connections to the other counselors far away in space and time, hovered nearby, smaller than Chiowan's station but in some ways much, much larger, a star among stars. KiTamarani's gaze followed the solar matter of twenty-one suns as it wove a web of fiery ribbons around the black hole and finally disappeared into the cosmic maw. The event horizon did not limit her view. Small fragments of self flitted across it, slipping into a maelstrom that crushed time and space, shredding the structure of dimensions, then forming delicate patterns where, even now, after all these billions of years, the voices of creation whispered, calm, gentle, and full of confidence. Among these voices, KiTamarani heard an echo of the singing of the Reality Singers and...

...a dissonance.

Agent: Trace found. Action required.

The self-fragments sent out returned, and KiTamarani saw with eyes that had no substance, saw with them, and understood. "It disguised itself so well with dreams and devoured reality that it left no mark on the strings. But its step through the singularity left a tiny scratch."

Agent: Action required. Urgency.

"I am coming." I - what a strange word, full of absurd meaning. On the one hand, it seemed to be something more, in an absurd way, but its meaning didn't come close to that of We/I. "I am..."

...on my way...

A web of non-linear time descended upon KiTamarani's primary self, compressing her to the point of inertia and hurling her out of the universe where the search for the Omnivore's seed took place. She raced through the twilight of the hyperverse the Kantaki called Plurial, swirling through the narrow zone between the day and night of creation, hearing other voices she had never heard before. The feeling of loneliness spread through her, slowly at first, then faster and faster, accompanied by what could only be fear: There was no longer any connection to the other counselors; she was completely alone, for the first time since their collective and individual existence.

It was a terrible feeling that allowed the non-linear web to continue to compress until KiTamarani's primary self was so compressed that there was hardly any room left for thought.

A-g-e-n-t...

KiTamarani received no response. There was also no connection to her capsule, part of the sphere. As the dungeon of non-linear time continued to hurl her through the hyperverse, the counselor banished all sensation and focused on preserving and protecting the integrity of her primary self. She curled up, turning her inner self further inward, transforming her periphery into a hard dimensional shell that could withstand the pressure of the trap. When she was no longer in danger of being compressed any further, to the point of no thought, she rested for half an era, gathering strength from the fire that gave birth to light and darkness - it accompanied her even here, in her dungeon, from the chaos of non-linear time that the Omnivore had created. It was a part of her, an aspect of her being.

She thought of the Chiovan, of their reality singers who had died trying to create an escape route for their people while singing. She thought of the many blemishes on the cosmic strings, the dissonances in the melodies of creation, traces of the Omnivore who ate what had not yet evolved, who destroyed what was to grow. She thought of the many other life forms that had fallen prey to the Omnivore and, after its fragmentation, its seeds. This had to stop. Harmony had to be preserved.

"I must find the seed and neutralize it," KiTamarani whispered into her compressed world, and even that thought, the reminder of duty and purpose, gave her new strength and determination. She shaped her revitalized thoughts into a spike, much thinner than the diameter of an atom, almost as thin as the strings. Carefully, she drilled it into the shell at the periphery of her primary self, and then into the web of non-linear time, a web of distortions of probabilities and alternatives where anything was possible, even the unthinkable, the negation of creation, the triumph of the Omnivore. This cannot happen under any circumstances, reasoned the thoughts that formed the thorn.

Determination grew like a flower, blossomed and...

... exploded the monodimensional dungeon. The thin thorn that had pierced the shell and nonlinear time suddenly expanded, and more thoughts from the primary self poured into it, causing an explosive expansion.

The dungeon burst, and KiTamarani unfolded her self, absorbing fragments of nonlinear time, annihilating them, and trying not to pay attention to the pain they caused - not allowing them to create rifts in the space-time of nearby universes.

For another half an era she floated in the hyperverse. Time didn't matter to an eternal being, at least not here, because from here she could jump back to the temporal coordinates immediately after the trap, the surprisingly skilled and cunning seed had prepared for her at the Sun Gate, had sprung. KiTamarani used the second half of the era to gather more strength and to get her bearings. That was important. She could not lose her bearings here, surrounded by thousands and thousands of infinite universes.

And then...

The counselor swam in the ocean of the cosmos, identified the melody of the right strings, righted herself on the crest of a wave in the hyperdimensional surf, and leapt back into the universe where she had pursued the Omnivore as part of the sphere, the council. She fell back through space and time, into the gravitational cauldron of the Solar Gate, which was becoming increasingly engulfed by the out-of-control singularity. A slight shift in reality had taken place, one that KiTamarani could not reverse since she was not one of the creators - perhaps it was a side effect of the trap. The distances between the twenty-one red giants had narrowed, and the plasma currents were causing them to lose more mass to the voracious black hole. The control station had begun to move, yielding to the gravitational pull and drifting toward the event horizon.

Agent: Urgency. Urgency.

"Yes, I know," KiTamarani whispered into space. "The hole will inflate and then become a vortex in which the seed's trail can no longer be followed." A thought brought her back to the capsule, to the star among stars, and there she reunited with her secondary self, restoring a pleasant sense of community, or perhaps the memory of it.

Agent: Possible pursuit. Integrity maintained?

"I am... I," KiTamarani confirmed. But that was not entirely true, as she realized immediately afterward. She had lost something, some of her power, perhaps a tiny part of her primary self.

She touched the components of the capsule and saw the spheres of the twenty-one red giants become ellipses.

Agent: Pursue. Now.

"Yes," KiTamarani said, feeling the same determination she had used to free herself from the trap. Her thoughts carried the capsule through space, into the black hole through which the Omnivore's seed had escaped.

Strange winds

15 APRIL 421 SN, 06:35

Kerberos

The sun seemed to rise directly from the ocean, its red light reflecting off the Reef Sea. The countless islands in the delta of the Acheron looked like patches of green and brown, connected by bridges and walkways. A few wisps of cloud were visible in the sky, and a light, salty breeze blew from the sea.

Brother Eklund stopped at the entrance to the hospital and leaned on his walking stick, which he had been using more and more lately. He took a few minutes to watch the sunrise and enjoy the strange silence that only existed at this time of day, when night gave way to day, when there was a kind of shift change in both the continental forest and in Chiron: In the jungle, nocturnal life retreated to its hiding places to make way for the creatures of the day, and in the city it was much the same, with the one difference that in both cases it was mainly humans. Two worlds met at this junction, darkness and light in the truest sense of the word. Where they met there was a small zone of peace, a no man's land of silence and stillness. And it was only during this time that Chiron was truly beautiful. At night, the city became a vast den of depravity, and during the day it was a hothouse of chaos and noise.

The door to the hospital opened creakily, and Elizabeth, the doctor, stepped out onto the small porch in front of the stairs that led up to the building, which rested on pilings. Currently, the water level was ten feet lower, but when the two moons of Kerberos moved into a certain position, the water level rose quickly, becoming high enough for boats to use the docks next to the porch. A tidal wave would then occur, pushing the waters of the Reef Sea up the Acheron, an impressive spectacle that some life forms in and around the water had made their livelihoods.

"Oh, you're already here," Elisabeth said in surprise, using the "you" common among some subalterns to express a very intimate familiarity. "I came out to get some air, I wasn't expecting you yet."

"I left earlier than usual," Eklund replied, gesturing toward the steep cliffs of the Pillion massif rising behind him. "I could not sleep tonight, so I left the citadel while it was still dark."

He walked up the stairs, slowly putting one step after another behind him, feeling again the dull pain in his back that had plagued him for several months, sometimes more, sometimes less. Elisabeth joined him and gave him a helping hand. "You should take better care of yourself, Eklund," she said worriedly. "Or have a resurrection."

"Resurrections are expensive."

"You could pay for one if you were willing to accept payment for your services for a change."

"Ah, Elizabeth, I place my life and fate in the hands of the World Soul. Let it decide how and when I leave this world."

"But you don't have to endure the back pain. I have something for that." They reached the porch and Elizabeth added, "It's strange that you can't heal yourself."

"Can a knife cut itself?" retorted Eklund.

Elisabeth gave him a skeptical look. "That sounds like a good analogy, but..."

"Some things are just the way they are," Eklund said. "You have to accept it. We can't help ourselves. The Power wants it that way."

"I suppose that is the will of your World Soul as well, huh?" asked Elisabeth. She was a staunch atheist and had once insisted that she had seen too much to believe in a God or anything like that.

"Maybe," Eklund said, smiling secretly. He liked Elisabeth, even though she saw things differently than he did. He liked her dedication as a doctor and as a person, her sometimes gentle, sometimes brash manner. She had probably been on duty for more than fifteen hours, as usual. Her work was her life, a true vocation, and perhaps that was why they got along so well, despite their age difference: Elisabeth was barely forty, Eklund more than fifty years older. They both believed in something, even if Elisabeth kept denying it. They both stood for something, for a little more humanity in a world that seemed to belong only to the strong.

Elisabeth brushed back her dark hair, which already showed a few gray strands. The shadow of fatigue lay across her narrow face, making the first wrinkles appear deeper and longer. The sparkle in her green eyes remained undimmed even after a long night. That was another aspect Eklund liked - her vitality.

"You're exhausted," he said, leaning on his walking stick and feeling relief as the pain in his back eased.

"There's a lot to do, but I'll be done soon. For today." She led him to the door of the prefabricated hospital, which had originally been planned as just a first-aid station when it was built fifteen years ago. But over the years, more and more patients came in, most of them from nearby, ever-growing Bidonville, and so the original emergency station had been expanded again and again. Eventually, someone started calling it "the hospital."

In her small, cluttered on-call office, Elisabeth took a packet of medicine from a drawer and handed it to Eklund. "One pill every two days," she said. "This will help with the back pain. You really should consider treatment. Damaged discs are no joke."

Eklund took the package and slipped it into one of the many pockets of his baggy beige pants. Over them he wore a shirt, also very loose, the same color as the pants, with numerous pockets large and small. He liked to carry around things that were of value only to him: small pictures, colorful glass beads, dried flowers, petals with special patterns, shiny stones, and the like. The shepherd in the citadel sometimes called him "a child in an old man's body. Eklund took this as a compliment, and perhaps it was this inclination that gave him a special understanding of children's thoughts and feelings.

"If there's something wrong with my spinal disc, that's also the will of the World Soul," Eklund said.

Elisabeth shook her head. "That's silly, Eklund, and you know it. If you take such fatalism to its extreme, you would have to accept everything without lifting a finger.

Again Eklund smiled cryptically, perhaps an indication that his words were not entirely serious. "How are things with you?" he asked, changing the subject.

"All the beds are full, as usual," Elisabeth said with something like weary resignation in her voice. "Accidents, fights, drugs. Opal divers staying under too long or coming up too fast. Mud bites - they've become more common in the last few weeks. And apparently the syndrome is spreading again, like it did three years ago. We have four cases, one particularly bad. A girl with acute kidney failure and hepatotoxemia. The mother tried waiting it out, hoping her daughter would get better on her own. Maybe you can help her."

Eklund bowed his head briefly. "I'd be happy to try. That's why I'm here." The "syndrome," as everyone called it, was caused by parasites that lived in the brackish waters of the Delta. Due to a special biological cycle, their numbers increased sharply every three to four years, causing contamination of the drinking water. Those who failed to boil the water or treat it with germicides risked infection, which was fatal in twenty percent of all cases if left untreated.

"There was also a shooting near here last night," Elisabeth continued as she and Eklund left the office. They walked down a dimly lit hallway that led to the central area of the hospital. Nurses and orderlies approached them and greeted them warmly. They had known Brother Eklund for many years. "Probably a drug thing. Two dead. A boy who happened to be nearby was badly injured." She stopped and frowned. "Maybe you should take a look at him. Something about him is... strange."

"Strange?"

"He's recovering surprisingly quickly."

"Isn't that good?"

"I mean... He is recovering too quickly." Elizabeth continued, her features smoothing out again. "Maybe I really am overworked. A doctor who complains that one of her patients is recovering too fast..."

They entered a room about a hundred square feet in size that, despite the disinfectants, smelled of sickness and suffering. Improvised-looking plastic and wood screens had been erected here and there to provide some semblance of privacy. Several antiquated-looking air conditioners hummed from the ceiling. Now, early in the morning, the temperature was still quite comfortable - the windows were open, letting in cool air - but later in the day, despite the old units, it would get oppressively hot in here.

"The young girl's name is Rebecca," Elizabeth said, pointing to one of the windows. "Over there."

They walked past beds. Many patients were still asleep; others were being examined or treated by Elizabeth's colleagues.

In a bed just inside the window, a girl about four years old lay hooked up to several diagnostic machines and an antiquated life-support system. Auburn hair lay spread out like a veil on the pillow, surrounding a sunken, pale face. Eklund had not yet opened the door to Elysium, but he could see how bad the girl's condition was.

"Why did the mother wait so long?" he asked quietly. "If she had brought Rebecca here sooner..."

"Indifference?" retorted Elizabeth. "No money for treatment? There are many possible reasons. She brought her daughter here last night and left immediately. Hopefully she will return. She only gave her daughter's name and no address."

Eklund pulled up a chair, sat down, and looked down at little Rebecca. Her eyes were closed and her breathing was shallow. The diagnostic machines showed critical readings.

"She's not going to make it, is she?" he asked sadly.

"She's very, very ill. Can you help her?"

"I don't know yet." Eklund gently took the girl's hand. "It depends." He closed his eyes, letting all the weight fall from his shoulders, and saw it before him, the door to Elysium: a portal of old wood, weathered and scratched, a heavy, massive door, the kind you'd expect to find on a fortress. But beyond it were not dark walls, but ... Brother Eklund reached out - a hand not of flesh and bone, but of thought and hope - touched the wood and pushed open a wing of the portal. Light shimmered toward him without blinding, and in it he saw contours, the outlines of a long, steep staircase, lined with voids on either side.

"An arduous path for an old man like me," Eklund muttered as he entered the Elysium, the world above the world that presented itself differently to him each time he visited, but always offered him Power, as it did to the other healers of the Enlightened Community. At the very top, near the end of the stairs, under a sky that was not a sky, a figure waited for him, a little girl. Silently, Rebecca looked down and their eyes met. Help me, whispered her big eyes, auburn like her hair.

Eklund climbed the stairs, and this time there was no Elizabeth to support him, to ease his way up. The walking stick, more crooked and slightly shorter than the original, proved to be a useful tool. After only a few minutes, the back pain returned, and Eklund didn't wait for it to become a real obstacle. He paused, took out the medicine packet, opened it, took out a tablet and swallowed it without water. A healer who needed medicine - there was something absurd about that, he had to agree with Elisabeth. He began to move again, swinging his walking stick and climbing up, feeling his ninety-plus years of life as a burden that was getting heavier and heavier. Of course, he knew he was experiencing some kind of metaphor. The effort he was making to get to the top symbolized the effort the healing process - the use of energy - required of him. These things had long since become familiar to him, and he hardly thought about them.

After a few more minutes, he paused to catch his breath and looked up at Rebecca, who was still many steps away from him. "Don't worry, I won't give up, I'm coming to help you." The portal deep below had become a barely perceptible blur, and the non-sky seemed within reach. Eklund focused on the girl as he continued on his way, on her silent, pleading gaze.

Finally, he reached the top of the stairs, weak and exhausted, but also satisfied. An obstacle had been overcome; he had reached his goal at last. He crouched down in front of the girl and noticed that the pain in his back was already subsiding. The girl looked at him pale and serious, still not making a sound. Dirt showed here and there on her white dress, and Eklund knew what it was - he wiped it away, wiping the stains of the syndrome from the fabric of life. How easy, after the long, arduous walk up the stairs.

But Rebecca remained solemn.

"Wait, I think I have something for you." Eklund rummaged through his many pockets, and in one he found a small glass ball that rippled with colors when spun. "Here, this is for you," he said, handing the ball to the girl.

Rebecca took it, spun it, and watched as the colors slid into each other, creating ever new patterns. A smile appeared on her lips...

Eklund sighed softly, opened his eyes, and looked down at Rebecca lying in her bed by the window, her eyes still closed. But she was no longer unconscious - she was just asleep. And the diagnostic machines showed a significantly improved condition: The kidneys were functioning normally, and there was no longer any blood poisoning from the decomposition byproducts of the diseased liver.

"Give her this when she wakes up." Eklund took a small glass ball from his pocket and handed it to Elisabeth. "A gift from me. Maybe... she'll remember it."

"You were in a trance for half an hour," the doctor said. "I was afraid you wouldn't make it."

"It wasn't easy." Eklund felt the same weakness he had felt at the bottom of the stairs in Elysium. "Actually, it's never easy. At least not for me. There are other healers who can absorb and use more of the power. Apparently, my gift is not that great."

"I would be happy to have half of it," Elizabeth said. "I could sure use it here." She placed a hand on his shoulder. "Thank you, Eklund. If there's anything I can do..."

"You mentioned a badly injured boy who is recovering unusually quickly."

Elisabeth grinned. "I will take you to him. But first we'll have breakfast together. You look like you could use a pick-me-up, and I need some flavored coffee."

Eklund looked down at his plate: he had eaten three croissants and two large packets of jelly from the synthesis machines in the hospital kitchen. For some time now, he had developed a large appetite after healings, especially difficult ones, as if he had expended physical energy in the process, even though the healing was a mental process.

They sat at a table in the back of the hospital, under a shady awning; meanwhile, the city had awakened, and its voices - the noise of thousands of vehicles, many of them ground-based, some equipped with levitators - could be heard even here on the outskirts.

Eklund lifted his eyes to see the concern on Elizabeth's face.

"What's troubling you?"

"If I could get my hands on that autocrat... I'd wring his damned neck."

Eklund laughed softly. "And then you'd have a patient and you'd start resuscitation right away."

The doctor smiled wryly, took a sip of the flavoured coffee, lowered the cup and wrapped both hands around it, as if searching for warmth, although there was certainly no shortage of it. "You know how it is with us. Judging by our needs ... We need expansion, more beds, more staff and more modern equipment. Even more so if the syndrome spreads again. Instead, they're going to cut our funding. That's what I learned yesterday. The Urban Symposium has to save money, they say. And the symposium is under the autocrat. There's plenty of money for him." Elizabeth pointed across the delta to the floating artificial island where the autocrat's house stood, a complex of buildings that he thought was a modern version of a medieval castle: a jumble of walls, towers, battlements, gates, minarets, walkways, open galleries, and other things. And this architectural tastelessness featured all the colors of the spectrum in a way that offended the eye at every turn. "Fortunately, even among the autarks, sovereigns, and magnates of Chiron, there are some people who have retained some semblance of morality and occasionally help us with donations. Otherwise, we would have had to close the hospital a long time ago.

"Maybe they have a guilty conscience," Eklund said only half-jokingly, also taking a sip of flavored coffee.

"If it weren't for you healers, this place would look even worse. Did you know that the Urban Symposium made you an official part of the health system? The medical help from the healers in Chiron and the other cities, your dedication... It's all planned." Elisabeth sighed. "How could it come to this? Kerberos has so much potential for development. This could be a good world."

"It is for certain people."

"Not for those people," Elisabeth said, gesturing toward nearby Bidonville. "Isn't it strange? Immigrants still come here, hoping for happiness and wealth. There should be enough warnings to deter them by now."

"Kerberos offers something not easily found elsewhere: beautiful dreams."

"Dreams that destroy the dreamers, some quickly, some slowly. And certain people make a lot of money doing it." Elisabeth looked at the artificial island again. "Why does your World Soul allow it?"

"Maybe it's testing us," Eklund replied, giving an answer that religious leaders have been giving for millennia. He added a smile, indicating that he was well aware of the absurdity of those words. "Why does a stone fall when I pick it up and let it go? Why are the planets round and not square? Why does life come to an end? Not all questions have answers".

"Do I hear something like fatalism again?"

"Perhaps. The fact is that some things have a momentum of their own, and they often evolve in ways we don't like. We observe this development, and we are free to react to it as we see fit. Each of us can do our part to make things better. You are doing a great job, Elisabeth. You have helped many people. Your inner drive is idealism."

The doctor leaned back. "What drives you?"

"Maybe I'm looking for the soul of the world."

"You will have to endure disappointment after disappointment, even if you search for a thousand years."

"I'm afraid I don't have that much time." Again Eklund's cracked lips formed a mysterious smile. "Perhaps I seek a little satisfaction. Maybe I seek light where there seems to be only shadow. Maybe I seek a drop of dew on parched ground. Maybe I seek the end of the rainbow to climb up."

"When will you grow up?" asked Elizabeth, shaking her head.

"I've had more than ninety years to do it," Eklund replied. A little more seriously, he added, "I think I'm looking for the point - if that makes any sense."

"Wordplay."

"You think so? I'm sure you'd see things differently if you were my age. Maybe I'm looking for... the ultimate answer."

"That's what death brings."

"Ah, an interesting comment from a person who doesn't believe in life after death."

"I never said that," the doctor replied. "I just don't believe in an all-powerful Power above us, whatever you call it: God, World Soul, and so on. I believe in the existence of the power that your Enlightened Community uses to heal. And the Elysium you told me about also seems to exist, wherever and however. So I admit that some things for which I have no explanation are part of the reality that surrounds me.

Eklund thought of something. He took out the medicine packet Elisabeth had given him.

"It's open," the doctor noticed. "When did you take a pill?"

"During my time in Elysium. On a long flight of stairs leading up."

Elizabeth drained her cup and set it on the table. A shimmering blue cobalt fly buzzed briefly over it, then fluttered away.

"What does it prove?"

"It proves that you should avoid thinking that anything is impossible," Eklund said. "Now ... take me to the boy."

"We have since learned that his name is Raimon," Elisabeth said as they stopped at the bedside where the young patient lay. "The parents are unknown. Either he ran away at some point, or they abandoned him. It happens every day." She sounded bitter. "About twelve years old. From what we've heard, he made his living as a hustler. Supposedly he didn't have anything to do with drugs."

Brother Eklund looked down at Raimon. The boy was a little thin, but otherwise he seemed normal: dark hair, a little too long, smooth forehead and cheeks, eyes closed. He was fast asleep.

"He seems healthy."

"Yes. And that's amazing, considering we removed a bullet from his chest the night before. The thing was lodged near his heart. He should still be very weak. Look at this."

Elizabeth lifted the thin sheet and the boy's bare chest came into view. Just below the heart, the sun-tanned skin showed only a slight discoloration, nothing else.

"A...self-healer?"

Elisabeth briefly spread her arms. "Medically, it can't be explained. But I always thought you couldn't heal yourself."

"I don't know anyone who can, and at the risk of repeating myself: I am over ninety years old. In my long lifetime, I have known many brothers and sisters, and none of them have been able to use the power on themselves. We can't help each other either. A self-healer would be absolutely unique.

For a few seconds they looked down at the boy in silence. Raimon was fast asleep, breathing calmly and evenly.

"Immediately after his admission, the bio-server showed tissue abnormalities in the first examinations, but in the later analyses the values were normal," the doctor said. "I think it's the equipment. It's hopelessly outdated."

Eklund looked at the sleeping boy and felt something tangential to himself. He sat down, reached out as if cautiously, and touched the boy's hand.

From one moment to the next, he found himself at the door of Elysium, gasping for breath as the portal of old, weathered wood opened without him touching it. This had never happened before.

Uncertain, Eklund stepped through the door and immediately felt a fierce wind. He found himself on a rocky plateau under a dark, cloudy sky that flickered from time to time. Gusts howled and shrieked like trapped demons trying to break free of their chains, and Eklund had to bend down to stay on his feet. The portal behind him remained open, but it showed only a gray void, no view of the world below.

A figure stood at the edge of the plateau, smaller than he and not hunched over, surrounded by a strange light that seemed to come from within.

"Raimon?" called Eklund, trying to drown out the hiss of the storm. Cautiously, he put one foot in front of the other and felt the angry gusts pulling at him, making his shirt and pants flap. Deep below, the stormy gray tides of an ocean surged, whipped up by the wind. High waves broke on the cliffs, and spray rose many feet, almost to the plateau. The figure - the boy - was standing dangerously close to the edge, but the wind didn't seem to bother him. His hair moved a little, but his clothes - a pair of tattered pants and a simple, stained shirt - remained untouched by the wind.

When Eklund got within a few feet of him, the boy turned and stood with his back to the precipice. The wind howled even louder, whipping the waves even higher as if to sweep the boy into the depths. But no matter how high the gusts carried the spray, it never reached the boy.

"Raimon, can you hear me?" asked Eklund. Cautiously, he opened another door, a portal in his mind, and immediately felt the seething power permeating the mental ether. He also felt it fill the boy like no other healing he had known in his long life. Raimon absorbed it like a sponge absorbs water; he literally bathed in it. The strange light that surrounded him... In a way, it was a bright shadow of power.

"Who are you, Raimon?" asked Eklund quietly. The storm ripped the words away, but for some reason he had no doubt that the boy heard him anyway. "What are you?"

The boy's face changed in an elusive way. The lips smiled without moving, and it was a smile that affected only them, not the rest of the face, which showed calm seriousness and something else that Eklund did not quite understand, but that made him think of associations. He thought of people on their deathbeds, distraught at having to say goodbye to life forever. He thought of aging women weeping for their lost beauty, of children who had lost their parents in an accident, of unrequited love and dashed hopes. All this and much more was reflected in the expression that crossed the boy's face.

Raimon's lips began to move as he smiled again, then slowly spread his arms and toppled backwards.....

He tumbled toward the roiling sea whose waves greedily seized him.

Eklund gasped in horror and almost slipped off the chair by the boy's bed. Elizabeth held him with one hand and lifted a hypodermic with the other.

He shook his head and took a deep breath. "It's...okay," he managed with difficulty. "It's all...good."

"Are you sure?" The doctor put the injector down, picked up an old analyzer, and pointed it at Eklund. "You almost collapsed," she said.

"It was a...special experience in Elysium."

While Elisabeth watched the screens of the analyzer and operated the controls, Eklund's eyes slid to Raimon. The boy was no longer asleep and had opened his eyes. They were brown eyes, matching the dark hair, and the face - the same face as the boy on the storm-tossed rock plateau - was completely expressionless, like a mask.

"Can you hear me, Raimon?"

The boy did not answer.

Still holding the boy's hand, Eklund squeezed it briefly, then looked at Elizabeth, who seemed satisfied with the analyzer's readings. "There really doesn't seem to be anything wrong with him," she said.

"Except youthful vigor," Eklund said, smiling briefly. "Elisabeth, I'm sure he's a self-healer. The first ever on Kerberos. I really need to get him to the Citadel."

"The shepherd just closed your orphanage," the doctor replied skeptically. "Did you forget?"

"As if I could forget..."

"He emphasized that the Citadel was only for members of the Enlightened Community."

"I will make him my novice!" exclaimed Eklund. He was enthusiastic about his own idea. "As my personal student, he has the right to stay in the citadel. The shepherd cannot deny him that. I am old enough to be a teacher, no doubt. And you said yourself, his parents are unknown. No one cares about him, and the best you can do is keep him here in the Hospital for a few days at most.

Elizabeth sighed. "The shepherd will be anything but pleased. I'm sure he'll think you want to set up a new orphanage."

"He can't deny me a student. And the shepherd will recognize the boy's special talents. Raimon is not like other children."

Again, Brother Eklund squeezed the boy's hand, and Raimon looked up at him, silent and expressionless.

KiTamarani

NONLINEAR, TIMELESS

The capsule stretched as it jumped through the black hole, at the same time being compressed into a monodimensional filament that reminded KiTamarani of the dungeon she had freed herself from with a thought spike. The primary and secondary selves remained stable, as did the piece of fragmented orb the counselor had left with. The singularity ripped it out of normal space-time and hurled it through a hole in the dimensions into the chaos of nonlinear time. There, the capsule regained its original structure and drifted through the chaos of possibility.

Agent: Trace detected.

KiTamarani felt relief. She had feared that the transfer through the black hole was too late, or that the seed had managed to cloak itself again, perhaps with a stolen reality.

She touched the controls of the capsule and looked out into the cosmic desert that had been part of creation, part of the universe that had given birth to life. But here, the omnivore had torn the fabric of causality and time to grow and become stronger.

Agents: Opportunity. Seed wants to absorb energy.

"Yes," said KiTamarani, sending mental probes into dead space, into the swirl of nonlinear energies.

"It feels safe. It does not believe that anyone could follow it here."

Agent: Potential danger. Non-linear energy is destabilizing the capsule.

KiTamarani felt a slight tremor in the components around her, a vibration that spread to herself. It... felt strange. She could not recall similar sensations in the multiple We/I of the Council; they seemed to be reserved for the individual.

The counselor stretched herself, enveloping the capsule in an extra layer of protection, then gave it a gentle mental nudge, whereupon its momentum increased. She drifted through emptiness, through the structurelessness of the nonlinear, through ruptured space and bursting time. Here, past and future swirled together to form a chaos in which anything was possible, the absurd as well as the grotesque. Here there were no longer any laws inherent in the cosmos; here effects required no causes.

But even here there were still some cosmic strings, remnants of creation that no longer sang the song of life. The capsule flew along one of those strings, following the trail, a vague dissonance. Yes, the seed thought it was safe. It was now in search of a secluded, sheltered breeding ground where it could continue to grow and become a new Omnivore.

KiTamarani wondered if it remembered everything as well as she did. Or had it lost the collective part of its identity in the fragmentation?

Agents: Unknown factor.

Something the agent could not predict? That was strange enough.

"Specification," KiTamarani said tersely.

Agent: Unidentified objects in space.

"Where?"

KiTamarani received a mental image, and with another swipe of the capsule controls, she changed course. At the same time, she called up the mental probes, children of her self - none of them returned with any useful information.

Not far away, a cloud of thousands of smaller and larger fragments floated in space.

KiTamarani felt a new vibration wash over her.

Agent: Destabilization increasing.

The counselor paid no attention to the warning. "What about those objects out there? Why can't you identify them?"

Agent: Recommend following the trail. Alternative: Return to linear time.

Cautiously, KiTamarani stretched out, growing through the outer walls of the capsule and the protective layer she had created, stretching toward the strange cloud.

Horror awaited her.

Her thoughts touched the remains of a Council capsule. The impossible had happened: A part of the Council no longer existed.

Death...

Death of a Council member...

That was why the agent had been unable to identify the objects: For the first time in the existence of the Council, a part of We/I had been destroyed; there was no precedent.

Agent: Urgent. Return. Danger potential increasing.

KiTamarani felt it. The vibrations grew more violent, fraying the periphery of her being. They came from the non-linear energy that...

Something caused her thoughts to freeze.

Wrong! Wrong!" her primary self howled and began a rapid contraction towards the capsule. A second trap, with the remains of a Council fragment as bait! Back, back! Get out of here!

The Seed was much smarter and more cunning than she had thought. And much, much more dangerous.

KiTamarani had just squeezed back into the capsule when the vibrations from the supposed non-linear energy turned into a tremendous pull that made the capsule's components groan in pain. The seed leaped from the shadow of a dead cosmic string, surged toward the capsule with the blackness of the Omnivore, and swept it away.

Dormant Plans

15 APRIL 421 SN, 08:55

Kerberos

Edwald Emmerson turned on the levitator's auto pilot, sat back, and went over the recent events in the NHD lab that he needed to report to the autocrat. He was not a creator and had limited knowledge of the scientific and technological instruments that created new life from base matter. But he was aware of the planned characteristics of the metamorph, and since the beginning of Project Double-M he had taken special precautions and recommended additional ones. His professional specialty was evaluating situations, assessing dangers, and anticipating things that might cause problems. He feared that the escaped metamorph could become a significant problem. Much depended on what data the programming module contained.

Emmerson looked out the window of the levitator car. Somewhere down there in the city was the creature, in the steel-ceramic jumble of skyscrapers, office centers, manufacturing complexes, elegant mansions, grimy shantytowns, streets, alleys, bridges, and sidewalks. From the banks of Acheron, Chiron had spread to the countless islands, large and small, of the Delta; wealth and poverty, prosperity and squalor, happiness and despair, lived side by side. Somewhere in this chaos, an artificial creature was growing. How would it behave? Emmerson had asked himself this question over and over again in the past few hours.

Ahead, beyond the vast docks of Chiron, the artificial island of the autocrat became visible. Emmerson was alone in the levitator car, so he could afford to make a face when he thought of Stokkart. The continental forest contained more than a thousand different species of plants from which narcotics of varying potency could be extracted, and Constantine Alexander Stokkart, nominal head of Kerberos, owed wealth and power - real and apparent - to his dealings with them. Had it been up to the autocrat, Kerberos would have long since become the central player in the interstellar drug market, not only in the Consortium, but in the Alliance and elsewhere. But drug addicts were only good customers for drug dealers; they cared little for anything else. That's why NHD and the other groups in the Consortium saw too much drug use as a threat to their economic interests: they needed good markets, solvent customers, and reliable workers. People who destroyed themselves with drugs in a short time did not fit into their plans.

But people like Stokkart, as long as they could be controlled and manipulated, were useful tools. The autocrat symbolized organized crime elevated to the status of legality; in this way, the Consortium, and especially New Human Design, the most important corporate branch in the Hades system, managed to maintain a stable political-economic balance on Kerberos. The autocrat had a certain amount of leeway in which he could act freely, and in return he guaranteed that the drug trade was kept within limits and did not lead to conflicts with other worlds.

The NHD used him as an instrument of control, and that upset Edwald Emmerson, who thought in terms of a policeman, of protector. In addition, there was a very personal animosity that did not make encounters with the autocrat easy for him. But he knew how to control himself and not let it show; it was part of his job.

Emmerson looked at the autocrat's artificial island and wondered how many transtel it had cost. Stokkart and his clan not only made a lot of money from the - tolerated - drug trade, they also claimed a large portion of Kerberos' budgeted funds for their own purposes.

The levitator car's sensors registered a long-range security shield surrounding the island, and the data server automatically transmitted the prearranged authorization sequence. The target acquisition lock of the concealed weapons systems followed the levitator car as it continued its flight, still controlled by the autopilot. Edwald Emmerson looked down at the intricately landscaped grounds that surrounded the castle - the most monstrous castle that had ever existed. They conveyed the deliberate impression of a fairytale landscape full of magic and enchantment, presenting the viewer with scenes from legends and myths. At the edge of a lake filled with large golden fish, a plastic giant stood as if trying to catch them with his bare hands. Behind him, on a hill, pseudo-real dwarfs, each dressed in a different color, danced in a colorful circle. Witches flew on brooms, while fairies and elves walked across the meadows.

"Ridiculous," Emmerson muttered, calling on his discipline and striving for a neutral expression, which he often also used with Rubens Lorgard. Duty called; what he thought of all this was his private business.

A wide moat surrounded the castle, filled with water pumped up from the Reef Sea, and not for the first time Emmerson wondered what creatures swam in it. The autocrat had certainly not refrained from giving free rein to his crazy imagination.

One of the castle's many towers was shaped like a dragon's head, and its mouth opened as the levitator car approached. Edwald Emmerson leaned over and deactivated the auto pilot, knowing from experience that the probing signals from the many spy servers currently active could cause navigational errors. Using the manual controls, he steered the levitator car through the dragon's mouth into a small hangar where there seemed to be no straight surfaces or lines. Everything was crooked and curved, and garish colors hurt his eyes.

Two guards approached him as he got out. They wore what looked like overblown fantasy costumes, in which they looked like silly harlequins: one pant leg was white, the other red, here colorful dots and squiggles, there interlocking geometric shapes.

"We have been instructed to take you to His Serene Highness," said one of the two guards.

"Let's go," Emmerson replied simply.

The second guard pointed a mobile scanner at him and looked at the device's readings. Emmerson was familiar with these scans from his previous visits and had refrained from bringing any weapons or electronic devices. Nor were they necessary.

They began with the usual long walk through corridors, staterooms and halls, past the things the autocrat's "artistic genius" had created: sculptures that depicted nothing recognizable and lacked any deeper meaning; paintings of people with multiple eyes and noses and invariably an evil face grinning at the sky; other paintings that merely consisted of splashes of color. There was background music everywhere, composed by Stokkart, in which Emmerson had never been able to detect anything remotely resembling a melody. In some alcoves and recesses, the recorded voice of the autocrat whispered from loudspeakers, endlessly quoting from literary works. Emmerson tried not to be disturbed by all these things, not to notice them at all. Instead, he thought again about the incident at the lab, the ongoing investigation, and what the metamorph might do to the city.

Occasionally they encountered other people, many of them beautiful women with whom Stokkart liked to surround himself, but also sinister-looking figures one would not have expected in this place, but rather in certain parts of the city. They were supposed to be secretaries and assistants, but Emmerson knew better.

"Please wait here," one of the two guards said as they reached a wide double door, lined with purple curtains interwoven with gold thread, apparently meant to create a majestic atmosphere. To Emmerson they merely looked tacky, as did the Dionysian carvings in the solid precious wood. He took a seat in one of the chairs that lined the walls, which looked like antiques but were made of synthomass. One of the two guards stepped through the door and closed it behind him. The other took up a position next to the door, completely motionless.

After barely a minute, the first guard returned. "I am sorry, but His Serene Highness cannot see you at this time," he said.

"I have an appointment with him. It is a matter of great importance."

"No doubt. But His Serene Highness is in a very creative phase right now and wants to be able to release his artistic potential unhindered."

"I understand," Emmerson said calmly, and he really did understand. He was as familiar with this delay tactic, designed to highlight status differences, as he was with all the tackiness outside and inside the castle. "Very well. I'll wait."

The guard tilted his head, waved to his colleague, and left with him. Emmerson leaned back, fixed his eyes on a particular spot on the opposite wall, paid no attention to anything else, and let his thoughts drift. Silence descended upon him, a silence that was perhaps meant to be oppressive and disturbing. Even the soft background music stopped playing. There was no one around, but Emmerson was sure that they were watching him very closely, probably with the help of microscopic visual sensors in the ceiling and walls. Perhaps even the autocrat himself was watching, looking for any sign of nervousness or growing impatience. Emmerson was wasting time he would have preferred to spend on other things, but outwardly he didn't show it, and inwardly he kept himself busy with things that could be done mentally: the incident in the lab, the fire, the contact with the programming module, and the escape of the metamorph. He expected a preliminary report soon, and was determined to continue the investigation, at least until the arrival of the specialist sent to Kerberos by the NHD Global Director - Lorgard's order to speak to the autocrat had included a tip-off.

The door opened and a voice spoke. "His Serene Highness is ready to see you now."

Emmerson stood up as if only two or three minutes had passed, even though he had waited more than an hour. The man across from him was at least twenty inches taller than he was, wore plain civilian clothes, and looked at him out of eyes that were almost entirely black with barely a hint of white, evidence that he was taking Perfid, one of the many drugs on Kerberos, and a very expensive one at that. It sharpened perception, gave him an almost painful intensity, and was said to provide vague telepathic abilities. Emmerson tried to keep his thoughts under control as he followed the "assistant" down a wide hallway with large oval windows. They overlooked Chiron on one side and the castle courtyard on the other. Armor stood against columns supporting a vaulted ceiling decorated with frescoes, like the empty shells of archaic warriors. The man stopped at another, smaller door. "He's expecting you," he said curtly, turning and walking away in the direction they had come.

Emmerson opened the door, stepped through, and walked up a short flight of stairs that led to the platform of a tower. Battlements lined it, and there were even some - presumably pseudo-real - cannons on the battlements. But it was not these that caught Emmerson's eye, but the structure at the center of the platform, something made of soft, partially moist, shiny mass that looked like a pile of a giant's excrement. The autocrat was standing on a small levitator disk, buzzing around the mass with it, up and down, adding here, subtracting there, kneading and smoothing in other places.

"Well, what do you think?" exclaimed Konstantin Alexander Stokkart enthusiastically, floating to the top of the structure. There he dug his fist into the soft mass, then slid back a few feet and looked at his work. "I couldn't possibly interrupt the work, you see. When the voice of art calls me, I must obey."

Emmerson stepped closer and detected a strange odor, like a mixture of salt, sea, and rotting fish. Apparently the pile was made of seaweed. He wrinkled his nose involuntarily as he imagined what the stuff would smell like in a few days - no wonder the autocrat had created this "work of art" on top of a tower, out in the open, rather than in an enclosed space.

"It's... impressive," he said.

The autocrat looked at his work from all sides. His shoulder-length white hair blew in the wind, as did the light, open shirt jacket. His bare arms were green-brown to the elbows, as was the nearly seventeen-foot pile.

Emmerson stepped aside to let the wind blow the smell away from him.

Stokkart landed, deactivated the levitator disk and spread his arms. Again, the wind caught his hair and shirt. Despite the white hair, the autocrat was still comparatively young, in his mid-forties, and in this case appearance was reality, for Stokkart had not yet undergone a resurrection, as far as Emmerson knew.

"What does it represent?" he asked out of politeness.

The autocrat gave him an astonished look. "Isn't it obvious? This sculpture, with its subtle forms and the interplay of inner structure and outer texture, expresses the complexity of the universe. That's why I couldn't see you at the appointed time; I had to finish this work of art."

"I fear it will not last nearly as long as the universe it embodies.

"This is exactly why I chose seaweed as the material of representation. It symbolizes the entropy in the reality that surrounds us, the decay of all being."

In the autocrat's emaciated face, Emmerson saw the obsession of a man who actually thought he was an artist, not realizing that he surrounded himself with the absurd, with things without substance or meaning. Stokkart's blue eyes, on the other hand, showed something else, the alert intelligence of a man who had not accidentally become the nominal leader of a planet and who knew how to do good business, both legal and illegal. Two souls in one body, Emmerson thought as he looked at Stokkart. Maybe a real case of multiple personalities? That would explain a lot.

The autocrat gestured to a table in front of the battlements, right next to one of the cannons that pointed out to the Reef Sea and seemed to be waiting for attackers. "Let's take a seat."

He held his arms under the mouth of a marble dragon, which obediently spat out water, and washed his hands before walking over to the table and sitting down. A pitcher contained iced fruit juice, and he filled two glasses with it.

The table was in the sun, and Emmerson found the heat of the sun uncomfortable after only a few seconds. He didn't touch the glass for safety's sake; after all, he didn't know if the liquid contained anything other than fruit juice.

"Always cautious, my dear Emmerson?" The autocrat took a sip and leaned back, glass in hand. "Well?"

"Last night there was an incident in one of our laboratories. A fire broke out and that allowed a cell mass to escape."

"A cell mass?" Stokkart drank again.

"A prototype," Emmerson said, without giving details. "The planetary director has asked me to warn you of a biological contamination. He has no doubt that you will take all necessary measures."

"And what does he think those 'necessary measures' are?"

Emmerson pulled out a data module and placed it on the table. "His ... suggestions are stored in there. Heightened alert for law enforcement in the city. The deployment of biological probes." Of little use in this particular case, he thought. "Incident monitoring and situational analysis. Watch for unusual occurrences."

The two men looked at the data module and knew it contained not suggestions but instructions. But the balance of power on Kerberos required some diplomacy.

"The war is pretty much over, I hear," the autocrat said thoughtfully, looking into the half-empty glass. "The Alliance has prevailed almost everywhere. Global Director Turannen is working with Enbert Dokkar and Valdorian's son."

"That's right."

"I suppose changes are coming soon," Stokkart said cautiously.

"They affect the political framework of the Consortium and the Alliance, but not Kerberos. Nothing changes here, Your Serene Highness." Emmerson emphasized the last two words without making them sound too ironic.

"There are good outside markets for certain Kerberos products," the autocrat said. "Now on Alliance planets as well. Increased exports would free up more funds for Kerberos development."

Emmerson didn't react this time either. "I will share your concerns with Lorgard, and then it will be up to him to discuss them with the Global Director. He would undoubtedly be grateful if you would respond to his requests." He gestured to the data module.

"Of course." From one moment to the next, the autocrat smiled radiantly. "I'm always happy to do him a favor. And thank you for bringing the biological contamination to my attention. I appreciate being informed about such things." He stood up jerkily and rubbed his hands together. "And now... I feel that my artwork is not quite complete. Perhaps I should add some black holes and quasars? Or how about dark matter?"

He walked over to the levitator disk and activated it. "You can watch me if you like."

Emmerson got up and went to the door. "Other matters require my attention, Your Serene Highness. Goodbye."

As he walked back through the castle, he thought about the encounter. Two souls in one body... That of the artist, who knew nothing about art, and that of an ice-cold businessman, who cared as little about law and morality as he did about those whose lives he ruined. Emmerson didn't know which of the two he despised more. His emotional reaction reminded him of a conflict of conscience that sometimes caused him periods of considerable inner turmoil. He was not naive. He didn't wear blinders that prevented him from seeing what went on behind the scenes in large corporations like NHD. He also knew the depths of interstellar economics and politics - where law and morality hardly played a role. Project Double-M was a case in point. Emmerson knew he couldn't change the big things, immoral and wrong as they might seem to him, but in his current position as NHD's head of security for Kerberos, he had influence over things on a planetary scale. And he intended to use that influence when he had the chance.

As he left the small hangar in his levitator car and flew back to the city, the communications server buzzed. Elroy Tobias, one of his investigators, was checking in.

"There's news, Chief."

"I'm listening," Emmerson said.

"The fire in the lab, Chief... it wasn't an accident. There was intent behind it."

"Well, that's interesting."

As the door closed behind Edwald Emmerson, the autocrat let the levitator disk land, deactivated it and walked to the sink with the dragon's head over it. He cleaned his hands and arms again, then turned and waited. When he saw the levitator car returning the NHD security chief to Chiron, his face changed. A mask seemed to fall away, revealing another Constantine Alexander Stokkart underneath. He had the same blue eyes as the autocrat Emmerson thought he knew, but this face lacked the mania. The best disguise, he knew, was to be thought insane by others and to make them feel superior in some way. Edwald Emmerson was a smart man, observant and intelligent, and he was a potential danger, no doubt a greater potential danger than Rubens Lorgard, who was primarily concerned with his designs. But even he, the head of security, could be fooled. Stokkart smiled with satisfaction.

The door opened and Raphael stepped onto the tower platform, the man who had led Emmerson here.

"He's gone."

Stokkart nodded. "I saw the levitator car. Did you notice anything?"

"No," replied the autocrat's right-hand man. "He has his mind well under control."

"I think we've accomplished what we wanted. Is everything ready downstairs?"

"Yes. The submarine is waiting."

"Excellent." Stokkart walked past Raphael to the door, pausing again and pointing to his latest "work of art". He sighed. "Have that stuff taken away, Raphael. It stinks."

"I'll take care of it."

"Oh, and one more thing." Stokkart raised his hand again and pointed to the data module Edwald Emmerson had placed on the table. "Take a look at that stuff and prepare the appropriate decrees. I don't want to disappoint Lorgard and his security chief."

The autocrat took the stairs behind him, walked a few feet down the adjacent corridor, and stopped at a spot on the wall that seemed no different from the others. He made sure no one was around, then grinned and said, "Sesame, open." Micro servers checked his retinal pattern, and a portion of the wall, barely three feet wide and six feet high, swung inward. Without hesitating, Stokkart stepped through the opening, and the secret door closed behind him with a soft crunch.

For a few seconds there was complete darkness. The autocrat waited patiently, knowing that more servers were scanning him and verifying his identity. If the sensors had detected the presence of an unauthorized person, the hidden weapons systems would have been activated immediately. The secret had to stay what it was: a secret. Until no one could take it away from him.

Orientation lights glowed on the smooth stone walls of a shaft, creating dull reflections on the steps of the metal staircase that led down to the castle's "dungeon," which stretched across the lower part of the artificial island. After a few minutes, Stokkart reached it: carefully designed rooms that looked like an ancient underground vault, equipped with historical instruments of torture. He sometimes threw parties in this wing of the castle, especially to impress the greats of Kerberos and Chiron, and to cement his reputation as a half-mad eccentric. Lorgard had been here once; he had politely declined all further invitations, citing other commitments.

He passed through a second hidden door, known only to Raphael and a few other confidants, and the surroundings abruptly changed. The gloomy medieval ambiance gave way to bright rooms dominated by technology. Data servers hummed quietly, receiving information from sensors located above and below the waters of the Reef Sea. Screens and three-dimensional displays showed various scenes: the city of Chiron, industrial facilities, the continental forest, various New Human Design offices, the top floor apartment of Rubens Lorgard, other locations on Kerberos, and most importantly, the ocean floor. Lights glowed in the darkness ten thousand feet deep, like the eyes of sea monsters.

A technician approached the autocrat, a man who, like Raphael and several others, deserved unconditional trust. "The pod is ready," he said. "I've checked all the systems."

Stokkart gave him a curt nod, stepped through a small airlock, and reached a room with an opening in the floor about thirteen feet in diameter. Seawater lapped at the edges. Above it, suspended from a thick mooring cable, was a specially armored, windowless submersible. A moving staircase led up to it, and the hatch was open.

The autocrat walked to a nearby alcove, where he removed his light clothing, slipped into a black thermal suit, and donned an instrument belt - you just never knew.

Then he climbed the stairs, entered the submersible and took the only seat. He pressed the controls and an automatic safety harness closed around him and the hatch slammed shut. Indicators lit up on the console in front of him, and several displays showed the status of the submersible's systems. Despite the technician's assurances, Stokkart started a diagnostic program, making sure he had full operational potential - he didn't want to take any chances. He activated the main display and the wall in front of the console seemed to turn into a window several square feet in size. The data server processed the sensor data into a three-dimensional display that looked very real and, if desired, provided more information about the surroundings than an ordinary window. Motors whirred and the cable began to move, slowly lowering the sub into the water. When it was fully submerged, Stokkart unclipped the cable, closed his hands around the horseshoe-shaped steering wheel, and lowered the sub even deeper until it left the artificial island's access shaft. Then he turned the wheel and accelerated. At a speed of about twenty knots, the submersible glided through the sea, which was still bright at this shallow depth, accompanied by a few curious Kerberos fish that emerged from the nearby reef to watch the visitor.

After about ten minutes, Stokkart reached the end of the central reef area. Beyond it, the continental shelf dropped steeply to a depth of about two miles. Pitch-black darkness blocked the view of the distant ocean floor, but the autocrat knew what awaited him below, something worth more than all the drugs and opals on the planet.

He steered the submersible into the depths.

In the Void

"He's dead," Pergamon said. "We tried everything, but we couldn't help him."

This was the most sacred place in the honeycomb city of Aeon, Agorax knew, the center of all concepts of the Eterne, as the Temporals called themselves. This was a place of meaning. A round room with walls as gray as the void at the edge of the Null. And in the center of this room floated a black, shriveled mass that strangely bore some resemblance to the asymmetrical Kantaki ships. Eterne lights orbited it, like small suns around a deformed planet that had grown far too large.

"We never reached it, did we?" asked the suggestor Agorax.

"No. The luminaries follow the course of an event horizon, beyond which is a temporal singularity. We suspect that this seed has been found by several Council members." The Secular made a vague gesture that caused his silver scales to crackle. "They trapped it in the temporal singularity, and it perished there. We've tried again and again to find ways to get to him so we can free him, but our efforts have been unsuccessful."

"But we can see him."

"What a mockery to be able to see him but not be able to reach him." Pergamon reached out and his tentacled fingers pointed to the dark mass. "A fragment of the Omnivore, or the Abissale, as the Kantaki call him... His death indicates that we have made mistakes, mistakes that must not be repeated. The seculars are not immune to error, Agorax. Never be tempted to assume they are. Relative immortality does not imply infallibility."

Agorax listened in silence, giving no indication of what he was thinking or feeling. His own duties were clearly outlined, which did not make them any less important. But the seculars of the Circle of Seven had a far greater responsibility.

Pergamum - his neck was particularly thin and gnarled, and the silver scales that covered the rest of his body had lost some of their former luster - looked once more at the dead seed and then turned toward the exit of the room. Agorax followed him without being told, and the long walk back through Aeon began.

The Honeycomb City, like the Eterne' time fleet and the renegade Kantaki ships, had been trapped in the void since the end of the Lost Time War, but it still stretched across several time streams. Agorax sensed the transitions quite clearly, through a change in the probability patterns of future events. Eterne approached them, young and old - only seven of them, the Seculars, enjoyed relative immortality - and they all greeted them with respect. Pergamum had entrusted Agorax with a special task that elevated his status.

"Why did you take me to the dead seed?" the suggestor finally asked. "I suspect there is a good reason. After all, this is not the first time I've been in that room."

They passed semi-transparent cubicles in which dozens of Eternes were sleeping. As they renewed their strength, they dreamed of returning to the future. In other, larger cubicles, they conceived and built. Technical specialists planned the expansion of Aeon and built the devices the Eterne needed to hold their own in the Void. This was a dungeon, and its prisoners tried to do as well as they could within it, while the observers sought paths to freedom in the observation tunnels at the edge of the Void.

"Immortality does not equal infallibility," Pergamon finally repeated. He seemed to have considered his words carefully. "The dead seed is proof of our mistakes, the last war we lost - and the others before it - are further proof. Being secular does not necessarily mean knowing the answers to all questions. We have the opportunity to gain more knowledge, that is all."

He paused as a group rushed past them; then the corridor stretched empty before them. Pergamon stopped and looked at Agorax.

"There have been voices raised demanding that we leave with the time ships, regardless of the shield and the temporal vortices the Kantaki time engineers have created as traps out there," the secular said gravely. "Such demands have been made even in the Circle."

"Going into the future without a stable passageway would be madness," Agorax replied, alarmed. "We would have to reckon with enormous losses. Perhaps not even a single time ship would reach the temporal operating area."

"They say a way has been found. A crack in the shield that could be widened..."

"Such a thing might be possible," Agorax admitted, but his concern was growing. "But we certainly could not get past the temporal vortexes. They would react immediately to the mass of our fleet." Something suddenly occurred to him. "Gergurrak."

"Yes," Pergamon said. "A gifted observer."

"And hopelessly optimistic," Agorax pointed out. Suggestor and secular interrupted their conversation again as an Eterne passed them. A premother - Agorax noticed the brood pods on her back. "And very ambitious," he added when the mother-to-be was out of earshot. He lowered his voice as if he feared eavesdroppers. "Always looking for ways to increase his status, sometimes at the expense of others."

"I know. I've been watching him for quite some time. As have you." A strange gleam flashed through Pergamon's eyes. "You are like my son, who died on the planet called Kabaea, in the implosion of the gate there..."

Agorax listened. Those words explained a lot. Pergamum had always treated him with special favor.

"Gergurrak belongs to the Mintor Circle," said the secular.

Agorax waited.

"Hogaron is also from the Mintor Circle," Pergamon continued. "And Hogaron, as a secular, belongs to the Circle of Seven. He has spoken in favor of the Time Fleet's departure, referring to the safe path Gergurrak has supposedly found."

"I have seen the patterns. I know the shield and its cracks; I have sent my thoughts through it often enough. I know where the temporal vortices are, and I know their structure. There is no safe way."

Pergamon made an affirmative gesture, started to move again and walked with slow steps. Agorax stayed at his side.

"The departure of the time ships under the present conditions is bound to lead to disaster," Agorax said as Pergamon's silence continued.

"I share that view," the secular said. "But I fear that Hogaron is gaining influence. His words and Gergurrak's claims are like seeds sprouting in the fertile soil of hope. We all want to leave the Void, and there are many who are willing to believe that there is a safe way. They close their eyes to the danger. Eyelid membranes slid over Pergamon's black eyes, punctuating his words.

Ahead of them, the corridor widened into a landing area where transfer vehicles stood ready: Spirals of interwoven thin rods, an opening on one side to slip inside. The transfer vehicles drew their power from time: a special device converted temporal energy into kinetic energy. There was plenty of time, even in the Void.

"There's only one solution to this problem," Pergamon said after making sure they were alone in the landing bay. The main shaft through the honeycomb city of Aeon loomed close overhead, filled with the hum of traffic. "It must be proven that the supposedly safe way is not safe."

Agorax looked at the secular in confusion. "How is such proof to be provided? Are you going to sacrifice a time ship and its crew to..."

"Perhaps there is another way," Pergamon interrupted the suggestor. "I'll take care of it. Now, to answer your question about why I brought you to the dead seed ..." He looked at Agorax, and his gaze took on a new intensity that gave this particular moment special meaning. "Go ahead with your project, Agorax. Take advantage of all the opportunities that come your way. Try to achieve success as soon as possible."

"You mean the human Valdorian?"

"Yes. I may be able to prevent Hogaron from gaining ground in the Circle of Seven, but sooner or later someone else will claim to have found a safe way, and then hope will blind many to the danger once again. Until then, the temporal vortex and the shield must be neutralized. From the outside."

Agorax understood. "The seed. But if I try to achieve success as soon as possible..."

"The Kantaki Timekeepers on Munghar might notice, I realize. It's a risk we have to take. We are facing a serious crisis, Agorax. Eventually, someone will succeed in convincing the remnants of our people to leave. If a tunnel to the Void has not been created from the outside by then, the Time Fleet will perish."

"I understand," Agorax said. "I will do my best."

"I have no doubt you will. And I know you will do a good job." Pergamon raised his right hand and pulled a signet ring from one of his tentacle fingers. "Here, take this. I think this is the right time." And more quietly, "There may not be another."

Agorax stared at the ring, confused. "But this means..."

"It means I accept you into my coven. From now on you are a member of the Kontar Circle."

Agorax was speechless. "It ... it is a great honor for me," he finally managed to say.

Pergamon stepped into a transporter that instantly started humming. "Your project is a top priority. Access all the resources you need. Contact me if you encounter any difficulties." The vortex rose, tilted to one side, tipped into the main shaft, and whirled away.

Agorax eyed the signet ring, slipped it proudly onto a tentacle finger, then slipped into a transporter as well. A lot of work awaited him.

Point of View

15 APRIL 421 SN, 10:35

Kerberos

"Look at all these people," Brother Eklund said. "They rush back and forth, with no time for each other, always driven by the need to hurry. And though there are so many here, and so close together, many are still lonely. Isn't that strange, Raimon?"

They were near the harbor, at the edge of a square where the daily fish market was ending. The fishing boats had brought in their catch several hours ago, while it was still dark, and the customers from the canteens, restaurants, and taverns had stocked up on their daily supply of fish and seafood. They hauled their purchases away in small levitator carts, ground-based wagons, and even handcarts. The main customers were leaving, but many more remained, interested only in buying a specialty or two, enough for a meal or two.

Eklund looked down at the boy, who was still silent but intently watching the action in the square. Behind them, traffic rolled, floated, and hummed down a wide lane.

"You don't feel like talking, do you?" asked Eklund kindly. "Well, never mind. Then I'll do the talking for both of us." He put his hand on Raimon's shoulder and the boy looked up at him in silence. The wind from the sea ruffled his dark hair, and in the brown eyes Eklund saw something he didn't know how to interpret. Have you had a shock, he thought. Is that why you don't speak? "Are you hungry? Would you like something to eat before we continue to the citadel?" He gestured toward the Pillion Mountains to the east and south of the city; the steep, high cliffs were hard to miss. "It's a long way, and you've been through a lot. Come."

They walked along the edge of the marketplace, past the many stalls and booths where the smell of fish was strong. Eklund liked it, even though other people found it unpleasant. "To think what this city has become... I came here as a young boy, almost ninety years ago, and back then Kerberos was a world of hope for many. Some saw it as a sort of shortcut to happiness. And Chiron... Oh, Chiron was a small town then. And today? Look around you. It has become a metropolis, like a child becoming an adult. But in this case it is a chronically ill adult with boils and flatulence.

Again he looked down at the boy and smiled to show that his last words were not entirely serious. But Raimon just looked around and his face remained completely impassive. Eklund felt plagued by doubt. Should he have left the boy with Elisabeth for two or three days? He had undoubtedly suffered a severe trauma the night before, and perhaps he needed medical-psychological care. On the other hand, the amazingly fast recovery from the almost fatal gunshot wound could only lead to the conclusion that he was a self-healer, and that the power would not only heal the body, but also the mind.

On the other side of the square, along the wide path that led to the various sections of the harbor, were several large barbecue stands offering freshly prepared fish and other specialties to passersby. Rosalinda's stall was in the usual spot, and Eklund headed straight for it.

"Rosalinda is an old acquaintance of mine," he explained to the silent boy. "I've helped her out several times, and her two children too. They're about your age, you know. A few years ago they suffered from the syndrome and I cured them. She is still grateful to me." He waved to the woman at the grill. "Hi, Linda!"

"Oh, Eklund!" the woman exclaimed. She was about forty, and a hard life had left its mark on her face. But her smile seemed to belong to a girl, so innocent and carefree was it. "I haven't seen you for several weeks."

"Chiron is big," Eklund said. "And I don't leave the Citadel every day."

Rosalinda wrapped several delicately baked thorn fish for a customer, then turned to Eklund and wiped her hand on her apron before holding it out to him.

"And this is...?" She looked at the boy.

"Raimon. He doesn't talk much."

"And I suppose he's... hungry?"

Eklund watched the boy closely and saw the dim light in his eyes change a little. For a split second, he thought he saw something predatory, like the flash in the pupils of a spring devil in the continental forest just before it pounces on a victim. But the strange light disappeared so quickly that Eklund was not sure he had actually seen it.

Rosalinda sliced open an oval syntho roll, placing first a slice of seasoned lettuce, then a grilled reef shrimp. "Here, you'll like this."

Raimon took the roll, looked at it, not seeming to know what to do with it.

"Go ahead, eat." Eklund pointed to his mouth.

Raimon reluctantly followed the request, bit into the roll and chewed, first tentatively, like someone who didn't know exactly how to use his teeth, then with more appetite.

"You bet he likes it," Eklund said with satisfaction, looking at the woman at the grill. "Linda..."

"You don't have to pay for it, of course. That would make it even nicer. You've helped me often enough." She reached for another roll. "If you'd like one too..."

"I had breakfast with Elisabeth at the hospital." He stepped closer and took Rosalinda's left hand. "How are your migraines?"

"Oh, the headaches aren't nearly as bad as they used to be. Thank you for that."

"But you still suffer from them, don't you? Sometimes they're stronger, sometimes they're weaker, aren't they?" Eklund sighed. "There are better healers than me. And besides, I've grown old, there's no denying that. But maybe..."

His fingers squeezed gently and he closed his eyes, reaching for the strength he knew was always within reach. Some healers seemed to have especially big hands because they could draw a lot of power. In his case, some of it passed through his fingers like fine sand before he could use it. This time he did not need contact with Elysium, for something as small as the banishment of superficial pain, the power that permeated everything on Kerberos, was enough. The removal of root causes, true healing... such things required the power of the world above the world. But after helping Rebecca and meeting Raimon in Elysium, the gift in him took some time to regenerate. Members of the Enlightened Community could burn out from using this power too much if they were not careful.

Eklund saw a dark spot on Rosalinda's head, raised his mental hand and wiped it away. Even this small gesture made him feel tired again, indicating that he had done enough for the day. As he lowered his hand and started to raise his eyelids, he noticed a light nearby. He turned his head and with his mind's eye he saw Raimon, surrounded by a yellow-white glow. The power flowed into him, the power of Elysium, he sucked it up like a black hole, and radiation was released on his own personal event horizon, in the form of a flaming beacon that seemed to grow brighter and brighter. Eklund saw a strange division of what had been a mask-like, neutral face: one half grotesquely disfigured, the other calm and gentle.

"Eklund?"

He opened his eyes and saw Raimon licking his fingers, looking quite normal. No glow surrounded him, and his face showed the same emptiness as before, still waiting to be filled with emotion.

"Something wrong, Eklund?"

"I think I'm just a little tired," he said, even though he knew better. Excitement quivered within him. The boy was enormously talented; there could be no doubt about that.

Rosalinda rubbed her temples and smiled happily. "It's gone. The headache is completely gone. Thank you, Eklund. I am once again in your debt. If you need anything..."

"If I'm hungry, I know where to find something tasty. Take care, Linda. Come on, Raimon, let's get moving."

Eklund waved again, then walked along the side of the road with the boy, leaning on his walking stick more than usual. He made sure to stay in the shade of the large fern palms that stood like a long line of sentinels in front of the shops, casinos, and dream palaces. Where the sea breeze did not reach the street, it was already quite warm, and the temperature would rise rapidly in the next few hours. Maybe that was one of the reasons why the city's inhabitants were in such a hurry. Maybe they all wanted to get their business done before it got so hot in the early afternoon that Chiron had to take a siesta for two or three hours. Ground carts hummed, honked, rattled, and rang. Bicycles and mini-levitators formed a seemingly inseparable jumble at times. Levitator cars glided by, some accompanied by loud music, others almost silent; they looked like overgrown exotic insects. Dozens of handcarts moved through the crowds on the wide sidewalks.

"Look at the crowd, the restlessness and frustration, the fleeting glances," Eklund said. "And in the evening, when the sun goes down and it gets a little cooler, it's much worse. Tell me, Raimon, why are these people in such a hurry, and what is so attractive about living in a big city under such conditions?"

The boy remained silent. They walked hand in hand, and his expression remained masked as he turned his head from side to side, taking in everything.

"You still don't want to speak?" continued Eklund, and he was torn: One half of him directed words at Raimon, and the other half thought about him, full of excitement and hope. "It's all right, it doesn't matter. Well, I have to admit that I am sometimes drawn here - I visit Elisabeth and earn money or one or the other favor by healing - but afterward I am glad to be able to return to the citadel. I couldn't stay here for long. Oh, the citadel..." He paused and gestured toward the high rock walls of the Pillion Mountains. The cave entrances looked like dark stains against them, the cables, ropes, ladders, and stairs like a delicate web. "You'll like it here, and I'm sure the shepherd won't mind you staying with me. Yes, granted, he sent the other children away, but this time..." He paused again, and the boy looked up at him as if expecting something. "I won't let him send you away," Eklund added with sudden seriousness and continued walking, Raimon's hand in his.

They paused at a large fountain. Eklund drank from the rippling water and motioned for the boy to follow his example. After a moment's hesitation, Raimon complied, and once again he looked as uncertain as he had before taking his first bite of Linda's bread. As they continued on their way, the appearance of the city changed. Towers of offices and luxury apartments rose forty or more stories to the right. Their exteriors were mostly made of semi-transparent, reflective synthomass - the buildings sparkled like giant crystals in the sunlight. To the left, facing the reef sea, stretched specially protected areas with villas of all kinds. Members of private security patrolled these areas, supported by the police. In between, all the way to the swampy part of the vast Acheron Delta, stretched the "Dream Center", a city within a city, consisting of sometimes bizarre looking buildings: casinos; brothels, where not only human women and men offered sometimes quite exotic services; the data service centers of numerous alternate worlds; and of course the actual dream palaces, hundreds of them, each of them a meeting place for those who hoped to find happiness with Kerberos' numerous drugs. Even now, in the morning, the place was bustling. A sweet smell hung in the air, reminiscent of the flowers of the continental forest from which many drugs were derived.

At a shady spot, Eklund stopped, raised his walking stick, and pointed at the surroundings. "I was talking about a shortcut to happiness, remember?" Again he addressed the words to Raimon, but this time he spoke more to himself. "Here you can see it. But it only appears to be a shortcut, while in reality it is a dead end. Oh yes, the people who seek happiness here - and it's not only the people who come here - do indeed find it, in the form of sweet dreams. But they have to pay for it, not only with transtel, but also with physical and mental decay. The more they dream, the more horrible reality seems to them, and the more they want to escape it. Actually, the real poison is in them even before they come here. It is called "false hope and despair."

He put an arm around the boy's shoulders. Raimon listened quietly and looked up at him again, his brown eyes unfathomably deep. "But who knows? Maybe this is all just a dream." Again he raised his walking stick and made a gesture to the whole city. "A good one or a bad one - that depends on your point of view. Yes, maybe it's all just a dream, inside another dream. And when we wake up one day..." He shrugged, not finishing the sentence.

They walked on, always careful to stay in the shade of the fern palms. The chaos around them seemed to pulsate, sometimes bigger and louder, then smaller and quieter, the pulse of the city. As they prepared to cross an open area that offered little shade, Eklund saw a young fisherman named Sebastian returning home after a long night on the reef sea and exhausting hours at the market. Two years ago, he had cured him of a very ugly rash, and Sebastian was still grateful. He offered to drive Eklund and his mute companion to the outskirts of town and drop them off near the citadel.

The young fisherman's car was old, perhaps even older than Eklund. It was powered by an internal combustion engine whose filters seemed to be defective, for thick smoke kept coming out of the exhaust. There were squeaks, rattles, and cracks everywhere as if the vehicle could fall apart at any moment. There was no air conditioning. Air coming in through several open windows provided a breeze as long as the car was moving; when it stopped, it became almost unbearably hot within a few seconds. There was also the stench of not-so-fresh fish. But Eklund paid no attention to these things. He was glad not to have to walk all the way to the cliffs of Pillion. When he talked to Sebastian and inquired about his parents' condition, he learned that Jisbo, Sebastian's father, was still diving for opals on the reef despite his lung problems. "Not in the old place, though," Sebastian said, both hands wrapped around the big wheel of the rocking car. "The autocrat has banned it."

"Why?" asked Eklund.

Sebastian shrugged. "Supposedly the area is protected now."

"But you don't believe that?"

"My father and others have been diving for reef opals there for more than twenty years without the autocrat caring. Why would he suddenly care about protecting nature? No doubt he wants the opals for himself."

"Isn't he rich enough already?"

Sebastian looked sideways for a moment. "Do people like the autocrat ever have enough?"

They talked about other things, and out of the corner of Eklund's eye he saw the boy sitting in the back seat. Raimon's face was no longer blank but showed... interest. Yes, Eklund thought he saw interest in the surroundings, but underneath there was something else, as hidden as a shadow within a shadow. Everything seemed completely new to him, even the smallest, most mundane things. Maybe Raimon's silence wasn't just due to shock, Eklund thought. Maybe he was suffering from severe amnesia. Had he forgotten that he could speak? Was he struggling to remember a world that had been familiar before last night's tragic incident, but now seemed completely alien to him? If that was true, and if he truly had the ability to heal himself... Could he repair his mind as well as his body?

"Here we are," Sebastian finally said, stopping in a wide curve. "This is as close as I can get you. You'll have to walk the rest of the way."

"Thanks. It's not far now. Come on, Raimon."

They got out and Eklund looked in the side window again. "Take care, Sebastian. Give my regards to your father and tell him not to overdo it with the diving."

"I'll pass it on." The young fisherman waved, and his old car rocked and rattled away.

Other vehicles rolled along the wide road, some new, most old, many of them great monstrosities of metal, synthomass, and stench: transporters that ran between the other, smaller towns on the coast and Chiron. Eklund pointed with his walking stick to a dirt path trodden by many feet. "This way, Raimon."

The boy followed, wordless as always, but also curious.

Ahead and to their left, to the south and east of the city, the Pillion Mountains rose steeply to nearly three thousand feet, a natural barrier that often protected Chiron from the tropical storms farther south. Like the wedge of a giant, the mountain range jutted out of the endless green of the continental forest into the Reef Sea.

"If you were expecting some kind of castle or fortress, I'm sorry to disappoint you," Eklund said as they followed the path. Wind blew here, making the heat more bearable. "I don't know why the founders of the Enlightened Community called these caves 'citadel'. Perhaps it was because they offered protection, not only from the weather but also from possible attackers, which, as far as I know, never existed. Only the World Soul knows who gave it that name." He paused in the shadow of a tall shrub and exhaled softly; the path climbed quite steeply at this point. "Have I told you about the World Soul, Raimon? No? Well, you are my novice now, and we will have many more opportunities to talk about such things. As for the citadel..."

He continued walking, leaning on his walking stick. After a few feet, Raimon reached for his free hand, and this so stunned Eklund that he stopped and looked down at the boy in amazement. Raimon looked up at the rock face that touched the clouds far above, seemingly oblivious to the old man's surprise.

"The first hermits settled in the caves up there right after Kerberos was first established, almost a hundred years ago," Eklund continued, starting to walk again. "They wanted to be alone and meditate. That first phase lasted a few years and ended just before I arrived on Kerberos." He smiled briefly as he remembered. "I was younger than you are now. Well, the second phase started with the discovery of the Mandala. It showed some hermits the portal to Elysium and the power to heal. It takes a special gift to absorb it and work with it.

Just take the Kantaki pilots who fly spaceships through trans-space at many times the speed of light. They too need a special gift to find the threads that connect all the celestial bodies, to navigate the cosmoses outside the time stream. We are in a similar position. The Enlightened Community to which I belong is made up of people who have a special gift. I consider it a blessing given to me by the World Soul. Others see the gift as an accident, a freak of nature. We do not all believe in the same things. Eklund laughed softly. "No, that's not the right way to put it, Raimon. Actually, each of us believes in something different." And the shepherd believes in everything and nothing. "But we are all healers, and that unites us."

Again the boy was silent, and Eklund wondered if he even understood the words.

In front of the brownish-gray rock wall was an open area where no bushes grew and only short, mossy grass covered the ground. Stairs of wood and stone led up in an endless zigzag, and members of the Enlightened Community walked up them. Ropes and rope ladders dangled here and there. Wind chimes rang and tinkled.

"The young people use the stairs and ladders," Eklund explained. "Well, age has its privileges, Raimon." He approached two levitating disks. They were as scuffed up as Sebastian's car, and hardly seemed any younger. "I know they don't look very trustworthy, but they work perfectly, I assure you." Smiling, Eklund added, "Besides, I'm sure the World Soul wouldn't let me crash now of all times. After all, I have a novice."

He stepped onto the first disk, and Raimon followed without hesitation. "I hope you're not afraid of heights," Eklund said, operating the controls. With a low hum, the disk rose, swaying a little. The old man and his young companion held onto the railing. "You can't get a better view than this."

Eklund continued to enjoy the view. As the levitator disk glided up the Pillion Mountains, the megalopolis of Chiron spread out before them. It stretched along both banks of the brown Acheron, out of the green of the continental forest and across the delta. Hundreds of bridges and walkways connected the myriad islands, large and small, where buildings were mostly on stilts, like the hospital where Elizabeth worked; when the cyclical tidal wave caused by the two moons of Kerberos came, many of the islands were underwater. The ships in the harbor were colorful specks in the blue of the reef sea that stretched from there to the horizon.

The wind tugged at Eklund's baggy clothes and played with the boy's hair. "Well, do you like it?" He thought he detected the hint of a smile on Raimon's lips, and that gave him hope.

They passed the first cave openings. Men and women waved at Eklund, and he returned their greetings.

"We still have quite a way to go," he said, pointing his walking stick skyward. "When the first hermits came here, there were only natural caves. Later, after the discovery of the Mandala, the Enlightened Community began digging tunnels through the rock, and gradually many new caves were created. In the meantime, the whole mountain range of Pillion has been perforated. I don't think anyone knows the exact number of caves and tunnels. Sometimes I wonder if we even know how big our community is, how many people belong to it. But those things are taken care of by other people, like the shepherd. Eklund sighed. "Oh, I have been a member of this community for many, many years, but things change. They changed for Kerberos, for Chiron, and for the many settlers who came here full of hope. And now they are changing for us. Maybe it's inevitable, but that doesn't mean I have to like it.

At an altitude of about one thousand six hundred feet, the levitator disk stopped at a particularly large cave opening, with a rock outcropping acting as a kind of balcony in front of it. Eklund lowered the disk and stepped down from it with Raimon. He bowed and made a welcoming gesture toward the opening. "Welcome to the Citadel."

Eklund led the boy into a large cavern with several tunnels leading out of it. He chose the widest one, and after a few steps, the heat of the day was left behind, giving way to a pleasant coolness. "Geologists say that all this was once at the bottom of a prehistoric sea. They say that currents washed the first caves and tunnels out of the rock. That must be true, because sometimes we find the remains of shells and things like that. Or the fossils of fish-like creatures. Isn't that strange? Today we are one thousand six hundred feet above the surface of the planet, but millions of years ago this was..." He stamped his right foot. "...at the bottom of a primordial ocean." Eklund's face took on a very pensive look. "But there must have been more to it than that. The mandala could hardly have been the work of primitive fish and shells."

He sighed again. "Well, before I show you everything here, I have to introduce you to the shepherd. I'd rather not, but I'm afraid there's no way around it. Come, Raimon, let's get this unpleasantness over with right away."

"I have strictly forbidden you to bring children here again," the shepherd said sternly.

"This is not..."

"Strictly forbidden," the shepherd repeated. "And what have you done? Who did you bring? Huh?"

Eklund hesitated, searching for the right words. How many generations separated him from Brother Conrad, who had become the new shepherd about a year ago, the head of the Enlightened Community? Three? Four? And how many other differences? A hundred? A thousand?

The shepherd was barely thirty years old, short and fat. He loved good food and drink, and this lack of restraint was evident in other things as well. Most of the brothers and sisters living in the citadel shunned modern technology, not because of any prohibition, but in order to "focus on what is essential," as many pointed out, the elementary things of life and being. Conrad, on the other hand, was free to use the caves, as the shepherd had a data server installed as soon as he took office, paid for by the bonuses the healers in Chiron and other cities on Kerberos earned from their work. In one corner of the large main cavern, where Eklund and Raimon stood, a generator hummed quietly, powering not only the data server but also several other devices, including infonauts, audio-visual recorders, lamps - they were not chemo lamps like those in the other areas and at the entrances to the citadel - and even a mobile air-conditioning unit that could heat and cool, an unheard-of luxury.

The furnishings of the cave - a desk, several comfortable chairs, two walls of shelves with hundreds of books, real and pseudo-real, and numerous objects found here and there in the citadel - indicated an obsession. The first message was "order", the second "geometry". Everything was perfectly organized and, where possible, parallel or at least perpendicular to each other. By the World Soul, Eklund thought, I think he even thinks in perfect geometric figures. What can you expect from such a man?

But the shepherd's biggest mistake was that he thought he was important, worse, more important than other people. When the World Soul was spreading humility and modesty, my dear Conrad, you stayed in bed and continued to sleep. He was writing a book, they said, or rather dictating it and recording his words with the audio-visual modules. Not to mention that Eklund was naturally suspicious of people who dictated books instead of writing them: he very much doubted that someone like Brother Conrad could write a meaningful book - say, "The Philosophical Aspects of Transcendental Meditation" or "The Proper Use of the Mandala.

The shepherd came out from behind his desk, stepped in front of Eklund and the boy, and rested his fists on his broad hips. He wore a brown robe with a white cord because he wanted to look like a monk, but he looked ridiculous in the outfit. His shoulder-length gray hair was dyed, as was his beard, and both were supposed to give him an aura of wisdom. Eklund was too old to be impressed or even fooled by such things.

"What is your name?" the shepherd asked the boy.

Raimon remained silent.

"I want to know your name," Conrad said more sharply.

"He doesn't speak," Eklund interjected.

"And why doesn't he speak?"

"Well, last night there was an incident on the outskirts of Chiron..." Eklund recounted the shooting and Raimon's amazingly quick healing, then added his Elysium experiences. "He could be a self-healer."

The shepherd looked at the boy as if he were something barely fit for his world. Behind him, the data server beeped, and he shot a quick, impatient glance at the desk.

"Are you making any progress with the book?" Eklund asked innocently.

Conrad eyed him suspiciously, looking for signs of sarcasm. He found none. That, too, was an advantage of age: Eklund knew how to control his facial expressions; he had had over ninety years to practice.

"I'm sure it will help our Enlightened Community progress quite a bit," the shepherd said in a missionary's tone. "It is high time for some modernization."

Eklund sighed, barely audible.

"Or does your World Soul object?"

"I don't know," Eklund answered honestly. "I haven't asked it yet. As for the boy..."

The shepherd rocked on his toes. "He has to go. This is no place for children. I thought I made that clear when I dismantled your orphanage."

"The orphanage was an entirely different matter," Eklund said quietly. "It consisted of sick children and orphans. I wanted to set up a hospital here for them - we are healers - and a school..."

"Commendable, very humanistic and so on, and no doubt there were good intentions behind it," the shepherd grumbled monotonously. "But I repeat: the Citadel is not a place for children, but a place for meditation and holy transcendence. Nothing here must distract us from our quest to expand our minds, to explore and understand the world above the world. Therefore, you will return the boy to Chiron this very day. Conrad stepped back behind his desk.

"No," Eklund said with the same calm as before.

The shepherd's face changed. The chubby cheeks began to glow red.

"You dare to disobey my orders with..."

"He is my novice," Eklund said. "I am over ninety years old, and it is time for me to choose a successor. As I'm sure you know, every member of the Enlightened Community is entitled to such a novice."

"What?" This time it was the shepherd who searched for the right words. "But he is a..."

"A novice."

"A child!"

"And a novice."

The two men, so different, looked at each other in silence for a few seconds. Eklund knew he had won, but he was careful not to show triumph. Conrad was the shepherd, and as such even he deserved respect.

"Very well," the short, fat, robed man said quietly and sat down. "Let him be your novice. But make sure he doesn't disturb anyone here. Now... please go. Important matters require my attention."

Eklund sighed again, this time inaudibly. "Come, Raimon."

They left the shepherd's office and walked through the tunnel, deeper into the citadel. When he thought he was out of earshot of the shepherd, Eklund said, "Well, that's that. From now on, you are a member of the Enlightened Community." He looked down at Raimon, who was still smiling. "We'll rest for a while, and then I'll show you the mandala."

KiTamarani

MILLIONS OF YEARS AGO

Prevalence

KiTamarani plunged through the nonlinear, caught in the blackness of an Omnivore fragment. She fell through a wave of swirling time, and the seed released her just enough to scrape her periphery over rough temporal matter. Its intent was clear: she was to lose parts of herself, more parts, and become weaker as a result.

Agent: High threat potential.

The voice came from a distance, as if from another world, little more than a vague whisper, but it informed KiTamarani that the pod still existed.

Horror seethed within her. The Council might last forever, as she had always believed, but counselors did not! Counselors could... die.

The end of existence.

Non-being...

No more thinking, no more feeling...

The murmur of the seed came through the cloud of terror that enveloped KiTamarani's self. Surrender, it whispered. Don't fight anymore. Everything will be much easier for you if you give up...

No. KiTamarani gathered her strength. No.

Existence, at least the individual one, could come to an end.

A terrible realization that made KiTamarani miss the We/I more than ever.

The Counselor's periphery came into contact with the time condensates created by the seed. The friction hurt and robbed her of tiny particles of individuality. She thrust mental lances into the blackness of the seed, into its whisper, and at the same time, memories wafted through her self, awakened by the shock.

"This is we," the We/I said, and led KiTamarani, already part of the whole and yet a little separate from it, through the sphere. They passed countless components, innumerable parts of the whole, all bathed in the song of creation, in the bright light of life.

"I feel realizations growing within me," KiTamarani said, marveling.

"Occasionally we renew ourselves," the We/I said, giving KiTamarani the equivalent of a smile. "You are new, yet as old as we are. Soon you will have all the old knowledge."

KiTamarani paused at the edge of the sphere, where the components ended and space began. Stars shone in the distance, and KiTamarani, the young, renewed KiTamarani, imagined them to be the eyes of the Creators.

"The Prevalence," she said, remembering.

"Yes," confirmed the We/I. "The Prevalence. It created all this..." The We/I of the sphere pointed out into the universe. "And us too."

Renewal...

Agent: A possibility.

"An extreme," KiTamarani whispered, her voice barely louder than the murmur of the seed still trying to force her to give up. "I would forget everything."

Agent: not forever.

The temporal shaft widened abruptly and the pod, enveloped by the seed, hurtled through linear time. A sun engulfed it, and the fall continued, through nuclear fire that, of course, did not incinerate the pod. KiTamarani looked where the photons began the long, many thousand-year journey through the dense masses of plasma to the surface of the sun, and she saw the glow and shimmer through the blackness of the seed.

Renewal. Shedding the old to make way for the new, which in turn absorbed and preserved the old. Like a supernova hurling its mass of heavy elements into space, matter that would later become new stars, planets and living beings.

An eruption that released spiritual energy...

"The prevalence," repeated the young KiTamarani, remembering more and more clearly her previous existences. Everything came back, clear and distinct; nothing was lost, nothing ever was. This was the Council.

"The Prevalents..."

"The creators of this universe and many others," the We/I said, looking out into space with KiTamarani. "They were the first."

"The first life ever..."

"The first life in the first universe, created by chance. Or perhaps by the will of a primordial creator."

"And when that first universe came to an end...

"they set out and settled in the Dominion, their own sphere."

The still struggling KiTamarani noticed that the whispering of the seed had stopped. It was condensing its structure and increasing the pressure. Had it destroyed the other counselors capsule in this way, and with it the I/We within it?

"Are the Prevalents ... gods?" asked KiTamarani, immediately receiving the answer from the memories of her previous existences.

"Can gods make mistakes?" replied the We/I of the Council. "The Prevalents created us, and therefore they could be called our 'gods'. But they are not infallible, and they have made mistakes. The biggest of them is the Omnivore."

"I... remember," KiTamarani said, and deep inside her renewed mind something shivered. The Omnivore. The reality eater.

The presence of the We/I turned to the counselor, and KiTamarani felt a caress. It was a very pleasant sensation, heralding protection and safety. "Yes, we all remember," they said, adding a mental gesture toward the universe. "As the first universe expanded faster and faster, tearing apart galaxies, suns, planets, and eventually even atoms, the prevalents in dominance planned a new universe."

"Yes, we all remember," they said, adding a mental gesture toward space. "As the first universe expanded faster and faster, and this process tore apart galaxies, suns, planets, and eventually even atoms, the prevalents in dominance planned a new universe."

"Not gods...," KiTamarani murmured. "But creators."

"Yes," the We/I confirmed. "They created a new universe so that life would not end, and they gave it the strings of the first cosmos so that the song of the original creation could continue. But in the complexity of this vast plan of creation, which later gave rise to the Hyperverse, there was a tiny mistake with enormous consequences."

KiTamarani saw it through the eyes of the knowledge the Prevalence had given the Council.

Agent: Warning...

"Degeneration of space and time," the We/I said, and the voice of the sphere seemed to fade. "Mutation of matter. The creation matrix allowed something to emerge in the first universe created by the Prevalents that was the opposite of life."

"The opposite of life," KiTamarani repeated. Her gaze was still that of a curious being rushing out into space to traverse this one universe of many. She watched the spirals of distant galaxies, almost expecting the blackness of the Omnivore to obscure them.

Agent: Extreme urgency!

"The Omnivore." Now the voice of the We/I was only a whisper. "A thing that must eat reality to give itself reality. A creature that extinguishes life to give itself life."

"A creature," KiTamarani repeated. "Is the Omnivore a living being, a creature?" And again she received the answer from the memories of her previous existences, her memories. "It is anti-life."

"Yes," confirmed the We/I. "And we..."

"The Prevalents gave us existence with the mission to protect life. That is our greatest mission. We are to ensure that life can spread everywhere without fear of the emptiness that the Omnivore creates."

Mission... Something pulled KiTamarani away. She wanted to stay in the sphere, with the We/I, in the community of the Council, but something tugged at her and she could not resist.

Mission...

Agent: Highest risk level. Capsule unstable. Council member herself threatened.

KiTamarani felt it clearly.

The Omnivore's fragment, its seed, was still exerting enormous pressure on the capsule, but it was not concerned with creating a second version of the monodimensional dungeon. Instead, it formed spikes that drilled into KiTamarani's primary self as well as the substance of the capsule.

Agent: The instability is spreading. The end of my existence is at hand.

The end.

Non-being.

No more thinking, no more feeling. Nothingness. Emptiness.

Renewal...

How clever the seed was. It might only be a sliver, but it shared the Omnivore's cunning. It had not intended to evade the counselor pursuing it, for it had understood the hopelessness of such an endeavor. Instead, it had tried to weaken her bit by bit, then defeat her in the final confrontation.

"Energy," she said. The spikes of the seed hurt and weakened her more. "Agent, I need energy for renewal. If I shed the old without being able to regenerate, I will remain empty and without the memories of the Council!"

Agent: Energy cannot be drawn from the structure of the pod. Result: immediate collapse.

"External energy," KiTamarani groaned. " A sun..."

Without planets on which life could exist or develop. "Or a singularity. Energy..."

Agent: Searching.

The capsule moved, along with the seed that enveloped it. And while the agent searched, KiTamarani prepared for renewal, her last chance.

Traces

15 APRIL 421 SN, 10:40

Kerberos

Edwald Emmerson's office was located in a corner of the New Human Design building complex, with two walls made entirely of specially reinforced transparent synthomass. One overlooked the brown waters of the Acheron, which here, just before the delta, was so wide that the opposite shore, beyond the many islands, was only a thin line. Through the second glass wall, the security chief saw the long, yellow-gray processing halls where the base material for development and production matured. It was derived from algae sponges that originally came from the river but now grew in nutrient ponds.

Emmerson sat at his desk with his back to the corner. He was not looking out the wall windows but at the screen of a data server that showed him the lab where the fire had occurred. The scene was barely different from the one he had seen that night; the biggest difference was the number of footprints in the firefighting foam. His investigators were still busy collecting evidence.

Someone knocked on the door, and Emmerson pushed a button after a sensor confirmed the identity of the person in the hallway. It buzzed softly and the door opened. A man entered, and the door closed behind him.

Elroy Tobias, a rather wrinkled but very intelligent-looking sixty-something, approached with a transparent container and set it down on the desk. Emmerson gestured to a nearby chair and Tobias sat down.

Edwald Emmerson leaned forward and looked at the items in the container. "What is this?"

"These," Tobias said, "are the remains of a detonator." He pointed to a thin, grayish-white strip of metal that seemed to have half melted at the end and then solidified again. Fine powder clung to it in places. "The colorless gelatinous mass next to it is a special substance that normally burns up without any trace. Something went wrong."

Emmerson gave Tobias a questioning look. He had worked with him for many years and appreciated his efficiency.

"These are the remains of a 'silent bomb'," Tobias explained. "You know, I used to work for a special unit of the Consortium, under the direct command of Cordoban. Our job was to sabotage certain Alliance facilities in such a way that there would be no evidence of sabotage. It was always supposed to look like an accident."

Emmerson nodded wordlessly and listened intently.

"We often used silent bombs like this because they are exceptionally reliable," Elroy Tobias continued. "Normally, a slow chemical reaction takes place that completely dissolves the detonator, leaving nothing of the gel mass behind. In this case, the silent bomb didn't work properly, probably due to contamination of the gel; you have to be very careful with it.

"Which leads to two conclusions," Emmerson said slowly. "The fire in the lab was definitely not an accident, and whoever used that silent bomb didn't know how to use it properly."

"Yes, I think we can assume that. Under other circumstances, everything would have pointed to a fatal short circuit in the vicinity of highly flammable chemicals. A chain of unfortunate events." Tobias looked at the clear container. "The question is, what was the unknown assassin trying to achieve?"

Emmerson arched his eyebrows. "Sabotage Project Double-M?"

"That's a reasonable assumption. But why didn't the assassin place the silent bomb somewhere else, where it would have caused a more powerful explosion?"

"You think the unknown person wanted to cause damage, but not too much damage. And why?"

"At first, I thought the metamorph was meant to be killed. But maybe the assassin wanted to let it escape."

"And the reason?"

Elroy Tobias looked up from the container, met Emmerson's gaze, and shrugged. "I don't know. We'll probably find an answer to that question once we know the identity of the assassin. We do have one lead: the silent bomb. Not everyone has access to that kind of technology."

Emmerson nodded. "And this?" He pointed to the container, the small bowl next to the remains of the detonator and the gel. It contained brownish-yellow mush with some slimy chunks; it looked like vomit.

"These are the remains of the programming module the metamorph came into contact with during its escape. Its data could be reconstructed, at least partially."

"I'm listening," Emmerson said when Tobias was still silent after a few seconds.

"The creator in question refuses to give me any information." Tobias twisted his face as he spoke, as if offended. "Maybe he fears a security leak. He only wants to talk to you or the director about it."

Emmerson thought for a moment. "All right. Send him to me. Take this with you and continue the investigation." When Tobias reached the door, he added, "You've done a good job, Elroy. I'm glad I can count on you."

A smile played on Tobias' lips before he left.

Edwald Emmerson looked out over the Acheron and watched a few iridescent blue cobalt flies dance close above the lazily flowing brown tides. Suddenly, a forty-inch-long net-catcher shot out of the water, spread its gill fins that had developed into a net-like structure, caught a cobalt fly, and dropped back into the river.

"Eat and be eaten," Emmerson muttered thoughtfully, wondering what "net-catcher" lurked beneath the surface of the metaphorical water over which he and everyone else flew.

A few minutes later, a man of at least fifty came in, resembling him in stature. He was also short and lanky, but he had a half bald head and large, bulging eyes that gave the impression that he was in a hurry. The creator looked suspiciously to his right and left as he entered the office, adding to the aura of paranoia surrounding him.

"We're alone," Emmerson said, remembering his name. "Doctor Robertson."

"I've discovered something," Dr. Robertson said, sitting on the edge of the chair in front of the desk. His back remained ramrod straight.

"It's the programming module, isn't it?" Emmerson noticed the data recorder in Robertson's hand. "What data did the metamorph record before it escaped from the lab?"

The creator looked around the office again, seeming to grow more nervous with each passing second. "Are you familiar with the programming of the cell complexes we are developing based on the base mass?"

"I'm not a scientist," Emmerson said, not losing his patience. "But I'm familiar with the basics."

Robertson apparently decided not to assume too much anyway. "Data servers are programmed in a variety of programming languages. These languages convert complex instructions and algorithms into a binary structure. Well, what this binary structure is for data servers, the amino acids of the so-called messenger substances are for our cell masses: they program the formation matrix and deposit controlling information in memorants and executors. The means are different, the end is the same. There are even user interfaces now that make programming easier." He lifted the data storage device. "May I?"

Emmerson gestured to the data server's scanner. "Go ahead."

Robertson bent down and slid the data module into the scanner. Emmerson rotated the large pseudo-realistic display so that the creator could also see his display.

"Personal status," Robertson said, rattling off a long string of numbers. "Voice pattern control: Robertson, Willbert."

The data server hummed quietly.

"Identity confirmed," a synthesized voice said. "Protected data ready for retrieval."

"Layer one," Robertson said, and the image in the display changed. Dozens of small windows opened, each showing a different face: men and women of various ages, subalterns, autarks, rulers, nonconformists, magnates, a colorful cross-section of human society. "These are some of the many identities that have been prepared for use by the metamorph. Each has a complete personal background: childhood, education, marriages, divorces, personal tragedies, and professional successes. All the things that make up a life. Right down to the last detail. In many cases, this information is also contained in the personal databases of public institutions, not only here on Kerberos, but on many other worlds as well. The metamorph should be able to move about freely."

"Outside of Kerberos?" asked Emmerson in surprise. "I thought its cells would become unstable if it left the planet. Like all base-mass type cells."

"That would indeed be the case with those of the prototype. But the plan was to replace them with stable ones." Robertson pointed at the display. "Layer two."

A gray haze crept through the display, then gave way to new windows in which more faces appeared. Some of them Emmerson recognized immediately: Enbert Dokkar, head of the Alliance; Benjamin, Valdorian's son; Valdorian, of whom no one knew what had become of him; Cordoban, chief strategist of the Consortium, presumed dead at the Battle of Kabaea; Jonathan Fentur, Valdorian's secretary.

"The metamorph's targets?" asked Emmerson. "Cordoban was going to use it as a weapon against the Alliance, certainly not against himself and other Consortium representatives, including Valdorian."

"Someone has tampered with the programming module," said Robertson. A thin film of sweat shone on his forehead, though it was not overly warm in the Security Chief's office. His eyes seemed to bulge even more. "Someone added more data, including this." He pointed to the display.

"The same unknown person responsible for the silent bomb?"

"I'm not a security expert like you," the creator replied. "But I would be very surprised if two acts of tampering, both involving the metamorph, were carried out by two different people at the same time."

Emmerson nodded and looked at the screen, which showed more people. Some of them he did not know, others he was very familiar with: Lukert Turannen, NHD's global director and coordinator of the Consortium; Amadeus Storm, Turannen's secretary; senior executives and administrators from the Consortium's corporate groups and other business conglomerates. The list of possible targets for the metamorph continued to grow.

When no new display windows opened, Robertson said, "Layer three.

Lorgard's face appeared on the screen, and next to it Emmerson saw himself. His eyebrows shot up as the pseudo-realistic projection showed virtually the entire senior staff of the NHD branch of Kerberos, including Willbert Robertson, which explained the latter's nervousness.

"The unknown saboteur seems to want a lot of people out of the way," Emmerson said.

Robertson pointed silently at the screen.

The gray haze returned for a second or two, and then a word appeared in the upper left corner of the display. It repeated over and over, filling the first line, then the second, and so on until it reached the bottom right corner. It read: Kill!

"I want to emphasize again that what you just saw is part of a special user interface," Robertson said.

"I think I get where you're going. The message is pretty clear. The programming module has been modified to give the metamorph multiple targets, including some that weren't intended."

"And it was given a strong base command, which is 'Kill!' We are all in danger! Assuming the data from the program module was transferred correctly and completely."

"Is there any doubt about that?"

"Yes. The automated security systems used toxins and radiation against the biological contamination, and that caused structural changes in the programming module. We can't tell what data the metamorph recorded or in what form."

Emmerson hesitated for a few seconds, then stood up, leaving the data recorder in the scanner. "Thank you for your information. Now please go back to your work."

Robertson rose as well, more slowly and as if in disbelief. "We are all in danger," he repeated.

"You have made that clear to me. I assure you that I will take the necessary measures."

The creator left with obvious reluctance, and as the door closed behind him, Emmerson turned and approached the wall of windows that overlooked the Acheron. The cobalt flies were still dancing over the river, regardless of the danger they faced there. Our dance just got a lot more dangerous, the security chief thought. Below us in the water lurks not a net-catcher, but a far more dangerous creature.

As Emmerson's eyes swept across the brown river, past the many islands to the distant shore, he concentrated, trying to get as clear a picture as possible of the current situation. Someone had set off a silent bomb in the lab, causing a fire, most likely to allow the prototype metamorph to escape. In addition, a programming module had been tampered with to give the metamorph additional data. Who was the culprit? Project Double-M had been commissioned by Cordoban to develop an organic weapon for use against the Alliance. Emmerson did not know the full history of the project, but he was far from naive, and he was quite certain that the metamorph or metamorph specimens would be used not only against the Alliance but probably against the other economic conglomerates as well. The temptation to use such a powerful, covert weapon on a large scale would have been too great.

But then war broke out between the Consortium and the Alliance before an operational metamorph was available. With the Consortium's defeat, Valdorian's disappearance, and Cordoban's probable death, the parameters of Project Double-M changed. Lukert Turannen, as NHD Global Director and Consortium Coordinator, could not allow Enbert Dokkar to learn of the metamorph, the bio-weapon that was supposed to kill him. But Turannen could have simply ordered the prototype eliminated; he didn't need to commit covert acts of sabotage. And the range of programmed targets could hardly have been broader: high-ranking people in the Alliance and the Consortium, the magnates and administrators of almost every major corporation, public figures, and NHD personnel on Kerberos. Who could possibly have an interest in the escaped metamorph becoming active in the way that would be expected given his altered programming? Who would benefit if it started killing all those people?

Emmerson's eyes narrowed slightly as another thought occurred to him. Who knew of the prototype's existence? Project Double-M was top secret, known only to Cordoban and a few key people at NHD. And yet the unknown saboteur must have known about it. The first conclusion was that the only possible culprit was an NHD employee. But: Those employees were among the targets for whom the metamorph had been programmed with the help of the tampered module. Why would the saboteur target himself? Or was it a diversionary tactic? Should Emmerson leave the NHD employees out of the suspect pool because they themselves were possible targets of the metamorph's attack? Emmerson's instincts said no to that last question, which led to a new conclusion: there was an unknown external factor that had learned about Project Double-M, and that was only possible because of an internal factor. In other words, there were one or more moles at New Human Design.

Emmerson turned and looked again at the three-dimensional display, which still showed the last image, a shot of Willbert Robertson. The security chief saw two tasks ahead of him. First, he had to find the escaped metamorph and render it harmless. Second, he had to identify the people who worked not only for NHD but also for other clients; their identification would lead him to the saboteur.

While his gaze was still on the display, a flashing text appeared, accompanied by an audible signal. PRIORITY MESSAGE.

Emmerson returned to the desk. "Data server, open message file."

"Acknowledge," the synthetic voice replied. The three-dimensional display changed to show a man Emmerson had never seen before. He was sitting at a small table with an activated personal privacy shield. The background of the room reminded the security chief of a communications alcove, like those found at spaceports or in the passenger containers of Kantaki ships.

"This is a recording," the man said in a voice that sounded both energetic and calm. It sounded like someone who was used to having his instructions followed immediately. And that struck Emmerson as odd, because the stranger on the screen appeared to be less than forty years old. "I am Lutor, special representative of Global Director Lukert Turannen. He has given me all the powers necessary to conduct an investigation on Kerberos. I know about the ... emergency, and I also know the background. Until I arrive, please do nothing to complicate the situation. Prepare a situation report with all the relevant information so that I can get to work as soon as I arrive; I don't want to waste any time. He looked at the display of a chrono servo. "This Kantaki ship will reach the Hades system tomorrow, 16 April 421 SN. I expect to be in Chiron around 15:00; please be ready for a briefing." The man paused for a moment and looked directly into the visual sensor of the communication server. "I'm sure we'll work well together." Lutor reached for a control panel and his image disappeared.

Edwald Emmerson stared at the blank screen for a few seconds, then realized that he had clenched his right hand into a fist. With just a few words, Lutor had managed to place himself in the "unpleasant" category. Worse, he seemed to have special powers and wanted to lead the investigation regarding the metamorph himself. Turannen is putting someone ahead of me - and Lorgard, too - he thought, and he didn't like it at all.

He instructed the server to play the end of the recorded message again for him, stopping at the image of Lutor looking directly into the visual sensor. A man of barely forty, nondescript really; Emmerson would have paid no attention to him if he had met him anywhere in Chiron. Straight nose, thin-lipped mouth, flat chin. Ash blond, short hair. The most striking feature was undoubtedly the gray eyes. They were sharp and penetrating. There was a strange glow in them, and it took Emmerson more than twenty seconds to identify it, despite his vast experience. It was the look of a hunter, a man who had hunted the most dangerous game in the cosmos: humans and other intelligent creatures. And something suggested that he enjoyed it.

"I think we have another problem here," Emmerson muttered and decided to pay Rubens Lorgard a visit - after Robertson's report, he needed to talk to him anyway.

Alternate Worlds

15 APRIL 421 SN, 10:40 KERBEROS TIME

On the journey to Kerberos

After making the recording, Lutor left the identer in the scanner, fiddled with some controls on the communications server, and then twisted around halfway. The communications booth was part of a small personal suite with all the amenities. The identer confirmed that New Human Design gave him unlimited credit, and Lutor certainly appreciated such things. The personal privacy shield on the table still ensured that he remained undisturbed in every way; even with special probing signals, it was not possible to determine what he was doing in the suite. Such discretion was as important to him as unlimited credit.

The faint energy streaks of a shielding field were visible in the suite's entrance, transparent only from Lutor's side. He looked out into one of the large lounges of the passenger container that, along with other habitats and cargo modules, was part of the Kantaki ship's transport bubble. Several people were standing in front of the large picture windows that looked out into trans-space. Others sat in the nearby bar or among the plants of the green island in the center of the room. There, Lutor noticed two Akuhashi. They were said to be in a symbiotic relationship with the Kantaki. Lutor was not interested in such things. All he knew was that the Akuhashi were the administrators of the insectoid Kantaki, acting as intermediaries between them and other races. One of them wore a Direal that connected him to the main systems of the Kantaki ship, equipped with dozens of servers, separate interfaces, receptors and analysis modules. Both creatures had six-inch-long vertical slit-like eyes, completely black, and the faces appeared shriveled.

Lutor's gaze continued to sweep, and when he saw nothing suspicious, he allowed the energy field to become completely opaque.

A beep from the data server confirmed that the Alternate World program had been loaded. Lutor sighed softly as he entered the next room and took a seat in an armchair equipped with medical sensors - they were designed to monitor the user's physical and mental condition. Even as he took the cable and connected it to the bio-servo just below his neck, he shivered pleasantly at the thought of what was about to happen. A soft click told him the connection was made. Lutor made himself as comfortable as possible in the chair to avoid any problems later, such as aching pressure points, then said, "Data server, start program and activate last stored point."

It hummed softly, and less than a second later, the hum belonged to another world. Darkness surrounded Lutor, and as his eyes adjusted, he saw the scene he remembered. A vast swamp stretched before him, barely discernible in the dull moonlight filtering through the night's haze. Occasionally, there was the sound of bubbling and splashing in the darkness, and voices somewhere, too faint for him to make out individual words: vague whispers and murmurs, sometimes mocking, sometimes challenging. Lutor turned his head and looked in the direction he had come from: a high mountain range loomed behind him, and a steep path led up to the snow-covered pass, lined with numerous dangers, all of which he had overcome, always searching for the last and greatest of all adversaries, for the ruler of the shadow world, for Echna, who commanded the hordes of Hell. The swamp was another obstacle to overcome, and Lutor wondered with what abominations the programmers of this Alternate World had populated it.

He walked cautiously through the darkness, enjoying the sensation his new body gave him. He was Kordun, a warrior from the Northlands who had set out to avenge the death of his parents, who had fallen victim to a messenger of darkness, and to increase the glory of his own clan. He was six foot two, muscular, with shoulder-length blond hair, and wore clothes made mostly of leather and iron. He was filled with strength, an energy that gave him confidence and a sense of power that he relished.

When the ground beneath his feet became too soft, he stopped and peered through the darkness. The voices seemed to have gotten closer, but their whispers and murmurs remained unintelligible.

Not remembering exactly what he had found and picked up along the way, Lutor put down his backpack and opened it. Besides some magical healing ointments, various thaumaturgical crystals, and other more or less useful things, it also contained a kuiki, an advisor who looked like a hunchbacked old human man shrunk down to about six inches. Fortunately, Lutor also had some makai nuts, which were treats for the kuiki. He took out one, and the male licked his lips and tried in vain to open the door of his small cage.

"How do I get through the swamp?" asked Lutor, and his voice sounded different, too: stronger, rougher, throatier - a warrior's voice.

"Nut, nut, want nut!" the man shouted, thrusting an arm through the bars of the cage.

"You're going to get your ass kicked if you don't give me some information," Lutor replied threateningly.

"Will nut, will nut!" the kuiki shrieked.

Lutor/Kordun raised his free hand in front of the cage - a large hand with long fingers; the tendons were clearly visible - and slowly clenched it into a fist. It crunched softly, and the old man in the cage shuddered.

"All right, all right," he pouted. "This is the Swamp of Lost Souls," the kuiki said in the tone of a sage revealing an important secret. "Do you hear the voices? They are the whispers of the disembodied, those who died trying to cross the swamp. Will you join them, Kordun? Nut, want nut, give it to me!"

Lutor pointed his index finger at the man.

"Yes, yes, there is a path to the other side." The kuiki sighed exaggeratedly. "And if you were wise enough to take the Crystal of Half-Knowledge with you, you might even recognize it."

"And?" rumbled Lutor.

"You always want to know exactly how? All right. The path itself is safe, but there are many dangers along the way. You'd better keep your eyes open and be prepared for anything. This swamp already belongs to the shadow world; it's not far from here to Echna." The male stretched his arm through the cage again. "Will nut, will nut!"

Lutor handed him the makai nut and the kuiki immediately popped it into his mouth. His teeth flashed like diamonds and cracked the hard shell effortlessly. While the male chewed vigorously and rolled his eyes, Lutor took out the Crystal of Half-Knowledge that he had actually brought with him - it came from the Cave of Bones high in the mountains; as he lifted it, the surroundings changed. The whispering voices faded, sounding disappointed - perhaps the disembodied had hoped to take over Kordun's body. At the same time, the moon's light seemed to grow a little brighter, solidifying just where the ground offered firm footing. Lutor saw a narrow path winding through the swamp, past thick brush, cripple-looking trees, and dark, muddy water.

"There you go," Lutor muttered, pocketing the crystal, dropping the cage with the kuiki back into his backpack - the male complained bitterly about it - and continued on his way. At first, he walked cautiously, but the ground of the path remained firm, so he marched more determinedly. Occasionally the moon peeked through the thick fog, seeming to disappear behind it, but its dull glow illuminated the path and lifted it out of the darkness that closed in on it from both sides. Sometimes something moved in the darkness, shadows and silhouettes, like hunter and hunted. Occasionally, eyes glowed in the darkness, sapphire blue and ruby red, their gaze cold as ice. The black water bubbled as foul gases rose, and once Lutor glimpsed the scaly body of a huge snake.

He walked on, eyes open, ears pricked. The deeper the path took him into the swamp, the quieter it became. Eventually, the whispering voices stopped altogether, and even the bubbling stopped. Silence closed around him like a cloak, and as Kordun, Lutor sensed another change even before it happened. Something grew out of the ground in front of him, in eerie silence, without making a single sound, a figure that seemed to be part of the darkness as much as hands were part of a body. The demonic grimace under the black hood told Lutor that it was a member of the Infernal Guard.

He reacted immediately by dropping the backpack - a nagging "Ow!" came from inside - and drawing his sword. It was a two-handed sword, a flamberge, but Lutor wielded it with one hand, once again enjoying the power coursing through him. Adrenaline gathered more energy and he attacked immediately, not giving his opponent a chance to take the initiative. A powerful blow was aimed at the dark head of the guardsman, but a short blade, more like a knife than a sword, blocked the blow. Metal met metal, but with a strange, muffled sound.

"When will you realize you have no chance against Echna?" the demon growled. Flames flickered from its eyes, illuminating the grotesque face. "He is the ruler of the shadow world and commands the hordes of hell."

"One of you killed my parents," Lutor replied, feeling the rush of battle burn within him like a fire. "Echna will pay for it. And whoever gets in my way..."

He swung again, but before he could strike again, someone grabbed him from behind and held him down. He had made a mistake, feeling too safe and unaware that a second member of the Infernal Guard had emerged from the swamp behind him. The demon in front of him brandished a weapon resembling a morning star, and Lutor pulled his head away just in time. The spiked steel ball whizzed close to him and smashed into the face of the second guardsman, who howled in pain and loosened his grip. Lutor broke free, and a half-second later, the first demon's short blade pierced his left upper arm. The searing pain burned through him, but brought no weakness, only more frenzy. Conscious thought was lost in a whirlpool of emotion, an emotional seething that Lutor found intoxicating and to which he willingly surrendered. Animal instincts took control of his body, and Lutor's ego split: one half watched him, full of pride and satisfaction; the other rode the waves of emotion. The long, heavy sword in his right hand became an extension of his arm, moving with equal ease. Lutor leaped, spun in the air, plunged the blade into the first demon's neck, jerked it to the side, and swung at the other demon. It struck him just above the eyes, slicing through the skull and severing the top of the demon's head.

When Lutor landed on the soft ground again and crouched down, sword ready, his two opponents were already dead. Nothing remained of them. A phosphorescent glow was eating away at the bodies of the two undead henchmen of the Shadow Lord. Thin threads of sulfur-scented smoke rose and joined the haze of the fog, which shrouded the moonlight more and more and descended to the swamp.

Lutor straightened, raised both arms and shouted his triumph into the night.

"Echna, murderer of my parents, soon I will be with you!" the voice of the warrior Kordun thundered through the darkness. "Is there no one here who is a match for me?"

He treated the wound on his upper left arm with healing ointment, then grabbed his backpack and trudged on through the swamp.

While Lutor rested in the recliner, enjoying his visions of power and blood, the black giant of the Kantaki ship flew through trans-space at many times the speed of light. It followed the threads that connected everything in the universe; it was steered by the thoughts of a human pilot. The ship was approaching the Hades system, and there, on a planet called Kerberos, a very special enemy was waiting for Lutor.

KiTamarani

TWENTY MILLION YEARS AGO

Reduction

The counselors' capsule, held in the grip of the seed, fell through space, in linear time, through the void between two great clusters of galaxies. KiTamarani was unable to connect to the cosmic strings to draw power from the song of creation and hear the voices of the other council members, and here in the void there were no suns from which to draw energy.

Agent: Power... dwindling. Cannot ensure the integrity of the capsule...much longer. ....

The black spikes that the seed had drilled into KiTamarani's primary self brought her pain and weakness, but within the capsule they caused increasing structural instability.

She saw again the horrible image of the fragments in space that the Agent had been unable to identify, for never before in the history of the Council had a counselor's capsule been destroyed.

KiTamarani withdrew her thoughts and sensations into her secondary self, which had less control than her primary self, but was still largely unaffected. She reached into the heart of the capsule, into the center of its energy, gave some of the remaining power to the Agent and used some to change the coordinates: One moment she was here, the next she was there, inside a galaxy, racing through interstellar space, still too far from a sun. But she bathed in the galactic rays and opened herself to them...

There was movement in the blackness of the seed. The pressure emanating from it lessened as it tried to fully envelop the capsule.

The energy remaining in the center of the capsule was no longer sufficient for renewal. An external energy source was of existential importance.

KiTamarani managed to keep some gaps open, through which a connection to the outside world was possible. The primary self feigned lethargy and apathy and received the whispers of the seed, asking it once again to surrender and promising that everything would be easier then. It pretended that victory was near, while the secondary self planned and prepared. KiTamarani needed the remaining energy to free herself from the seed's grip, but if there was no external energy to which she had immediate access, she would be helpless against the Omnivore's seed.

Through a crack, she detected a promising radiation signature. A wanderer in interstellar space, too hot to be a planet, too cold to be a sun, a brown dwarf, a lone wanderer, unaccompanied.

Agent: Instability...end...no con...

KiTamarani realized she could wait no longer in the hope of finding a better energy source. The seed was indeed on the verge of victory.

Determined, she reached into the center of the capsule, took all the energy that was still there, and formed it into a focused shockwave that pushed the seed back from a limited area of the capsule. Even as the energy wedge pushed it aside, KiTamarani made herself a part of it, adding all the power of her primary and secondary selves to the shockwave and blasted off its periphery like a supernova sun blasting off its outer shell.

She glowed in the night among the stars, and part of the seed burned; it had not expected such an action.

The shock wave took KiTamarani's I/We with it, as the renewal reduced her to the core of her existence, to that which until recently she had believed to be truly eternal. She raced toward the brown dwarf, receiving radiation from it, heat, but not the energy created by fusion, not the energy of a sun. And what was worse, this time the voice of the We/I was not near. This time she was not part of the sphere that accompanied the renewal to make her part of the whole again, with all the memories of the Council.

She remained alone, terribly alone. Her hope to hear the voices of the other council members, at least in the distance, after the partial liberation from the seed, did not come true.

The Brown Dwarf grew colder far too quickly as KiTamarani absorbed its energy, and the power was not enough, not nearly enough, to complete the renewal. She remained trapped in an in-between state, halfway to the renewed self, her memories mere shreds as she fell back to the capsule, to the seed.

The seed of the Omnivore tried to attack, but its movements lacked coordination, for it too was weakened. KiTamarani, who could not remember the name of her I/We either, returned to the capsule. There was silence, for the Agent no longer spoke.

"Reduction," the counselor murmured. Certain things remained, though not entirely renewed. KiTamarani touched the components of the capsule - really it was little more than a reflex, deeply rooted in her secondary self - and felt its sluggish response. The instability did not spread further; the seed abandoned any further attempts to drill spikes into the capsule.

"Reduction," KiTamarani repeated and began to alter the structure of the components. She was acting on an instinct that caused her half-rebuilt, largely empty self to sustain itself and the capsule.

She sensed they were passing a sun, but the nuclear flames were too far away to be useful, and besides, there were planets receiving light and heat from the star, worlds where there was life, as KiTamarani saw through the capsule's eyes.

The seed stuck to part of the outer shell, static, passive. The shockwave and the ejection of the peripheral self seemed to have done more damage to it than the counselor had first suspected.

"Agent?" she whispered.

Silence remained, and it was a perfect silence, devoid of the murmur of the We/I and the creation melody of the cosmic strings. Sadness moved through KiTamarani's self, and she didn't even know why she was sad.

Reduction...

Something like sleep.

But before that... One last effort. KiTamarani stroked the components of the capsule, letting them become inactive one by one, gathering her remaining energy potential. With this power, she changed the polarization of the outer shell and struck with a mental fist, so hard that the seed came loose. It was weak, very weak, or it would surely have clung to the capsule.

Astonishment stirred in the counselor's innermost core. Could it be that her renewal had triggered a similar process in the Omnivore seed? But wouldn't that be a sign of... kinship?

It was a vague thought in a self filled with vague things - the fully renewed KiTamarani would have been deeply appalled by such an idea. Kinship between counselor and Omnivore? Preposterous! And yet... The seed no longer responded. It rested, remained passive.

Deep within the counselor, a question arose that the basic self asked itself because it lacked the certainties of all knowledge and memory: Was there something the counselor did not know? Was there something the Prevalents had withheld from the Council?

The gravity of a planet caught both the capsule and the seed, which drifted through space not far from it as an amorphous black mass. The counselor saw landmasses and oceans, felt the presence of life. The question remained a vibration and was quickly lost in the languor of reduction. The last components of the capsule stopped working, and KiTamarani used her power for a second, final polarization of the outer shell - turning it into a hull to protect herself and the capsule.

She fell, no longer through space, but through the atmosphere of a planet. The frictional heat did not affect the integrity of the capsule any more than it did the seed. Observers on the planet would have seen two flaming spheres in the sky, but there were no observers, at least not intelligent ones.

Reduction spread through the Counselor, filling her with a calm that meant waiting, waiting for new power, for the completion of the renewal. That it would happen eventually, the basic self did not doubt. She only hoped that the seed would not regain its full potential before then.

The capsule entered a warm, shallow sea, and even as it sank to the soft bottom, KiTamarani's conscious remnant connected with the planet's biosphere and began to dream the dream of life.

Reduction.

Time passed. Millions of years passed. The shallow sea became deep. Sediments accumulated, burying the Council capsule and the Omnivore seed. Tectonic shifts created mountains. Parts of the planet's crust sank, others were pushed up. Life evolved and flourished.

But it did not evolve unaffected. KiTamarani's dream steered it in a specific direction.

Echoes of Violence

On board a Kantaki ship in trans-space

Lukert Turannen sat in the restaurant of the passenger module, at a corner table from which he could see the whole room. The plate in front of him had five indentations. The top four, relatively small, contained various vegetables, each with a specific mineral and vitamin content. A semi-solid mass of protein, somewhat reminiscent of meat, filled the larger indentation at the bottom. Turannen tasted the dishes one by one, calculated the calories, and came up with about one thousand two hundred - just the right amount, and just the right ratio of nutrients and fiber. You are what you eat was one of the principles that guided his life. He planned his own diet as carefully as he planned his business. He ate quietly, dividing his attention between his surroundings and his thoughts on the current situation of the Consortium and the Alliance. His secretary, Amadeus, sat on the other side of the table, looking as if he were engrossed in reading a pseudo-real book. In reality, he was using a scanning device, probing the people present, keeping an eye out for spies or surveillance devices. So far, there was nothing to indicate that anyone was following them. Enbert Dokkar didn't appear to suspect anything. Maybe he didn't even know that the coordinator of the Consortium was in the transport bubble of this Kantaki ship. And if he did know... Maybe he didn't think Turannen's journey was important.

A barely perceptible vibration made Turannen look up; he noticed that the other passengers in the restaurant did not react until several seconds later. The Kantaki ship had stopped flying through trans-space and returned to normal space. The wide panoramic windows showed distant stars hanging motionless in space, and one of them seemed considerably larger and closer than the others.

"We're here," Amadeus said curtly.

"Get everything ready. I'll join you in a moment."

The man with the weasel-like face nodded, got up, and left the restaurant. No one paid him any attention. Some passengers went to the windows, wondering why the Kantaki ship had stopped in the middle of nowhere.

Turannen calmly finished his meal, then got up and left the room. He walked through the corridors and hallways of the passenger module, encountering confused travelers who kept asking each other why the flight had been interrupted. As he approached the hangar, the corridors were empty. Making sure no one had followed him, Turannen entered the large airlock room that housed the Consortium shuttle. Resting on a quietly humming levitation pad, the small craft looked like a wedge of steel-ceramic and synthomass, equipped with a powerful plasma engine that allowed interplanetary flight at up to eighty percent of the speed of light. Next to the open hatch stood an Akuhashi in a direal. Turannen did not know if it was the same Akuhashi he had made the deal with; to him, these creatures all looked alike.

"In exactly twenty-four hours of your time, the ship will return here," the Akuhashi said. His voice sounded gruff. "If you are not here, we will wait thirty minutes before continuing the flight."

Turannen nodded. "We'll be here."

"It'll be another two hundred thousand transtels for the pickup."

Turannen breathed a sigh of relief without letting it show. He had feared one of the exotic prices the Kantaki sometimes demanded; money was a minor consideration.

"Agreed," he said and took out his identer. The Akuhashi slid it into a scanner, flipped a few switches, then handed the card back. Turannen put it in his pocket and climbed into the shuttle. Behind him, the hatch swung shut, its hermetic seals closing with a soft hiss.

Short Amadeus sat in the co-pilot's seat waiting. Turannen took a seat in front of the main controls and, like his secretary, strapped himself in before activating and quickly checking the shuttle's onboard systems. When the hangar's outer bulkhead opened a few seconds later, he let the small craft ascend and steered it into space.

Dozens of other passenger modules, habitat units, and clusters of containers were inside the transport bubble that the large Kantaki ship had pulled through trans-space. Turannen steered the shuttle past them, knowing that hundreds, perhaps thousands, of passengers would be watching the small ship's flight and considering it the reason for the interruption of their journey. He was not concerned. The shuttle bore no special markings, and most likely the many observers believed that there were pioneers aboard, on their way to an unknown solar system. Pioneers explored new systems, searching for worlds that could be colonized, and they had to deal with all kinds of dangers. If they were successful, first by staying alive and second by finding planets or gas giant moons suitable for colonization, they could earn a lot of money through development contracts and colonization royalties. If not, if they did not find suitable worlds, they would have invested a lot of time and effort in vain, let themselves be picked up by a Kantaki ship, and tried their luck in another unexplored solar system.

The last passenger module remained behind the shuttle; clearly visible were the tethers connected it to the transport bubble, a delicate structure of force fields and monofiber tethers that looked like spider threads. Often the passenger modules and container clusters stuck to the bubble like trapped flies, but sometimes, as in this case, they were inside a complex web of energized cables and wires.

A segment of the transport bubble glowed dimly, and Turannen steered the small craft past it, then accelerated and pulled away from the Kantaki ship.

"Twenty-four hours," he said quietly, keeping an eye on the displays. "Let's hope we're not wasting our time."

Amadeus connected his infonaut to the secondary console. Columns of data scrolled across the displays. "I'm sure we're in the right place. The object is in the Kuiper Belt of this solar system." He pointed to the main screen, to the largest, brightest star among the many others. "System 437/Skalgard 1, uncharted, unexplored. Even pioneers haven't come here yet. An ideal place for an arsenal planet. I'll transfer the course data we found in Valdorian’s database."

A shadow moved in space. The darkness of space camouflaged the black hulk of the Kantaki ship, but as it resumed its flight after interrupting the transit, it slid in front of the stars, and a few seconds later, space seemed to... distort. Turannen felt it more than he saw it: a sensation of emptiness that was immediately filled with something not of this universe - the Kantaki ship had jumped back into trans-space, into a hyper-dimension where it was hurtling toward its distant destination.

Lukert Turannen and Amadeus Storm were alone in the void, light years from the nearest settlements of intelligent beings, beyond the reach of the shuttle.

The navigation system had received the course data and was waiting for confirmation. Turannen touched a button, listened for a few seconds to the dull hum of the plasma engine whose thrust carried the shuttle to the edge of the alien solar system, then asked, "Has the data been erased?"

"Yes. Our experts not only erased it but removed all traces of it from the Consortium's data servers. Only my infonaut's memory module contains the coordinates."

Turannen nodded in satisfaction. Whatever awaited them in the Kuiper Belt of System 437/Skalgard 1, Enbert Dokkar would never know.

Ten minutes later, the navigation system issued a contact alert, and symbolic representations of the first objects in the Kuiper Belt appeared on the locator screen, most of them chunks of ice that dated back to the origin of this solar system and might one day become comets. Turannen knew he could rely on the navigation system - its artificial intelligence guided the shuttle safely through the cosmic debris field. After another fifteen minutes, the probes picked up a planetoid: their destination.

"Cordoban was a very cautious man," said Turannen. "I'm sure no one would be looking for a hidden Consortium arsenal here."

He wasn't expecting an answer, so he was surprised when Amadeus replied, "Maybe he's still alive."

Turannen looked at his secretary for a moment, then back at the displays. It was probably because they were both alone out here; usually Amadeus was very passive around him.

"No, he's dead, I'm sure. Otherwise we would have heard from him."

But, Turannen had to admit, a residue of uncertainty remained, and unfortunately the same was true for Valdorian. He had taken his place - if not as Primus inter Pares, then as coordinator of the Consortium - and he was living in his villa on Tintiran, which Judith was in the process of furnishing according to her wishes, but what might happen if Valdorian ever reappeared? This worry clouded Turannen's triumph a bit, even though he kept telling himself that it was completely unfounded. If Valdorian had indeed somehow survived and was foolish enough to return to the stage of interstellar events, he would be tried by Enbert Dokkar and his own son Benjamin. Turannen told himself once again that it was completely absurd to worry. On the contrary, he was preparing to increase his own power - his own strategic options - considerably, to profit from Cordoban's foresight, and to once again seize something that had belonged to Valdorian.

Turannen allowed himself a smile and looked at the chrono servo display. Amazing: He had said goodbye to Judith on Tintiran in the Mirlur system, more than four hundred light years away, only four hours ago, immediately after finding the coordinates. Sometimes it took Kantaki ships days or even weeks to cover such distances, sometimes only minutes or hours. Supposedly, it depended on the particular thread the pilot connected the ship to in order to get it to its destination. For Turannen, this was a fortunate coincidence.

It bought him valuable time, and time, he realized, was becoming increasingly important in his efforts to maintain his position against Dokkar.

Eternal darkness reigned in the Kuiper Belt of this solar system; the faint light from the distant star 437/Skalgard 1 was far from sufficient to visually identify objects in space. But the probe signals from the sensors provided an accurate location of all nearby and distant cosmic bodies, and the images on the large and small displays kept changing, showing raw data or electronically processed representations of comets and asteroids. The nameless planetoid was at the center of the system that the navigation system projected onto the main display.

"The data is exactly the same as in the coordinate files," Amadeus said, and Turannen thought he heard relief in his secretary's voice. Perhaps some residual doubt about the authenticity and reliability of the files had plagued him as well. "This is the first Arsenal planet," he said.

"An arsenal planetoid," Turannen murmured, reading the data off the screen. "Two thousand four hundred and twenty-five feet in diameter; the moons of some gas giants are larger. No atmosphere, just frozen nitrogen and methane ice on the surface. Not a very comfortable place."

Amadeus was silent, comparing data and watching the screens as the shuttle approached the planetoid.

During the final phase of the approach, Turannen remained calm on the outside, but excitement tingled deep within. The discovery of the arsenal planets, or rather this first arsenal planetoid, meant a great deal to him, and not just in military terms. If the three arsenals that Cordoban had created with the sleepers, the genetically modified soldiers in stasis, really did what they promised, he would no longer have to feel inferior to Dokkar and Benjamin and would be able to plan much better.

The navigation system steered the small craft into a low orbit, and the screens showed the rugged, cratered surface of the planetoid. Here and there, bright accumulations of ice were visible.

"We're almost there," Amadeus said, and a second later, as if to confirm his words, a coordinate array flashed. The hum of the engine changed as the speed dropped and the levitators kicked in to compensate for the low gravity. The shuttle descended and flew through a dark canyon that ended after several miles in front of a steep cliff.

There, the small craft hovered on secure levitation pads, like a steel insect waiting to enter.

Turannen activated the controls, and the light from the searchlights scanned the cliff face, making the ice glisten and creating a sharp contrast between light and dark, making the shadows seem even blacker.

"Nothing to see," he said softly. "The camouflage is perfect. Or..." He hesitated for a moment. "Or there is nothing here. All right, Amadeus. Send the signals."

The small man leaned forward and touched a panel on the infonaut that was connected to the ship's systems. The communications displays confirmed that signals were being sent, at a low frequency, and several seconds followed that seemed to stretch into minutes.

Then an indicator flashed and the main screen showed an opening forming in the rock face. The camouflaged outer bulkhead of a hangar swung open, like the mouth of a giant, and lights glowed where there had been darkness.

Turannen felt his tension dissipate, giving way to great joy. The data they had found on Valdorian's servers was authentic. They had reached their destination.

He deactivated the navigation system and steered the small ship into the hangar. As it touched the ground, the outer bulkhead closed and automatic systems opened valves. Air poured into the large room, inaudibly at first, then with a louder hiss as the thickening atmosphere carried sound.

Amadeus pointed to the columns of data scrolling at high speed across a display. "The control systems here recognize our full authority. I have requested a status report and..." He interrupted himself and adjusted a small communication module on his ear. "Fifty thousand," he said. "There are fifty thousand sleepers on this planetoid alone."

Turannen unbuckled his safety harness and stood up. "Come. Let's take a closer look."

A few seconds later, they were standing outside the shuttle in the silent hangar. The hissing had stopped; the air pressure was normal. However, the temperature was quite low, and Lukert Turannen shivered despite the jacket he had put on. He noticed that, despite the planetoid's relatively small mass, he did not feel any lighter than usual; apparently there were artificial gravity fields here. On the opposite wall was a hermetically sealed door, and Turannen walked towards it with long, purposeful strides. Amadeus followed, almost having to run; he held the infonaut with both hands. He flicked the controls, and a low hum sounded, accompanied by a muffled hiss that sounded like an angry cat. The seals opened and the segments of the door slid apart.

Behind it, the lights came on in a long corridor.

"There are dozens of security systems here," Amadeus explained as they walked down the hall. He pointed to the display on his infonaut. "I've disabled them all."

"What's the general status?"

"Ready, Primus. Of the fifty thousand sleepers in this arsenal, forty-nine thousand nine hundred and ninety-eight can be awakened within thirty minutes. In two stasis units, the monitoring server reports a malfunction. The failure rate is thus extremely low. Only two soldiers cannot be revived."

"And the systems?"

Amadeus understood what Turannen meant. "The Power here can be deployed within six hours." They reached an intersection, and after a quick glance at the infonaut's display, Amadeus pointed left. "That way."

After about thirty-two feet, another door opened in front of them, and beyond it was not a corridor but a steel walkway with high railings on either side. At a height of more than three hundred and thirty feet, it led through a hall that had once been a natural cave of the planetoid that had been enlarged. Dull light emanated from long strip lights. Below Turannen, dozens of military starships lined up: the gray Tiger-class giants, nearly three hundred feet long and oval in shape; next to them were the medium-sized Panther-class fighters, delta-shaped and two hundred feet long, and numerous Wolf-class battle shuttles, sixty-five feet long and wedge-shaped like the small ship that had brought Turannen and Amadeus to the planetoid.

Halfway through the cavern, Turannen stopped, grabbed the railing, and let his eyes wander. "How many ships are there in all?"

"This arsenal contains one hundred Tiger units, one hundred and eighty Panther units, and four hundred Wolf units."

"As brilliant as Cordoban may have been," the astonished Turannen muttered. "He made a mistake. With the military potential of the three arsenal planets, he could have won the war against the Alliance."

Down in the walls, he noticed the dark openings of tunnels, no doubt designed to get ships into space quickly. For a few seconds, he thought about how much money it had cost to develop and build the arsenals, and how Cordoban and Valdorian had managed to keep the project secret from the Consortium Consistory. A formidable force, absolutely reliable and loyal... And then there was the equally secret and perhaps even more ambitious Double-M project on Kerberos. Human power. Or should it have been Valdorian power? Turannen shivered even more when he imagined the power Valdorian the Nineteenth would have gained if his plans had succeeded. He would have become a kind of galactic emperor, even capable of controlling faster-than-light Kantaki space travel with the help of genetically programmed metamorphic specimens. Who could have stood in his way?

But the Consortium's assault fleet had suffered a devastating defeat at Kabaea in the Alliance's Epsilon Eridani system. Cordoban and Valdorian were missing, presumed dead. And I am their heir, Lukert Turannen thought, not without awe. A unique opportunity lay before him, and he knew he could not make a mistake if he wanted to seize it.

The first cavern was followed by another corridor, and then a second cavern, as large as the first, also lit by luminous strips. But it was not used to house spaceships.

Nor was it completely silent.

Life-support systems hummed quietly, whispering of deep sleep. Semi-transparent rectangular containers lined up, like cocoons with contents waiting to hatch. Shapes stood out in the stasis units, vague and anonymous, soldiers created by genetic specialists, the creators, without fear or morality.

Turannen walked slowly across the catwalk, barely aware of the cold. Amadeus followed, silent now, but occasionally the infonaut's controls clicked under his fingers. Like umbilical cords, thick cables connected the rows of fifty stasis units to the life-support systems, and the arsenal's data servers monitored the sleepers' bio-functions with unwavering electronic patience. Fifty thousand, Turannen remembered. And only two of them will not revive. The feeling of power tingled like static electricity on the coordinator's skin, a very special itch that filled him with pleasant excitement.

"The control center," he said softly. "Let's go to the control center and get the local systems under our control for good. We have to change the access sequences."

"That should be easy," Amadeus replied. Wrinkles appeared briefly on the forehead of the weasel-like face, then disappeared.

"Is something wrong?"

Turannen's secretary looked at the screen. "It's probably nothing. Most likely just a power fluctuation. Certainly not uncommon in such complex systems."

They walked across the steel walkway to the other side of the great cavern, and Turannen's eyes slid around, driven by the restlessness inside him. Indicators glowed on the stasis units, showing the status of the sleepers. The hum of the life-support systems seemed to swell and subside, like a collective breath. In his mind, Turannen had already begun to discard old plans, develop new ones, and process the surprising events of the past few days and hours into new strategies.

They left the cave with the sleepers and walked through simple corridors, following the path shown on the infonaut's display. After about ten minutes, they reached a wide door made up of several interlocking segments. They immediately slid aside when Amadeus sent a signal through the infonaut, and behind it was a brightly lit circular room, the nerve center of the arsenal. Numerous simulated displays on the curved walls showed the many rooms and caverns inside the planetoid: Caverns with starships, equipment, weapons, combat suits, stores of provisions; sleeper areas with stasis tanks; rooms with installations, generators, data servers, small laboratories, equipped with the bare essentials.

Turannen had been walking slowly, looking at the displays, but after a few feet he stopped abruptly, faced with a question he should have asked himself immediately. He spoke it aloud.

"Why are these systems active?"

And he got an answer.

"Because I turned them on."

Further ahead, two chairs turned at the consoles. In one sat Enbert Dokkar, in the other Benjamin Valdorian.

Outside of Time

The sun burning mercilessly in the sky seemed familiar to Valdorian, as did the endless desert that stretched around him. A narrow path led through the wasteland, shrinking behind him as he took a step forward. Further ahead, not more than a stone's throw away, he saw a black door, like a rectangular hole in the air. Its threshold, he knew, separated life from death. He had been here before, in this place, wherever it might be. Here he had met his father, who had asked him to go through the door and face death.

This time it was not his father who stood in the doorway, but his secretary, Jonathan, his eyes wide open, speechless and frozen.

"Jonathan?" Valdorian uttered.

"He can't hear you," a voice rang out. It sounded strange, like an odd mixture of softness and scratchiness.

At the edge of the path stood a humanoid creature whose skin - or clothing - was made of silvery, overlapping scales that crackled softly with every movement. Its long, double-jointed arms ended in hands that had no fingers, but rather small tentacles. The thin, gnarled neck carried a head that looked like a pyramid standing on end. Strange wrinkled patterns surrounded a slit in the nose and the thin line of a mouth. The large eyes on the face were pitch black, and the light of the blazing sun glittered in them.

Valdorian remembered the creature. He had seen it once before, in the End Times Temple on Kabaea, inside the Anomaly.

A temporal. An enemy from the Time War.

He lowered his gaze. A semi-transparent crystalline wedge rested in his hand, about four inches long and two inches in diameter at its thickest point. The... time key.

"My name is Agorax," the being said. "I am willing to help you. If you help me."

Jonathan still stared, caught in a moment of timelessness.

"How can...I understand you?" blurted out Valdorian. "I have no linguator. And...what does it all mean?"

The encounter with Lidia, her refusal to help him, the anger, the hatred for the Kantaki, who were to blame for everything... It all came back to him, a thunderous avalanche of memories and emotions that threatened to obliterate his consciousness. He staggered, barely staying on his feet, realizing with painful clarity that he was still between life and death, neither completely on one side nor the other.

Agorax seemed to be guessing his thoughts. Or maybe he was reading them. "We are outside normal time here," the temporal said. "Here you do not age. One or two of your seconds would be enough for you to die."

Die ... And Lidia, under her new name "Diamond", pilot for the Kantaki, was alive and young. Lidia, who had refused him, had betrayed him. Anger boiled inside him. How he would have liked to take revenge on her...

"You are... an enemy," Valdorian said, thinking of the Thousand Year Time War.

"I helped you, on Kabaea. And I can help you now. What do you want most?"

Valdorian blinked in the glare of the sun, and the heat made every breath agonizing. He was thirsty and felt so weak that he feared he would not be able to stay on his feet much longer.

"You are thirsty," Agorax said, and there was a brief flash in his large black eyes. "Drink."

He raised his hand, and between the thin tentacles of his fingers appeared a vessel filled with water. Valdorian took it, and after drinking greedily, the vessel dissolved. It shattered into hundreds of small fragments that sparkled briefly and then disappeared.

"I can give you what you want," the temporal said.

"And what... do you want in return?"

"Your soul?" replied Agorax. It didn't sound like an answer, more like a question.

"What is this, a pact with the devil?" asked Valdorian with the mockery of a dying man.

There was a faint crackle as the temporal raised his arm and made a gesture that Valdorian did not understand. "Without me, you would already be this." Someone was lying on the ground in front of the staring Jonathan. Valdorian saw himself as he had seen himself a short time ago - time... - in the mirror's reflecting crystals: the sunken, hollow-cheeked face a grimace, the skin wrinkled and shriveled. An old man. A dead man. Valdorian watched as the desiccation turned him into a mummy, preserving a horribly distorted image of himself.

"Without my help, you would be dead," Agorax said. "And believe me, the rest of the universe wouldn't care. You would be dead and Lidia would be alive."

"I... don't... want... to die..."

"The Kantaki wouldn't give you time, would they?" the temporal continued. "Accept it from me. I'll give you your life back."

He pointed to the mummified corpse, which immediately began to change. The wrinkled skin smoothed. Flesh returned to the bones. After a few seconds - seconds... - the other Valdorian stood up, and the old man became a man of about forty, his hair thick, his eyes burning with vitality. This was how Valdorian had looked when he had become his father's successor. Young, full of strength, a long life ahead of him...

"Recursive time," Agorax said. "Do you remember? You wondered where you heard that term. It comes from my whisper."

"From your ... whisper?"

"Yes. I called you here." Another gesture and the crystal wedge in Valdorian's hand glowed brighter, and seemed to compete with the blazing sun.

"Why?" Valdorian wavered. He felt himself growing heavier, and his weak legs could barely support the increasing weight.

"I will help you," said the temporal. "I will give you recursive time and use it to rejuvenate your body. I will give you back your lost life. I will give you the opportunity for revenge." Agorax's voice grew more insistent. "That's what you want, isn't it? To take revenge. On the Kantaki. And on Lidia too?"

Revenge, Valdorian thought. A sweet word, full of promise. Almost as sweet and tempting as the word life itself. To get both...

"I will help you," Agorax repeated. "And in return, you will help me!"

These words were not sweet. Valdorian thought he heard a certain sharpness in them, even a... threat?

"What... do you expect me to do?" asked Valdorian in a cracked voice. He is the enemy, warned the last vestige of rationality in him. But the remaining part of his self screamed, Death is my enemy!

"What you see here is little more than a... projection." Agorax pointed at himself. "Under normal circumstances, I have no direct influence on your world. Since the end of the Time War, we have been trapped in the Void. That is why I need you. You have power in your world. You can make things happen. I'll take you to ..." The temporal hesitated for a moment, his gaze drifting off into the distance, beyond the horizon of the desert. "To one of your arsenal planets. From there you will make your way to Kerberos..."

From one moment to the next, Valdorian felt filled with wild hope. Time, a new life! Everything else was secondary. All other problems could be solved somehow, with time. But an alliance with the temporals, the enemy from the Time War? So what? If he lived and regained his power... Surely there were new possibilities.

"Yes!" he moaned, staggering again. "Yes, give me life! I want to live!"

"Then take my hand."

Agorax raised his arm, and Valdorian took it. The tentacles moved like fingers, and a strange tingling came from them, the tingling of life.

The merciless sun in the sky, the firmament itself, the endless desert... everything dissolved, just as it had before the vessel with the water, the world shattered into countless fragments, like the glass of a mirror that someone had shattered.

Valdorian found himself in a sphere of millions or billions of places, each one appearing as a kind of window on the curved inner walls of the sphere. An alien sight, and yet familiar in a strange way. He had been in such a sphere on Kabaea, inside the anomaly, just before returning to normal space-time. Each window was a path, a tunnel through time and space, and a certain object served as a key.

He lowered his gaze. The crystal wedge in his hand had begun to glow, responding to the sphere.

Someone groaned. "I can't take it anymore..."

Valdorian turned to see Jonathan. His secretary's pale face showed pain - for some reason, the inside of the anomalies affected him more. But ... were they in an anomaly here? Where or when was this here?

Jonathan's eyes snapped open. "Primus, you..."

Valdorian felt it, and a glance at his hands confirmed the feeling: Most of the wrinkles were gone. His fingers ran over his cheeks and neck; the skin felt smooth.

He no longer felt weak.

"You made a pact with the temporal!" said Jonathan in horror.

"He gave me new life." Valdorian looked around as if searching for a mirror that did not exist in the sphere. "He... rejuvenated my body with recursive time. I am myself. I am whole. And I am young again." He turned back to his secretary. "How old do you think I am?"

"The temporals." Jonathan could hardly believe it. "The enemies of the Temporal War. Have you forgotten what the temporals did back then?"

"That was then," Valdorian said quietly, enjoying the power that flowed through him. Death had been defeated, outwitted, outfoxed. "This is now. How old do you think I am?"

"You look about...forty?"

A hundred years younger, Valdorian thought euphorically.

The crystal wedge in his hand glowed a little brighter.

"I saw you face the temporal," Jonathan forced out. "In the... desert. But I didn't hear anything."

"He spoke to me, sort of," Valdorian recalled. "And yes, we made a pact."

"Primus..."

"Would you like to see your children again?" It was all there again: his memories, with the clarity of renewed vitality. "Axil and Ivrea?"

Hope appeared on Jonathan Fentur's face. "Do you think it's possible? The war between the Consortium and the Alliance... Enbert Dokkar should have won by now." The glimmer of hope faded again. "And you were deposed as Primus inter Pares. They've appointed Lukert Turannen as coordinator of the Consortium. They are looking for you, and when they find you, they will hand you over to Dokkar."

"Enbert Dokkar may think he's the victor, but he may be mistaken," Valdorian said.

"The Arsenal planets?"

Valdorian smiled. "Yes. And I don't think it's that hard to get to one of them." He lifted the crystal wedge, and immediately a finger of light grew out of it, scanning the innumerable windows in the sphere's walls before finally pausing on one.

The image zoomed in, pushing the others aside and raced toward the two men, pulling them in.

The Whisper of the Past

15 APRIL 421 SN, 10:48

Kerberos

The sub's engines hummed, and Constantine Alexander Stokkart, autocrat of Kerberos, looked at the large pseudo-realistic display behind the console. It actually acted as a window, allowing him to see into the Reef Sea. There was perpetual darkness at these depths, a cold night in which the only light was artificial or bioluminescent. The cones of the searchlights pierced the darkness, revealing thin clouds of organic matter, dead organisms or parts of them, sinking to the bottom from the higher layers of the sea and serving as food for deep-sea life. Sometimes very exotic looking creatures would appear in the area that the searchlights plucked from the darkness, most of them without discernible eyes, which they didn't need in this world anyway. Stokkart watched the strange creatures without consciously noticing them. He thought about what awaited him on the two-mile-deep seabed, while keeping an eye on the instrument readings. The steep continental shelf had also disappeared into the darkness, and there were currently no visual landmarks to determine the course. But the navigation system knew where the target was, and it guided the submersible safely there.

Stokkart leaned over to the console and flipped several switches, causing the display mode of the "window" to change. The submersible's sensors now received their data from a special sonar system for which light and darkness were irrelevant. Active and passive sound waves penetrated the darkness of the deep sea, reflecting here, propagating there, even reporting on the composition of the things they touched. From this information, the data server calculated an image of the surroundings that could be perceived by the human eye within fractions of a second.

It was as if someone had turned on a light deep down in the Reef Sea.

The seafloor, still nearly a mile below the submersible, proved to be an astonishingly diverse landscape of canyons large and small, hills, depressions, and vast plains. Small, undifferentiated shadows glided here and there: inhabitants of the deep sea. Stokkart paid no attention to them. Instead, his attention was focused on the buildings of the base at the bottom of the sea, the three domes of different sizes that made up the upper part of the station. The sonar even picked up the lamps, and the data server incorporated their glow into the three-dimensional display.

As the ship approached within nine hundred and eighty feet of the base, an indicator on the console flashed, and Stokkart pressed a button that sent a series of signals indicating his status: full authority. The indicator's red flashing turned to a steady green glow.

Stokkart moved the wheel and steered the ship toward the largest of the three armored domes. He compared the approach to a shuttle in space approaching a larger ship or space station - the vacuum of space was as deadly as the enormous water pressure in the depths of the sea. The outer bulkhead of an airlock opened in the dome wall, just above the sea floor, and Stokkart carefully steered the submersible through the opening, set it down on the magnetic anchor in the floor of the airlock room, and waited while the outer bulkhead closed again and pumps returned the water to the sea.

The automatic safety harness released the autocrat. Stokkart stood, turned the temperature knob on his black thermal suit, and checked the instrument belt one last time before opening the hatch and exiting the submersible.

The floor of the airlock room was still damp, and the water had left the typical smell of the sea. But there was something else. Stokkart sniffed briefly, suspecting it was his imagination, but he thought he smelled something mysterious. He stepped through the inner door, past a thick wall of steel ceramics that could withstand the enormous pressure of the water at that depth, and on the other side, in a simple instrument room, Professor Ulgar was waiting for him, looking a little nervous as usual. His eyes darted over the pockets of his thermal suit and instrument belt, but Stokkart shook his head.

"I'm afraid I must disappoint you, Professor. I haven't brought a new dose. You've been taking too much of it lately."

The exoarchaeologist Ulgar was about sixty, shorter than Stokkart and slender, but he had a spongy, bloated face, the left half of which remained strangely rigid, almost dead. Stokkart knew this was a sign of regular use of Tranquilo, and sometimes he wondered what inner demon Ulgar was trying to appease with this Kerberos drug. But such personal matters were of no interest to him. All that mattered to him was that Ulgar did a good job and that he could rely on him. More or less regular, but not too frequent, deliveries of Tranquilo helped him to guarantee the professor's loyalty.

Stokkart gestured to the waiting elevator car. "Let's see what progress you've made."

Ulgar hesitated and seemed to want to say something, but then changed his mind and entered the car. The Autocrat followed him, knowing how to interpret the professor's body language: it indicated disappointment.

"I'll bring you something next time," he promised.

"It's not just that." Ulgar turned to the control panel and pressed a button. The door slid shut and the elevator car began to move, sinking below the ocean floor. "We haven't gotten anywhere."

"Not at all?" asked Stokkart, his turn to be disappointed.

"At least not in terms of accessing the inside of the artifact."

For a few seconds, the two men were silent, and the low hum of the elevator seemed to swell, trying to fill the silence. Then the car stopped and the door opened. Stokkart knew they were now more than sixty-five feet below the ocean floor.

Ulgar led the way, and the autocrat followed him down a corridor whose walls were made of steel-ceramic and synthomass. Along the way, they encountered some "workers": artificial creatures designed by NHD designers and created from base mass in NHD laboratories. They were experimental hybrids that could also live in water and take in oxygen with gill-like breathing tools, easily withstanding the pressure at a depth of nine thousand eight hundred feet. They looked like dwarves trying to compensate for their small size by being wider. A short but very flexible neck connected the forward tapering head to a muscular torso with several bio-servers in visible places. To Stokkart, the creatures looked like a cross between apes and dolphins, but there were other features that did not fit the mix, such as the skin, which was made of tiny horn plates and was more reminiscent of that of snakes.

The semi-intelligent workers moved aside, growling softly and staggering along on short legs as Ulgar and Stokkart passed.

A short time later, the autocrat and the professor reached the room with the artifact.

"Where are the others?" asked Stokkart when he saw that no one else was around. Besides Ulgar, six other scientists were working on the secret project under the professor's direction, each responsible for a different area.

"Rupert and Diana are analyzing the latest sonar data," Ulgar replied. "This time we used micronauts, which can easily penetrate the sedimentary rock without affecting its stability. The data they collect should give us a more accurate idea of the shape and size of the artifact. Frilor and the others are resting. Their work cycle will begin in..." The professor glanced briefly at a clock. "...two hours."

Stokkart turned to the artifact.

It protruded, only partially exposed, from the back wall of the room that the drills had dug out of the sediments the same way they had dug out the access tunnels and elevator shafts: a gently curved surface, golden yellow in color and so smooth that not even dust clung to it. Stokkart stepped closer and touched the yellow substance, of which they knew only one thing: it was not metal.

He frowned. "Am I wrong, or does this actually feel warmer?"

"I am surprised that you can tell the difference," Ulgar replied. "It is indeed only zero point eight degrees. Yes, you're right. The rise in temperature started about twelve hours ago."

"Something is going on inside that thing."

"Maybe. Maybe not. We can't be sure that the temperature rise is due to some kind of activity inside the artifact. It's possible that external factors are responsible."

Stokkart nodded and lowered his hand, but his gaze remained fixed on the golden surface. Not metal, and yet...

"You couldn't penetrate the outer layer?" he asked after a few seconds.

"No," the professor's voice sounded behind him. "We've tried everything, various drills, acids, concentrated energy beams, and even explosives that focus explosions and shock waves. The result: not even a scratch on the material."

Ulgar stepped beside the autocrat, and Stokkart turned his head, looking sideways at him, watching one half of his face change while the other remained frozen. He thought he saw something like reverence.

"Do you know how old these sediments are?" The professor pointed to the rest of the room's walls, ceiling, and floor. "About twenty million years. This area was once on the surface and subsided at about the same time that today's Pillion Mountains rose from the bottom of a primordial sea and took their present form. Gradually, sediments were deposited and the ship was buried by them. Twenty million years! And it's still intact!"

"Can we be sure it's a spaceship?" asked Stokkart, his eyes still fixed on the golden glow.

"I don't know what else it could be. The object is not of this world - no such substance is known to us, and we haven't found it anywhere else on Kerberos." Ulgar tapped on the golden material, and a strange clack sounded. "When we drilled around it, we found that the artifact is in the shape of a star; so I don't think it's a building or anything like that. A ship, I'm sure. Twenty million years old and still intact."

"We know nothing of the conditions inside it," Stokkart said, though deep down he shared the professor's excitement. Twenty million years ago, humanity had not existed any more than any other intelligent species in the known part of the Milky Way, except perhaps the Kantaki - the La-Kimesh had died out two million years earlier, according to exoarchaeologists. As far as was known, only the Kantaki and the Horgh had the means for faster-than-light space travel. The Xurr had traveled interstellar distances in organic spaceships, also faster than light, but they had been gone for over ten thousand years. But here it was not a matter of decades, but of millions of years, a time unimaginable to the human imagination. And the ship - this alien spacecraft, made of some unknown, impenetrable substance - actually seemed to be intact, after twenty thousand times a thousand years.

"All we know is that it is hollow, nothing more," Ulgar confirmed. "But if twenty million years and our efforts have not left the slightest trace on the outer shell, I assume that everything inside the protected interior is as it was then."

"There must be some way to get inside."

"I think so too. But it's a question of means. It might take the energy of a nuclear explosion to penetrate the material. Not to mention the risk of damaging something inside the ship: If we used more energy than we have so far, there might be telltale emissions detected above. And this project is supposed to be secret, isn't it?"

"Absolutely, my dear professor, absolutely." Stokkart turned when he heard voices. Rupert Hopkins and Diana Dankert entered the room with the artifact. The two scientists, only in their early thirties, hoped for fame and fortune from the project. The Autocrat paid them as generously as the others; he could afford it. But they had to wait a little longer for fame.

"We found what we were looking for," Hopkins said, raising a small memory module. "We've analyzed the data from the micronauts and discovered two important things."

"Let's go to the server room." Ulgar immediately began to move, and the others followed, including Stokkart.

The server room was also a room dug out of the sedimentary rock, equipped with improvised connections and wiring. There was little point in doing anything else, as the excavation of the seabed was ongoing, and the server room - or rather its contents - were constantly being moved. The cold light seemed to lower the temperature even further, and Stokkart pressed the controls on his black thermal suit. The two young scientists and the professor wore thick trousers and jackets.

Hopkins took a seat at a console and slid the memory module into a scanner. In the center of the room, between Stokkart and Ulgar, a pseudo-real display flickered.

"The micronauts have determined the shape and size of the artifact," the young man said. "Unfortunately, even they were unable to penetrate the outer shell."

A golden star appeared in the projection field and rotated slowly. Stokkart studied it with interest, immediately noticing certain details. He also noticed that Hopkins continued to speak of an "artifact," not a "ship."

"The central sphere measures one thousand three hundred and eighty-one feet in diameter, and there are a total of seventeen outwardly tapering spikes emanating from it, each one thousand and twelve feet long," Hopkins said. "This is the spot we saw earlier in the other room."

A pointer flashed on one of the star spines, and Stokkart oriented himself - most of the artifact extended to his right, to the north. And it extended much farther into the depths than they had previously thought.

Hopkins half turned around. "We think we found something like a door or hatch, and it's here." He pressed a button and the gold star in the projection field swelled. The electronic zoom focused on the central sphere, and another pointer flashed on its lower half.

"Excellent," Ulgar beamed. "We may be able to find a way into the ship after all."

"If it is a ship," Diana Dankert replied.

"Of course it is, no doubt." Ulgar leaned forward. "How deep is that hatch?"

"More than three thousand feet. A lot of work for our drills."

"And for us," Ulgar added. "But if it really is a door through which we can enter the ship, it will be worth the effort." He looked at Hopkins questioningly. "You mentioned two significant discoveries."

Rupert and Diana exchanged a silent look and smiled knowingly.

"I believe the second is even more important than the first. Until now we assumed there was only one artifact, but apparently there are more." The young man's fingers darted over the keys and the golden star shrank. The seventeen long spikes returned to the projection field and seemed to grow shorter and thinner....

And below the star appeared what looked like a complex of buildings: individual terraces, staggered and twisted against each other, growing wider and longer toward the bottom. It looked as if someone had wedged several step pyramids together.

"A second artifact," breathed the exoarchaeologist Ulgar, impressed. "It must be as old as the first one, because it's stuck in the same sediments."

"It's bigger than the gold star," said Hopkins. "Over ten thousand feet high and twice as wide." He turned away from the console and looked at his three listeners in turn. "And it's made of a less solid material, as the micronauts discovered. We can get inside."

Twilights

15 APRIL 421 SN, 18:45

Kerberos

Rubens Lorgard looked at the screen and saw more than the display showed. He was not just looking at formulas and the patterns of lines of genetic sequences, but at the beginning of an immensely complex work of art. He was designing new life, adaptable, resilient and versatile, endowed with special abilities and senses far beyond the range of human perception. Lorgard was preparing to become a father again, in his own special way, and perhaps even a... true creator. Buttons clicked, sensor fields confirmed contacts with a soft buzz, and the images on the large display changed as individual elements were altered. Lorgard felt not only excitement, but the deep satisfaction of an artist who sees what existed in his mind being brought into form.

Behind him, there was a faint beeping. Lorgard looked up, stunned to see that it was already early evening. Beyond the wide windows of his top-floor apartment on the twentieth floor of a high-rise in the autarch, sovereign, and magnate district of Chiron, the first lights of the city and the bridges and walkways between the many islands of the Delta were shining. He had worked all afternoon on the design of an improved metamorph, though there were dozens of administrative matters that needed his attention. Vague feelings of guilt stirred within Lorgard, but he resolutely pushed them aside and tried to hold on to his deep satisfaction.

He turned his head.

Small creatures moved behind him, emerging from the dimness of the other rooms, scurrying across the floor and walls, even crawling across the ceiling, searching for bugs, dirt, and contaminants. These were adlats whose stomachs had three separate chambers. The first served as a decontamination center and could handle most toxins, even in high concentrations. The second broke down all ingested substances in an acid bath, stripping them of usable nutrients. The third was a miniaturized biological reactor that converted feces into oxygen and aromatics - the adlats not only kept the place clean but also provided fresh air.

Rubens Lorgard watched the chirping creatures fondly, for they too were his children. The differently shaped creatures now sought close physical contact with each other; as a result, their structure changed and they grew together into a new collective creature. Many small adlats became one multi-purpose adlat, about five feet tall, standing on three crooked, rubbery, flexible legs, with skin like thick old leather - it needed no clothes. The two large eyes in the wrinkled face provided good spatial vision, and the nose was designed to detect dirt particles and toxic substances. The standard programming of the formation matrix gave the adlats a rudimentary intelligence. Creatures of this type were quite expensive, but they enjoyed great popularity among the wealthy autarks, sovereigns, and magnates of many worlds, and were among the best sellers of New Human Design.

"Finished am," said the adlat.

Lorgard stood up. "Good, you can visit the rest center."

The adlat turned and staggered away on its three legs. Lorgard heard the front door open and close. The rest center was in the lowest basement of the dwelling, with several rooms reserved for the mobile bio-servos, where they were maintained and rested by subaltern bio-engineers. He wondered briefly if adlats and the other creatures created in the NHD labs dreamed, too. And if they did... what did the metamorph dream about?

There was silence, a silence in which only the low hum of the data server could be heard. The display still showed complex genetic patterns, tantalizing in their biological aesthetics. Lorgard turned away and walked to the kitchen, trying to force himself to eat something - he knew his body needed nutrients to keep functioning, to keep his brain working. But as he stood in the small kitchen, surrounded by a dim semi-darkness, looking at the syntho machines that could prepare even complex dishes in a matter of minutes, the sound of the doorbell prevented him from activating the control panel and choosing something to eat.

"Who is it?" he asked, and the apartment servo relayed his voice to the door's monitoring servo.

"Edwald Emmerson," a familiar voice came from the speaker.

"Identity confirmed," the synthetic voice of the surveillance servo added.

"Come in."

A few seconds passed, and then footsteps approached.

"Director?"

Lorgard looked at the short, lanky man with the thinning hair in surprise. "What brings you here?"

"I tried to reach you several times this afternoon, Director," Edwald Emmerson replied gravely.

"I've been here all along." Lorgard frowned, then turned and returned to the large study. Outside it had grown dark - here in the tropical area of Kerberos, the transition from day to night did not take long - and the lights of the city had multiplied. The glow of the two moons gave the brown waters of the Acheron a silver hue.

At the desk, Lorgard glanced at the readouts from the communications servo.

"Oh, I'm sorry about that," he said with genuine regret. "I deactivated the communication servo because I didn't want to be disturbed."

"About the incident last night..." Emmerson said. "It wasn't an accident, it was an attack."

"What?" escaped Lorgard. For a few seconds he stared wide-eyed at his security chief, then gestured to the table by the corner window. "Let's sit over there."

The two men sat down, and Edwald Emmerson gave an update on the situation.

"Someone wanted the metamorph to escape," the security chief summarized after giving the details. "And he programmed it to kill numerous targets, including you and me."

"But who?" muttered Lorgard, stunned. "And why?"

"That's what I'm trying to find out," Emmerson said. "And in that regard, a problem has arisen. Tomorrow at about fifteen hundred hours, Special Envoy Lutor, sent by Global Director Lukert Turannen, will arrive in Chiron. Apparently he comes with special powers, and he seems to be a decidedly unpleasant fellow." When Lorgard didn't respond, Emmerson added, "Turannen is putting someone in front of both of us.

Lorgard leaned back, finding it difficult to organize his thoughts. His creature, his work... Someone had manipulated it, for mysterious reasons, even giving it the genetic command to kill its own creator.

Lorgard's eyes slid to the windows and then to the lights of the city. The metamorph was out there somewhere, following its basic program, staying hidden and growing until it was ready. Suddenly, the director was no longer thinking of a prodigal son, but of a ticking time bomb that no one could defuse and that would explode sooner or later.

"And you don't like it," he said, finally looking back at Emmerson, who had been waiting patiently.

"Do you like it?"

Lorgard stood up, turned around, walked to the nearest window and stared out into the night. He felt the need to be alone, to think things over in peace, to bring order to the chaos in his head, but he knew he couldn't just send Emmerson away in this situation. He felt that he was losing more and more control over his life, no longer acting with purpose, but merely reacting to the things that were happening around him. In a burst of poetry, he likened himself to a withered leaf hanging on the branch of a tree, knowing it would be blown away by the next gust of wind; and on the horizon, the dark clouds of a storm were gathering....

"No one is put before me, Edwald," he said. "I am the Planetary Director of New Human Design on Kerberos, and no special envoy can take away that authority until I am officially removed from office. This Lutor..."

"That's the only name he mentioned."

"Turannen may have given him broad investigative powers, but the fate of the NHD on Kerberos is still decided by the director." Lorgard still gazed into the night, this time oblivious to the many lights of the megacity. He looked to where the Reef Sea and the sky met in the glow of the two moons, and the dull glow there seemed to want to whisper something to him. An idea began to form in his mind, and he didn't make the mistake of concentrating on it, giving it time to germinate in his subconscious.

"I have been the head of NHD security on this planet for many years," Emmerson said, "and I always try to do the best job I can. Whatever this Lutor is authorized to do, he doesn't know the conditions here as well as I do. I don't want to be told what to do by someone like that."

"He's really unpleasant in your eyes, isn't he? Even after a short communication."

"I've learned to judge people in a short time - it comes with my job - and I'm rarely wrong. Lutor is a hunter. He will hunt the metamorph because he enjoys it. He will do anything to hunt the metamorph. Your creature," Emmerson added in an obvious attempt to elicit an emotional response from Lorgard.

"Yes, he is my creature," the director said quietly. "And I have already begun designing a new metamorph..."

The idea, a tender plant of creativity, sprouted from the subconscious and reached his conscious self. Lorgard suddenly saw an opportunity to rid himself of an unwelcome burden and solve several problems at once.

He turned around. "It's true, you've always done an excellent job and certainly don't deserve to have someone 'put in front of you,' as you put it, Edwald." He took a deep breath. "I hereby appoint you Deputy Director of NHD Kerberos."

"Excuse me?" said Emmerson, still sitting at the table, stunned.

Lorgard raised his hand. "Wait, I'm not done yet. I hereby tender my resignation as Planetary Director of NHD Kerberos and return to the Development Department. This automatically makes you the acting director as my deputy. You should appoint a new head of security as soon as possible. Of course, as Director, you will also have the opportunity to direct certain investigations yourself.

Emmerson was speechless.

"Remember what I just said about the Director's authority. I think the Global Director's Special Envoy is in for a little surprise tomorrow." Lorgard stepped to the door of the study, indicating to Emmerson that he considered the conversation over.

The former head of security stood up. "Thank you, Director."

Lorgard raised his forefinger and smiled again. "Chief Creator."

Emmerson left, and Rubens Lorgard not only locked the front door but secured it with an energy barrier. Then he returned to the desk, sank slowly into the chair, and looked at the display that showed him the genetic basis of the new, evolved metamorph. He felt liberated, despite the danger brewing in Chiron, despite the "ticking time bomb. A weight weighing tons seemed to have been lifted from his shoulders, and that alone was proof enough that he had made the right decision. He did not expect Lukert Turannen to disapprove of his actions - after all, he had received explicit instructions from him to continue the Double-M project.

Rubens Lorgard worked late into the night on the design of the metamorph and forgot to eat.

Father Brrin

APRIL 421 SN

Distant whisper, Munghar, Urirr system

Father Brrin was older than most Kantaki, so old that many of his limbs were frozen. Only a few could still be moved, accompanied by a dull fluorescence that had long since lost the glow of youth. He remembered the flight of the Xurr from the galactic core about a thousand great cycles ago, as well as the heyday of the Feyn on the other side of the galaxy, which had begun two hundred great cycles ago. He had long since archived all his memories so that they would not be lost when he died, so that the young Kantaki could guard and use his knowledge. Collecting and preserving knowledge was one of the sacred tasks of his people, for in doing so they helped the spirit that had become matter to learn.

Brrin was not afraid of the end of his physical existence - no Kantaki associated fear with that idea - because he knew that he would then enter the spirit from which everything came. It was not an end, but a return, a new beginning. It would not be long now, he knew. For several cycles, he had felt the power slowly leaving him. When the Kantaki, who owned spaceships, felt the time was right, they would exit their ships in trans-space. Father Brrin could not leave this place, but found comfort in the knowledge that his physical self would also enter trans-space, where he would be closest to the Primordial Spirit - the conduit would take him there.

This conduit glowed in the center of the great cavern deep beneath the surface of Munghar, the Kantaki's home world: a column of hyperdimensional energy connected to trans-space at the top by a funnel-shaped spigot that swung back and forth. In the past, it had been used to communicate with the Council, but there had long since been no contact with the I/We of the individual counselors. Today, the channel was mostly used by the timekeepers, and Brrin was the most experienced of them.

Slowly he raised his head, and his multiple eyes, which had lost their former luster as well as their fluorescence, looked across the channel to the other timekeepers seated on resting humps at the end of the black spikes that protruded far from the walls. Most of them were young and still able to leave the humps. But the older timekeepers - Brrin was by far the oldest - had sacrificed their own mobility to the task. They, too, could only move their upper limbs, the lower ones frozen in the fungus that formed a soft cushion beneath the body, providing it with all the nutrients it needed and sharpened the lenses of the mind to see far out into past events and possible futures.

Brrin knew and cherished them all, young and old. Each of them knew the importance of their task. Nearly ten great cycles ago, the Kantaki, Feyn and humans had succeeded in defeating the Temporals and banished them to the distant past, into the special Sphere of the Void, surrounded by a shield and temporal vortices that would make it impossible for their ancient enemy to escape. But the Kantaki knew that the enemy was not completely defeated, and from their dungeon they sought ways to penetrate the shield, avoid the vortexes, and return to the here and now. That could not happen under any circumstances. Stability had to be maintained. The Fourth Cosmic Age could not be allowed to pass into the Fifth, the Age of Spiritualization, as the temporals and their allies, the renegades, wanted, where the circle would be closed and the spirit that had become matter would return to the spiritual. It was too early! The Spirit needed to gather more knowledge and insight to face the Abissale of the Fifth Age and return to itself with the answers to all questions.

The Abissale... It lurked out there, in the vastness of the universe, in the darkness that camouflaged its own darkness, a darkness that did not mean safety, as the Kantaki instinct had first assumed. It ate reality, destroying what the Spirit had created. And if the Temporals and their allies succeeded in bringing about the end of the Fourth Age and the beginning of the Fifth, the worst of all possible catastrophes loomed: the victory of the Abissale over the Spirit.

Brrin shuddered at the thought, tilted his back shield slightly, and felt dozens of tiny sweepers crawl over his body, searching for parasites to consume. Once more he glanced around the cave, then focused on the conduit and the mental lenses through which he could see with the help of the nutrient fungus. He searched for changes in the significance of individual quanta of time, and he listened for a whisper from the distant past...

Sightless vision

15 APRIL 421 SN, 19:10

Citadel on Kerberos

"This is it," Brother Eklund said quietly so as not to disturb the many meditators. "This is our mandala."

He and Raimon stood at the entrance to a large cave filled with the light of thousands of candles - they were everywhere, on small ledges, in alcoves, on the narrow and wide walkways that ran through the cave like natural bridges, on stalagmite-like protrusions. Usually they burned quietly and steadily, but occasionally, as members of the Enlightened Community, men and women, finished their meditation, rose and left, the air would stir, causing the candle flames to flicker and brief shadows to flit across the rock walls.

But no matter what happened, the mandala's glow remained unaffected and constant.

Nearly two dozen feet below, in the center of the great cave and lined with twenty devotional pillars, three upright circles of golden-yellow light rotated slowly. Occasionally they merged, then separated, only to reunite a few seconds later. Complex patterns of movement were created in this way, and Eklund remembered feeling their hypnotic effect as a boy. The three circles of the mandala were an invitation to let one's thoughts drift, to entrust them to the ocean of the mind like little ships and see where the current took them.

"This is where it all began," Brother Eklund said, still speaking in a lowered voice. "This is where the first of us discovered Elysium and its healing power."

Dozens of members of the Enlightened Community sat by the candles, some of which they had brought and lit themselves, engrossed in the mandala meditation. Eklund slowly led the boy around the perimeter of the cave, looking for an open spot that offered both some comfort and a good view of the mandala. But Raimon pulled away from his side when they reached one of the staircases that led down past the rock pillars to the stone circle with the devotional pillars and the three circles of light.

"Would you like to see the mandala up close?" Eklund asked the boy as they walked down the stairs.

Some brothers and sisters murmured, probably feeling that their meditation was being disturbed. Others opened their eyes and silently watched. Normally it was only on special occasions that members of the community approached the mandala, but it was not forbidden.

Raimon stopped beside one of the pillars, the glow of the golden-yellow circles of light reflecting off his face. The boy's eyes were large, larger than before, and seemed to literally absorb the light.

"To be perfectly honest, Raimon ... None of us know what the Mandala is," Eklund murmured, feeling a few disapproving looks directed at him. "For more than ninety years we have called the object a mandala because it helps us meditate, but maybe it is something else entirely. Look closely, Raimon. The three circles of light seem to be made of gold, or a metal that shines like gold, but sometimes you can see the opposite wall through them. A perpetual motion machine from another world," he added thoughtfully, fixing his gaze, like Raimon's, on the circles gliding back and forth. Not quite here and not quite there, as if caught between dimensions ... For almost a century, no one has been able to touch the mandala.

Raimon looked up at him briefly, then stepped past the pillar and held out his hand.

Several brothers and sisters audibly gasped.

"Hey!" Eklund leaned on his walking stick as he also stepped forward, put his hand on the boy's shoulder....

... and found himself in Elysium, in the world above the world, with no noticeable transition, no portal of old, weathered wood opening. It had to be Elysium, for Eklund felt the presence of the power that permeated everything, but at the same time it was an alien world, created not by the associations and connecting ideas of his consciousness, but by the thought associations of the boy who had reached out in the cave to touch the mandala.

A barren, dead world stretched around them, ochre and empty. White spindly towers rose, their tops scraping against slate-gray and clay-brown clouds that moved swiftly across the sky as if on the run. Here and there, the towers showed openings, windows perhaps, but Eklund knew they had been empty not just since yesterday, but for eons. The structures stood like silent monuments, built not by men but by alien creatures whose names no man had ever spoken, and they warned of ... Of what?" wondered Eklund.

"Did you bring us here on purpose, Raimon?" he turned to the boy, though he didn't expect an answer. "And what is it about this part of Elysium?"

Raimon, of course, remained silent, looked at him, took his hand and began to walk.

They walked through the forest of the white spindle towers, and Brother Eklund still felt the power, but at the same time he began to doubt if this was really the Elysium he knew. Perhaps, he thought, there were several worlds above the world, and the boy had taken him to another that had never been visited by the Enlightened Ones.

"Where are you taking us, Raimon?" asked Eklund after a while, as the silence began to creep him out. Only sand and small stones crunched softly under their feet, but otherwise all was dead quiet.

The boy stopped and looked at him again. For a few seconds, Eklund hoped Raimon would speak and give him an answer, but he remained silent, approached one of the spindle towers and seemed to want to embrace it: He spread his arms and pressed himself against the tower, his head tilted back.

Above, far above, the top of the tower loomed through the drifting clouds. Again Eklund had the vague feeling of receiving a warning, and he listened within, but heard no whispers or murmurs, instead he felt time, the age of the spindle towers - compared to them, a human life lasted no longer than a nanosecond. Yet he noticed no signs of weathering on them; they seemed to have just been built.

Raimon turned away from the tower, but his face no longer seemed blank, it showed purpose. He began to move again, this time without taking Eklund's hand, walking faster. Once he hesitated, glancing over his shoulder to make sure Brother Eklund was following.

The old man huffed softly - the silence around him seemed to absorb the sound - and leaned on his walking stick, trying hard not to let the boy's lead get too big. He suddenly feared being stuck in this strange world without Raimon, unable to find his way back to the familiar Elysium or the Citadel.

Faster and faster the clouds moved across the sky, and darkness followed them, spreading across the firmament in seconds, never reaching the bottom of this world. The spindle towers began to glow. A ghostly light emanated from them, groping through the air, impregnating it with a soft glow that seemed to Eklund like the visual equivalent of a caress. It promised safety, and his worries fell away as he continued to follow the boy.

The distance between the towers widened a bit; they seemed to recede before a pedestal that caught their glow, amplified it, and projected it skyward. Eklund looked up and saw the fleeing clouds dodging the light. The projected glow created a round hole in the sky, but there were no stars behind it, as Eklund had expected. Instead, he thought he saw eyes, countless eyes with nothing human about them, staring down at the world.

A figure sat on the pedestal and turned to Raimon, who was running up the stairs.

Eklund tried to walk faster, using the cane like a third leg, and felt the first stirrings of pain in his back, despite the pill he had taken hours before. As if in a dream, his movements were met with resistance, as if he were trudging through high water or thick mud - something didn't seem to want him to reach the pedestal. Then Raimon turned his head again to check on him, and a look from him was enough to make the resistance disappear. A little out of breath, Eklund came up the stairs, stepped beside the boy, and looked at the figure on the pedestal.

She had the body of an old human woman, but she lacked a face. Where there should have been eyes, a nose, and a mouth, Eklund saw only empty, wrinkled skin. The old woman sat with her shoulders back, her hands folded in her lap, wrapped in a blue-black stained robe.

A woman without a face, just as the golden figure without a face had been in Eklund's vision seventy-nine years ago.

Raimon looked at her and smiled with joy.

"Who are you?" asked Eklund softly, sensing that there was a silent dialog taking place between the old woman and the boy. "Do you know Raimon?"

The faceless woman paid no attention to him, her attention turned to the boy. Even if she had heard the question - how could she answer without a mouth?

Raimon held out his hand, and Eklund thought he saw, or perhaps felt, a change in the woman's face. It remained blank, but something suggested ... joy. The boy's hand slowly moved closer, and when it was only a few inches away from the old woman's head...

A sudden wind swept past the towers, and the clouds stopped moving swiftly across the sky and began to descend. Eklund had a strange feeling - something inside him suddenly tensed and then seemed to snap - and from one moment to the next he was back in the cave in front of the mandala.

Raimon pulled his hand away from the three golden circles that had frozen when he touched them. Slowly they began to move again, sliding toward and away from each other in a hypnotic pattern.

"He's touched the mandala," echoed through the great cave as the members of the Enlightened Community present recovered from their stupor. "The boy touched the mandala!"

"How dare you?" an angry voice hissed.

A small but powerfully built man came down the next set of stairs. Eklund recognized him: Brother Xalon, a New Human born on Durant, a planet with twice the gravity of Earth. He grabbed Raimon's shoulder and pulled him back. The boy groaned softly, lost his balance and fell.

"Careful, Xalon, you'll hurt him..."

"He has no business here!" the young Duranti hissed, turning to Eklund. "It's a good thing the shepherd broke up your orphanage. Children have no business here in the citadel. But that you dare bring a boy here, into the holiest of holy places..." Xalon stood close to Eklund, fists clenched, shaking with anger.

"He touched the mandala," Eklund said simply. "No one before him has been able to do so. Nor has any member of the Enlightened Community ever struck a brother or sister. Would you like to be the first, Xalon?"

Voices echoed through the cave. "He's right. Children don't belong here..."

"What nonsense. Why should children be forbidden to come here?"

"This is a place of meditation, of contemplation..."

"Children have no place here!"

"Children should be welcome everywhere!"

And then the voices multiplied, whispering, "He touched the mandala. He actually touched it..."

Eklund saw Raimon stand up, and he noticed the flash in the boy's brown eyes as well. Suddenly all the candles in the great cave flickered, as if caught in a gust of wind, and shadows flitted across the rock walls.

"Come, Raimon," Eklund said, no longer paying attention to Xalon. "Let's go."

He took the boy's hand and led him past brothers and sisters who looked confused, excited, but also angry.

"Xalon belongs to the shepherd's group," Eklund said outside in the corridor, and Raimon looked up at him briefly and seemed to actually understand. "He's also very impulsive and hot-tempered. There are more sympathetic members of the Enlightened Community." He sighed softly. "Well, Raimon, what do you say we continue our little exploration of the citadel?" The boy smiled.

That night, strange dreams disturbed Eklund's sleep. Several times he saw the old woman without a face and wondered what would have happened if Raimon had touched her. In one visionary scene, eyes from the sky looked down on him and saw everything in him, every little detail of his long life. At one point he thought he heard the voice of the World Soul, but it remained indistinct no matter how hard he tried to understand the words.

He awoke to darkness and silence, lay motionless, and listened. Nothing. No sounds. No soft breathing nearby.

"Raimon?"

Eklund turned on his side and felt where he knew the chemo lamp was. He found it in its usual place and turned it on.

The dull, warm glow lifted some of the gloom from Eklund's simple quarters, located in a small cave deep inside the citadel. The furniture was as simple as could be: a table and some chairs made of cheap synthomass, in one corner a few shelves with some personal belongings, next to them a box with the things he found here and there, or that were sometimes given to him: colorful stones, small glass spheres with colors swirling in them, pretty shells, fossilized larvae of cobalt flies. Things that had no real value, but that Eklund liked to carry around with him and that had delighted many a child, most recently Rebecca.

Usually there was only one bed in Eklund's cave, like the table and chairs made of synthomass, but they had gotten a second one for Raimon that night. And that second bed was empty.

"Raimon?" asked Eklund again, and again he got no answer. He grabbed his walking stick, stood up, and grimaced as the pain in his back returned. Deciding not to take a pill - every two days, Elisabeth had said, and he certainly valued her medical advice - he lifted the chemo lamp and stepped into the hallway.

Right or left? Eklund chose the right and walked through a tunnel that had been bored through the rock of the Pillion Mountains about ten years ago and was one of the many extensions of the citadel. Chemo lamps burned on the walls at irregular intervals, but mostly Eklund had to rely on the light from his own lamp. It was always dark here, day and night, but at night, when it was quiet and most of the members of the Enlightened Community were asleep, the darkness seemed to intensify.

Eklund didn't know how long he had been walking - maybe ten minutes - when he heard excited voices ahead. Light danced through the darkness - someone was coming toward him. A young woman, face pale, horror in her eyes.

"He's dead," she blurted out as she saw Eklund. "He's dead!"

She did not stop, but hurried on.

"Who's dead?" asked Eklund, startled.

"Xalon!" the nurse called, disappearing around a bend in the tunnel.

Eklund walked faster, leaning on his walking stick and trying not to notice the sharp pain in his back. Whatever had happened, word must have spread quickly, for brothers and sisters rushed out of side corridors and tunnels. More and more lamps converged, their light banishing the darkness to distant corners.

"He's dead!" they cried over and over. "Someone killed him!"

Many people had gathered outside the entrance to one of the larger living caves. Eklund carefully pushed his way through the crowd - most of the brothers and sisters respected his age and moved aside before he had to use his elbows - and finally got a chance to look inside Xalon's cave.

There was blood everywhere.

On one side lay a head, its face strangely intact. It was the only sign that the remains, if they could be called that, belonged to Xalon. The man seemed to have literally... exploded in the middle of his living cave. Blood and bits of flesh and bone covered all four walls and the ceiling. Eklund turned away, fighting nausea.

"How could this happen?" someone close to him blurted out.

"This is Satan's work," said Borkard, who was from Shanhall, a planet inhabited mostly by Christian fundamentalists and part of the loose confederation of Spiritualist worlds. "The devil is among us."

"Someone should tell the shepherd."

"Margat's already gone."

"Do you think it was a... natural death?"

"Only if he swallowed a bomb beforehand and then detonated it. You don't just explode like that."

"Are you saying someone murdered him? But ... why? And how?"

Eklund's mind raced as he heard the voices around him. He returned to the tunnel, staggered away from the others, and tried to comprehend what had just happened. A murder! In the citadel of the Enlightened Community? Preposterous. Unthinkable. But the man was right. Nobody exploded like that.

What had happened?

Eklund was still pondering this question when he suddenly realized that he had returned to his cave, deep in thought. The chemo lamp in his hand was still glowing, and in its dim light a figure was silhouetted on the second bed, which had been brought in the night before. Wordlessly, Eklund stepped closer, holding the lamp higher.

Raimon was stretched out on the bed, asleep. Eklund looked down at the boy and wondered if he should wake him. But what was the point? Raimon couldn't answer any questions.

He also lay down, turned off the lamp and stared into the darkness, hearing not only the boy's regular breathing but also voices in the distance. There would be no rest for many brothers and sisters that night.

Certain thoughts were at the back of his mind, waiting for him to pay attention to them, but he pushed them aside, not daring to focus on them. Eventually Eklund fell asleep, and when he woke up a few hours later and opened his eyes, he looked into the light of the chemo lamp. Raimon was sitting on his bed, the lamp in his lap, and he looked at Eklund and said, "I can talk.

In the Void

Agorax's thoughts returned from a world that did not actually exist, from a hot desert beyond time and space. At last a direct mental contact had taken place, with all the consequences that followed. He was convinced that the human called Valdorian would behave as he expected. The patterns of events looked good. Maybe even a new connection to the Kantaki pilot Diamond could be established; with patience and finesse, suitable probability structures could be developed.

He found himself at the starting point of his mental journey, at the end of an observation tunnel, in the place of an observer. Nearby, the disintegrating shield that Kantaki and Feyn had used to surround the Void wavered. There were cracks and gaps in the shield, and if an Eterne actually managed to penetrate it ... On the other side, the temporal vortexes waited, ready to shred anything that came within their reach.

We are and still remain trapped, Agorax thought, awakening from the stupor of mental projection. But if Valdorian succeeds...

A strange restlessness caught his attention. Voices whispered through the long tunnel, voices from Aeon, a thousand excited whispers. What had happened? An accident? Agorax expanded his mind and made sure that he had awakened in the right time. No, there had not been any temporal displacement.

Let's go! Let's go! shouted the thoughts and emotions of thousands of Eternes. Gergurrak has found a safe passage!

The crisis that Pergamum had warned of was here, sooner than the secular had feared. In a moment of deep concern and helplessness, Agorax wondered what he should do. Direct mental contact with Valdorian had been an enormous risk, for the presence of his self could attract the attention of the Timekeepers on Munghar, and if they sounded the alarm, the whole project was in danger of failing. He dared not try to influence the patterns of future events any further. But Valdorian was still far from Kerberos, and even if he had been able to take immediate action on that planet: Some events had a certain moment of inertia and did not produce results until they had gained enough energy to evolve. Even under the best of circumstances, it would still take a while for the seed to start out, and if it then immediately jumped into the past...Something shivered in Agorax as his thoughts touched on a paradox he had often pondered. Didn't the seed have the ability to jump to any place in time? The answer was yes, provided that it did not encounter any obstacles, such as temporal barriers, which, like the vortexes, came from the Kantaki and Feyn.

This meant that the seed could appear now if the project led to success in the distant future. It could have appeared already. But it had not, and sometimes Agorax wondered if he had to conclude that his project would ultimately fail. Everything in him resisted the thought of such a thing.

Let's go! Let's go!" shouted the voices from Aeon, and Agorax turned around in the observation tunnel to look back at the great honeycomb city in the center of the Void. Gergurrak will show us the way!

"If the Time Fleet leaves now, we will all be doomed," Agorax breathed in horror.

Something flashed above Aeon. A vortex rose, a transformer of a very special kind - they had been used earlier, during the Time War, for short flights through the central time stream. And now someone was pointing it at the shield.

Agorax heard a spirit voice that drowned out all others in the mental ether. I will show you that this path is not safe.

Pergamon!

Agorax froze as he realized what the secular was planning. He was going to sacrifice himself to bring the Eterne to their senses and prevent the fatal departure of the Time Fleet.

The suggestor watched as the transformer slid to a certain point on the shield, presumably the crack that Gergurrak, in his arrogance of ambition and false optimism, thought was "safe. Pergamon actually passed it, reaching the billowing beyond the shield, and for a moment, against his better judgment, hope stirred in Agorax. Had he been mistaken? Had Gergurrak really managed to find a safe way?

He was still connected to the observation devices of an observer, and no doubt many Eternes in Aeon were using such devices as well. They all saw the terrible thing that happened: the transformer dodged the first temporal vortex, but then its course took it too close to the next one.

Destructive light flashed, destroying the transformer's vortex and snuffing out the life of an immortal.

The shock caused complete silence in the Void. Nothing moved, nothing whispered or muttered.

Agorax straightened. "Have you had enough?" he shouted, his voice echoing a long way through the silence. "Your madness drove a secular to his death! He sacrificed himself so that you would see your error and live!"

He wanted to add something else, but a change prevented him. Something in him grew... and something else disappeared. He looked at the circle ring Pergamon had given him, and with sudden clarity he understood the full extent of Pergamon's plan. His death was only the beginning...

PART II

Two: Fragments

Labyrinths

16 APRIL SN, 15:07

Kerberos

From the artificial island at the western edge of the Delta, the levitator car flew over the city in one of the upper traffic corridors. The light of the Hades sun glittered on the brown waters of the wide Acheron, and the heat made the air above the city shimmer. The man in the passenger seat gazed out the window, taking in the sights.

"The Director sends his regrets at not being able to meet you himself," said the pilot, who wore the steel-gray uniform of NHD security. "Given the current circumstances, he is very busy."

"I understand," Lutor said noncommittally, without looking at the pilot. You're down there somewhere, he thought, looking down at Chiron. And I'll find you, sooner or later.

The pilot continued to speak, but Lutor listened with only half an ear. He felt a pleasant excitement in the face of the coming hunt - something of Kordun seemed to stir in him and want to become active in this world, in reality. The fact that the Planetary Director Rubens Lorgard had not picked him up himself was of little concern to him, although he understood what was behind it. The message was don’t forget, I'm in charge here. He always had to deal with such reactions during his missions, because certain people were afraid that their authority would be diminished. Lutor was above such things; he was only interested in the hunt.

A short time later, the levitator car reached the NHD building complex by the river and landed on a marked roof segment, which immediately sank into a hangar. The pilot operated the controls, deactivating the levitators and safety belts. With a muffled hiss, the car's left and right hatches opened.

"I'll take you to the director, if you don't mind," the man from security offered.

Lutor just nodded.

Inside the building, there was the same pleasant coolness as aboard the levitator car - air conditioners kept the tropical heat out of the offices, corridors, and laboratories. Lutor was only mildly interested in his surroundings. The various NHD offices were similar, and besides, he didn't expect to spend much time in the complex. His main area of operation, he guessed, was the city.

Pausing in front of a door's intercom, the guard spoke softly into it. Immediately, there was a click and the door swung open.

"The director is expecting you," the man in the gray uniform said, making a welcoming gesture.

Lutor stepped through the door, which closed behind him. The office was surprisingly simple, considering it belonged to a planetary director. Large windows overlooked the delta on one side and the continental forest on the other. Dark wood paneling covered the walls, probably precious jungle wood, and portraits hung here and there. The large desk, placed diagonally in one corner, dominated the room, and behind it sat a man in a high-backed chair turned away from the door - the director was looking out.

Lutor walked over to the chair in front of the desk, cleared his throat loudly, and sat down without waiting for an invitation.

The man in the chair made no response, continuing to look out the window.

"Director Lorgard..."

The chair turned, and Lutor saw a man he had not expected to see there. He showed his surprise by raising his eyebrows.

"Welcome to Kerberos," Edwald Emmerson said quietly. He did not lean forward, did not extend his hand, but remained reclined in the chair, his arms resting on the armrests. He seemed relaxed, but his eyes were very alert. "Rubens Lorgard appointed me as his deputy and then resigned from his post so that he could devote himself entirely to the development of the new metamorph as chief creator. This makes me the Acting Planetary Director." He slid a data module across the table. "This contains all the information you will need for your investigation. I assume you brought the necessary letters of authority."

The raised eyebrow dropped again. "Of course," Lutor said, opening his security bag and taking out several data slides. "These are the powers granted to me by Global Director Lukert Turannen."

Emmerson accepted the slides and placed them one by one into the scanner of a data servo, which confirmed their authenticity. "All in order," he said, handing the slides back across the desk. Lutor took them and placed them, along with the data module, in his security bag.

"A suite has been reserved for you at the Hotel Caravel for the duration of your stay," Emmerson said with calculated coolness. "We have also prepared an office for you here."

"Thank you," Lutor replied quietly. "I'll not only be staying in the suite, I'll be working there as well." He met Emmerson's eyes. "I expect your full cooperation."

"I expect the same from you," Edwald insisted. "I am the Acting Planetary Director of New Human Design on Kerberos, and therefore authorized to give orders."

"I come on behalf of the Global Director," Lutor replied.

"Which we have just verified, yes. You are authorized to investigate, and I have instructed our security department to work with you as closely as possible. It is in all of our interests that the metamorph be found as soon as possible." Emmerson paused briefly and held Lutor's penetrating gaze. "You will report to me. Daily."

"This is... unusual. I usually work alone."

"This time the magic word is cooperation."

Lutor stood up. "As you wish...director."

Emmerson touched the button on a control panel and the door opened. The young man who had accompanied Lutor here entered. "Director?"

"Please escort our guest to the Caravel Hotel."

The security man saluted and waited. Lutor stepped to the door, paused again, and looked back. "I'll find it."

"We will find it."

Lutor left without another word, and the door closed behind him.

A few seconds passed, and then another, smaller door opened, leading to an adjoining room. Elroy Tobias entered, and Emmerson motioned for him to take a seat in an armchair by the desk.

"You saw the whole thing, didn't you?" he asked.

"And heard it too, Chief."

"What do you think of him?"

Elroy Tobias didn't answer immediately, seeming to consider his words carefully.

"Be frank, Elroy. You have a lot of experience in these matters. I want to know what your impression of him is."

"A psychopath," Tobias finally said.

Emmerson nodded slowly.

"I've come across people like that from time to time," the security expert continued. "They think they're the greatest. They have an ego the size of a planet. But in this case, I think there's something else going on. He doesn't really seem to care about our willingness to cooperate. What matters to him is just..."

"The hunt," Emmerson interjected. "A psychopath with a penchant for megalomania. Someone who finds fulfillment in hunting someone or something and finally bringing them down. An unpredictable madman who will now roam our city. A living time bomb."

"Hopefully he's as capable as he thinks he is. If he finds the metamorph, he'll be doing us all a great service."

"Yes," Edwald Emmerson muttered, thinking for a moment.

"Elroy..."

"Chief?"

"As Acting Director, I hereby appoint you to succeed me as head of the NHD Security Department. I know it will be in good hands with you."

"Thank you, Chief." Tobias smiled with pleasure.

"Don't thank me, because you have a lot of work to do. Find out everything you can about Lutor. I want to know where he's from, where he's been, what jobs he's done for NHD, and so on. The more information you can dig up about him, the better.

Tobias nodded.

"Put him under surveillance," Edwald Emmerson continued. "Put our best people on him. I want to know where he is and what he's doing at all times. I've given him all our data - I was obliged to do so - but that doesn't mean we're going to stop our investigation. On the contrary. We will step it up, using Lutor as a tool. And that brings us to the most important issue, Elroy, the search for the metamorph. The autocrat has taken the measures we 'suggested', and this will soon allow us to access an additional data stream. Aside from the activities of the police and the Urban Symposium: Stokkart's network of informers, minor and major criminals can find out more than we can."

Elroy Tobias nodded again. "Sooner or later the metamorph will leave traces, in the form of unusual events and incidents. The important thing is that we learn about them in time."

"The autocrat will help us. One hand washes the other. But I'm afraid that in this case, our hands will remain dirty." Emmerson sighed quietly. "I am determined to find the metamorph before Lutor does. But that's not all," he added as Tobias stood up. "There's still the mystery of the silent bomb attack. Who was behind it? Who wanted the metamorph to escape from the lab?"

"Does Lutor know?"

"No," Emmerson said without hesitation. "The metamorph escaped. How that happened is irrelevant to the search for it."

"The attack could only have been carried out by an NHD employee. Strangers could not have entered the lab."

"I couldn't agree more, Elroy. One of our people. And that means we need to check out every one of them, look into their lives, look for suspicious activities and connections."

"I'll get right on it," Tobias said, getting up and leaving the office through the smaller door.

Opponent

16 APRIL 421 SN, 15:51

Kerberos

The suite at the Hotel Caravel was on the top floor, with more than six hundred square feet of space and every luxury imaginable, including a zero-gravity room and a small swimming pool. The ceiling was made of polarizable steel ceramics: in the evening you could make it transparent and admire the starry sky.

But Lutor was not interested in any of this. After entering and securing the door with a special privacy shield, his brief search of the suite focused on two things: AW installations and a data servo powerful enough for his special AI scouts. Both were present, he noted with satisfaction. In one room, he discovered a cabinet containing dozens of legal and semi-legal drugs, reminding him that Kerberos was the queen of drug worlds in the human-populated part of the galaxy. No other planet produced as many drugs as this one. They were found practically everywhere in the animal and plant world, and they produced a wide variety of effects. Lutor closed the cabinet and paid no further attention to it.

Using a second privacy shield, he searched the suite for hidden spy devices without finding any, which surprised him a bit. Didn't Emmerson think it necessary to keep an eye on him? No, he had probably expected this kind of probing and had therefore refrained from using electronic spies.

The central data servo was located in the lounge, part of a living landscape of large plants, carpets, colorful seating, pseudo-realistic mirrors, and various entertainment devices. Adlats had stowed Lutor's luggage in the bedroom and bathroom. He took a seat at the data servo, next to which the memory modules with the AI programs lay ready, and organized his thoughts. The fact that Rubens Lorgard had resigned as Planetary Director to return to Chief Creator, leaving the Head of Security in his place, had surprised him but was of little consequence to him. Equally secondary to Lutor's mind was the hostility he had sensed from Edwald Emmerson. He had to deal with such reactions occasionally. They were annoying, to be sure, but once he started investigating, they became less and less important, giving way to the fever of the hunt. Daily reports? So what? He was and would remain the hunter. He would hunt down the prey. Emmerson and Lorgard belonged to a mundane world in which he had to spend some of his time, but he was on an entirely different plane.

The metamorph. He knew the characteristics of the creature. A very special creature, a challenge for even the best hunter.

"I'll get you," Lutor said quietly, his lips forming a thin smile.

He switched on the data servo, slid the memory modules into the scanner and transferred their contents into the device's processing core. Several symbols appeared on the three-dimensional display: a dragon, a golem, an elf, and a small, delicate, winged fairy.

Lutor smiled again, less fiercely this time, and connected to the global Kerberos network. "Go forth," he said to the little figures. "Begin your quest."

The symbols danced and vanished. Lutor had adapted the programming of the AI-equipped scouts to the conditions he knew on Kerberos. They were supposed to search the planetary records and databases for clues leading to the metamorph, for specific incidents from which patterns could be deduced. The AI programs had been used for this purpose more than twenty times, and they continued to learn each time. Lutor expected the first concrete results in two or three hours - after all, the data networks on Kerberos were not very complex, and the amount of data was correspondingly limited.

Lutor leaned back, gazed at the empty screen, and wondered how best to use the waiting time.

He smiled for the third time, this time in anticipation.

Five minutes later, in the Alternate World room of the suite, he stretched out in a recliner and had the medical servo confirm that all biometric monitoring functions were activated. The AW data servo had loaded programs and data from a private memory module, and a responsive cable connected it to the bio-servo just below Lutor's neck.

"Run program and activate last memory point," Lutor said, becoming Kordun.

He raised his right hand, slowly clenched it into a fist, and felt power. The Northland warrior's body felt wonderful: thick muscles, solid bones, resistant tendons. He shook his head, tossed his shoulder-length blond hair back, and laughed with confidence. "I'm coming, Echna," he said, and the wind, a cold wind, blew his voice away, perhaps toward the Lord of the Shadow World.

The Swamp of Lost Souls lay behind him, and the two-handed sword dangling from his belt had served him well more than once. In front of him stretched a forest not of trees, but of strange brown-black columns, the distances between them sometimes small, sometimes large. In the light of the rising sun, Lutor saw thin, thread-like formations stretching here and there between the pillars, and sometimes something flitted away above them. Cautiously, his right hand on the hilt of his sword, he approached the first column, watching carefully where he placed his foot. At a distance he thought safe, he stopped and looked at the column.

It consisted of countless palm-sized bugs.

Should he dare to go through this forest? Or would it be better to take a detour? Lutor thought about it for a few seconds and then remembered the advisor. He took off his backpack and took out the small cage with the kuiki and a makai nut. He showed it to the old man. "Here, I'll give you this if you give me one more piece of advice."

Something was wrong. The kuiki sat huddled in a corner of the cage, legs drawn up, arms around his knees. He lifted his head briefly, then lowered it again.

"What is it?" Lutor asked in the warrior's deep voice.

The Kuiki shivered. "This is not... right."

"What's not right?"

The advisor gestured briefly into the forest, then tried to push himself deeper into the corner. "There is someone here. Someone who... doesn't belong here."

Just a little trick of the programmers, Lutor guessed. Good Alternate World programs were full of surprises.

"All right. How do I get through the forest? Answer me, and you get the nut."

"Don't go in. Take a detour. Or go back. He's out there."

"A new enemy?" Lutor's interest was awakened. So far he had met no one who could compete with him. Perhaps a new level of difficulty was about to begin; he hoped so.

"No," the Kuiki replied. "Him. He doesn't belong here." Then the male seemed to remember his stomach and called, "Nut, want nut!"

Lutor gave it to him and looked curiously into the forest. The last wisps of fog dissipated as the sun rose in the sky. There was complete silence; even the wind stopped as if holding its breath.

Lutor stowed the small cage, swung his backpack onto his back, and stepped resolutely into the forest of dark columns. He tried to keep as much distance as possible from the bug columns, but sometimes they were so close together that he had to walk past them very carefully to avoid touching them. He also avoided the threads; perhaps they were transmitting touch signals, like spider webs. His right hand remained on the hilt of his sword, and he kept glancing around for an opponent. The silence cautioned him to be silent.

Suddenly, something fell upon him, spreading transparent insect wings.

Lutor reacted with the reflexes of the warrior Kordun, lifting the flamberge with only one hand and smashing the thing with a well-aimed blow. Fragments flew in all directions, and he saw spikes, biting jaws, and sharp pincers.

The silence, the expectant silence around him, came to an end. The wind let out its held breath and hissed through the forest, while a louder crackling and popping sound came from the columns. Realizing what was about to happen, Lutor took off running. He raced past the columns, which disintegrated behind, beside, and in front of him as millions of bugs left the community to begin their hunt. They blocked out the sun's light and formed a massive cloud that descended upon him.

Lutor stopped when he realized he would not be able to reach the end of the "forest" in time. His sword would be useless against the huge swarm of insects, that much was certain. If the insects reached him ... It would probably only take them a few seconds to tear the flesh from his bones. There was only one way out: the storm in a bulb.

Quickly, he took off his backpack and opened it. Ignoring the kuiki shaking in its cage, he searched among the things he had stashed and found a white, bulbous object.

"Storm, storm!" the male shrieked. "Make storm!"

Lutor placed the bulb in his right hand and raised his left...

The crackling and popping had turned to thunder, and a massive cloud of bugs descended. Lutor glanced up briefly, then kept his eyes peeled for something to hold onto. There was a rock sticking out of the ground here, a root there. What height was safe?

"Storm, storm!" the Kuiki barked.

Lutor held his right hand about three feet off the ground and struck the bulb with his left. A strange, gurgling hiss sounded as the white object burst. Lutor wasted no time, throwing himself to the ground, pulling his pack close to him and grabbing a gnarled root with his other hand.

Close above him, the thunder was countered by a louder hiss. Something that looked like a cloud of mist came out of the burst bulb, swelled rapidly, and became a hurricane that spread three feet above the ground, sweeping away anything that didn't scramble to safety in time. Like the shock wave of an explosion, the storm shattered the bugs closest to it, tore the transparent wings of those farther away, and spun everything, shreds and whole bodies, skyward and across the land.

Lutor dared not raise his head. As a Kordun warrior, he knew that the storm would not spread downward, but at a height of only three feet, it was far from safe. He kept his eyes closed until the hissing and howling stopped. And until he felt a sharp pain in his right leg, so sharp that he turned his head and looked down.

Some bugs seemed to have been on the ground when the storm broke, and one of them had pierced his leg. Lutor grabbed the sword, half straightened, and swung. The blade whizzed close to his leg and sliced the bug, whose pincers were stuck in his calf, in half. Viscous, greenish-yellow juice oozed from its body. More bugs crawled hungrily closer, and Lutor slashed with his two-handed sword, impaling them one by one. Then he stood up - the storm was nothing more than a strong wind that was dying down - and twirled the sword above his head in a circle so fast that the impaled bugs flew away.

Someone was standing nearby.

Only now did Lutor notice the figure: a warrior like himself, smaller and lankier, dressed in leather, black as night. His face was hidden behind a silver mask.

"It's him, it's him," the kuiki's voice sounded from the backpack, even though the male could not see the stranger.

Excitement gripped Lutor. What had the programmers come up with this time? A surprise, no doubt...

Slowly he approached the stranger, who had a sword hanging from his belt, smaller than the two-handed sword in his hand. "I assume you are another messenger of Echna’s, aren't you?" he asked, feeling and enjoying the power of his body once again. No one could defeat him, no one was a match for him.

The figure moved and suddenly held his sword in his hand. Lutor stopped abruptly - he hadn't seen how the weapon had gotten into the stranger's hand.

"Nice trick," Lutor said. "Under other circumstances, I might have asked you to teach me. it But when I'm done with you, you'll have nothing to show anyone."

He lunged to deliver a powerful blow. The stranger dodged with the agility of a cat, his smaller sword slashing against the larger two-handed sword. Lutor snarled in surprise as the flamberge was nearly ripped from his hand. At the last moment, he shifted his weight and closed his hand tighter around the hilt, preventing himself from being left weaponless at the mercy of his opponent.

"How did you do that?" he asked, stunned, and the first quiet uneasiness stirred within him. The behavior of the other Echna minions followed a certain pattern, and this stranger did not fit the mold. There was nothing demonic about him, and that was what made him so sinister. Add to that his amazing skill with a sword.

"Who are you?" he asked quietly, ducking and weaving slowly around his opponent, who didn't answer him. Whatever the stranger thought and felt, the silver mask hid his face and revealed nothing. There was a flash of light behind the slits of his eyes.

Lutor leapt forward, inwardly now braced for a dangerous opponent, swinging his two-handed sword and striking in quick succession. The stranger dodged, with smooth, flowing, effortless movements that seemed like a dance. Lutor followed him, letting the flamberge circle. Sometimes the blades touched, but mostly the two-handed sword, which Lutor now wielded with only one hand, sliced through empty air.

And then, lashing out again, even angrier and more determined than before, the stranger struck. The tip of the smaller sword pierced Lutor's left arm, and blood poured from the wound. Pain raced through Kordun's body, and Lutor immediately understood that it was a kind of pain he never expected to feel in this place. It was real pain.

The stranger stood before him, not even six foot away, sword lowered, and Lutor saw again the glint in the slits of his eyes.

Then abruptly the surroundings changed.

He found himself in the recliner - the AW data servo had interrupted the execution of the Alternate World program. Several red warning indicators flashed on the biometric console.

Stunned, Lutor looked down at his left arm and watched a wound bleed that shouldn't be there.

In the Void

Agorax no longer knew how many times he had stared at his hands and looked into mirrors - a hundred, a thousand times. Each time he found confirmation of what he could hardly believe.

He had the marks.

And that meant he was becoming a secular.

The marks were the clearest outward indication, but he also felt the changes inside himself, affecting his body and mind. He felt himself turning into a neutral, and with that came no regrets, for his emotions receded more and more, becoming less important in the process. They gave way to a cool rationality he had never known before. It was this cold logic that had made Pergamon sacrifice himself. Agorax still could not see all the details of his great plan, but he could see the direction it was taking. Pergamon's death had opened a door, and beyond it lay the path to freedom.

Agorax marveled as he tried to sort out his swirling thoughts. Hands touched him - Eterne entered and left the preparation room, a stream that seemed to have no end - brushing some substance on the scales, giving and taking. Several of them carried away his last seed, and Agorax thought he saw several mothers with brood capsules on their backs in the streams surrounding him. The realization that he would soon be a father did not evoke any emotional response from him.

He looked down at his hands again, and they seemed to grow, filling his entire field of vision. Spots had formed on them, forming the familiar patterns of change. Even the amazement was fading now. Astonishment and then understanding taking its place.

His external genitals fell off. Small scales appeared where the seed buds had been, joining the larger ones that covered the rest of his body.

The colorful stripes in front of him remained, obscuring everything behind them. Movements were shadowed, details hidden.

My brain must be getting used to the altered metabolism, Agorax thought. Soon I'll be able to see clearly again.

He became immortal.

Eternity stretched before him.

He had been an observer, a suggestor who had enjoyed the recognition of his people. But now he was entitled to a place in the Circle of Seven...

As the mist cleared before his eyes, chanting attendants carried him through Aeon, past countless Eterne performing acts of respect and reverence. Mourning for Pergamon's death turned to joy for the new secular, who once again completed the Circle of Seven.

Pergamon saved all your lives, Agorax wanted to shout, but it remained a thought. Pergamon had done more than prevent a catastrophe. He had also paved the way for the final victory of the Eterne.

Agorax understood that now.

Eventually the corridors emptied, and they finally reached the area of Aeon reserved for the seculars alone. The servants set him down, and one of them said, "From here you must continue on your own.

Agorax raised his hand, and the movements of his tentacled fingers conveyed agreement. He walked away, in an altered body with new sensations he still had to get used to, wrapped in a ceremonial robe that kept threatening to snag on his arms and legs. He walked past things that dated back to the beginning of the Eterne, to an epoch when they had not yet been able to harness the energy of time and travel through all time streams at will. They had only acquired this ability when they had followed the call of the Omnivore. Agorax paid no attention to the objects - there would be plenty of opportunity for that later - and concentrated on what awaited him now.

A portal opened in front of him and he stepped through into a brightly lit, round room with a transparent ceiling. Beyond it floated the Time Fleet, flanked by the huge black ships of the Kantaki, who had separated from their people. It was an imposing sight, but the appearance of power was deceptive: the ships were useless, like Aeon and its inhabitants, trapped in the Void.

Six throne-like chairs stood in a semicircle in front of a seventh that, unlike them, was empty. One of the six seated seculars rose, looked at Agorax, and pointed to the seventh chair, which was slightly larger than the other six.

Agorax made his way to the chair.

Behind the six chairs in front of him, in a shadowy area of the room, he saw five Kantaki: the Great Five of the Renegades. They were waiting, as were the seculars.

Agorax approached the seventh chair and realized that he had received an even greater honor than he had previously thought. Not only had he become immortal and thus a member of the Circle of Seven - he had also become the leader of the Seculars. As a member of Pergamon's Circle - he still wore the Circle Ring on one tentacle finger - he immediately became his successor.

Pergamon's legacy was both a heavy burden and an inspiration to him. It meant responsibility, great responsibility, but also hope and the unifying of the Eterne after Gergurrak and Hogaron had driven a wedge of delusion and false hope into the community of Aeon.

Agorax took his seat and heard the Kantaki click quietly.

"It is wrong to make him our leader," said one of the seated seculars. Agorax focused on him and recognized Hogaron, who, like Gergurrak, was from the Mintor coven.

"He hasn't even gotten his new name yet and you're already against him?" the standing secular asked.

"The Mintor Circle nearly drove us all to ruin," another voice shouted. "You should at least take this as an opportunity to show a little restraint, Hogaron."

"As a member of Pergamon's Circle and its chosen one, you have the right to succeed him," the standing secular said to Agorax. He wore a robe similar to his own. "You will be the Aeonar of the Circle of Seven until the next election."

He raised his arms, bent them at both joints and made a complex gesture. "From now on, you are no longer Agorax, but Agoron, secular among seculars."

Agoron, the transformed man thought, trying to get used to the sound of the name. The fact that he could push his emotions completely into a distant corner of his self, proved to be very helpful. He had not stopped feeling, but he could let rationality take precedence when circumstances demanded it.

Silence reigned. The standing secular sat down. The Circle of Seven and the Great Five of the renegade Kantaki waited.

"What is the first decision of the new Aeonar?" asked Hogaron, making no secret of his mockery.

This is the defining moment, Agoron thought, knowing that he would not disappoint Pergamon. He searched for the right words and found them.

"We are on the brink of a defining moment," he said calmly and firmly. "On Pergamon's behalf, I have been working on a special project that is nearing completion. Soon we will be able to return to freedom."

The Kantaki clicked again, louder this time, and their limbs groped about, accompanied by a fluorescent glow.

"Is this more than an empty claim?" asked Hogaron.

Pergamon's sacrifice had averted disaster while ensuring that his project would be given priority once Agorax became his successor. This created an opportunity to forget dissent and unite all forces to achieve the goal of freedom.

"I have managed to create certain patterns of events and probabilities in the distant future, and observation confirms that things are moving in the right direction. We have found a seed and are trying to awaken it.

This impressed even Hogaron. The seculars whispered among themselves.

One of the Big Five stepped forward. "What about the Timekeepers on Munghar?" the Kantaki clicked, and this time Agoron understood the words.

"They don't suspect anything yet, but they will, sooner or later. The general dynamics of things will attract their attention. That is why we must act now, immediately, and take every opportunity to influence the future. We must awaken the seed and protect it from a fragment of the Council that is close to it and also asleep." Agoron's voice grew more insistent. "This takes precedence over all else. We will use all our resources."

"I do not recall a vote to that effect," Hogaron interjected, but the mockery in his voice had faded considerably.

"Only foolishness brings personal matters to the fore in a situation like this," Agoron said sharply. "We must act together, as one circle, as one people, with all our might. The Timekeepers on Munghar will send ships, and the Seed must awaken before they reach it. It is much more than a hyper portal that can be destroyed with a spear. It is a child of the Omnivore, the Abissale."

The renegade Kantaki bowed their heads at these words.

"The seed will hear our call, neutralize the temporal vortex, shatter the shield and free us from the Void."

Agoron stood and pointed to the transparent ceiling above which the time ships hovered inside the Void, accompanied by the black giants of the Kantaki.

"As Aeonar of the Eterne, I command: All observers and suggestors will be placed under my command. We will make every effort to awaken the seed. Do I have your approval?"

"He has mine," said the secular who had given Agorax his new name.

"Mine too," rang out the voices of the other Circle members.

Only Hogaron hesitated.

"Never before has the unity of our people been so important," Agoron insisted. "Soon we will have the opportunity to leave the Void. Shall we set out divided?"

Hogaron's tentacled fingers moved. "Very well," he said finally. "I agree as well."

Deep satisfaction filled Agoron. "Prepare the Time Fleet for departure. And to our Kantaki friends, I say prepare to leave the temporal dungeon with us and fly into the future."

Empty dreams

15 APRIL 421 SN, 13:27

Arsenal planetoid

"You are a traitor, Turannen. I suspected it, and now I know."

Enbert Dokkar stood up, a small, deadly Hefok in his hand. The narrow face with the prominent features remained expressionless, but the look in the dark eyes was icy.

Lukert Turannen stood in the headquarters of the arsenal planet, the planetoid, stunned and with racing thoughts. He saw the weapon pointed at him, the high-energy emission focuser. All Dokkar had to do was curl his finger...

"You are wrong," he stuttered, staring at the weapon. "I did not betray you. And I never would."

Beside him, the weasel-like Amadeus trembled, silent and filled with horror.

"I know that you, or rather your specialists, have been searching Valdorian databases for specific information," Dokkar said coolly. He looked sixty, but had undergone numerous resurrections and was much older. "You should have given us the coordinates of the Arsenal planets immediately, Turannen. But you didn't. Instead, you flew here by the fastest means possible. Too bad for you that we were watching you the whole time.

Lukert Turannen felt like he was standing on thin ice that was cracking beneath him and could break at any moment. "No," he protested, forcing himself to remain calm. This was his only chance. He had to keep his cool and be convincing. "That's why I came here immediately to check the data. I didn't want to risk giving you false information."

"What nonsense," Benjamin Valdorian snorted, leaning back in his chair with his legs stretched out. He looked like arrogance and self-indulgence personified. He wore expensive, tailored clothes of silk and leather.

Gems glittered here and there on buttons, and small projectors hung from his earlobes, showing changing pseudo-real images at intervals of a few seconds. Rings sparkled on thick fingers.

Forty-nine-year-old Benjamin was at least twenty pounds overweight, and his face looked puffy. "You're a goddamn liar. Shoot him, Enbert. Shoot them both."

"That would be a mistake," Turannen said, using all his inner strength to say the words so that they sounded almost calm. "You won the war, but you need me. The Consortium Consistory has appointed me Coordinator, and I have offered you my full cooperation. In other words, there is no better tool for you than me to finally bring the Consortium worlds under your control." Out of the corner of his eye, Turannen saw Amadeus shaking all over. His secretary's face was white as chalk.

"You wanted to get your hands on the Arsenal planets," Benjamin said snidely, standing up and pulling out a Hefok as well. "With the intention of succeeding my father and becoming the new Primus inter Pares of the Consortium. You hoped to stand up to the Alliance with all those ships and soldiers." Benjamin tilted his head slightly to the side. "Goodbye," he added and fired.

Turannen didn't know whether his eyes widened or narrowed. There was a blinding light in front of him that brought death, but it didn't bring death to him, it brought death to Amadeus. The little man suddenly had a fist-sized hole in his chest, level with his heart, and something in Turannen wondered why there was no blood gushing from the gaping wound as his secretary fell to the ground, dead. A small voice inside told him that no blood could flow because the heat of the fatal blast had cauterized the wound.

Darkness fell.

For an absurd moment, Turannen thought he was as dead as his secretary, and he marveled that he had died completely painlessly. Then he realized he was still standing in the planetoid's headquarters, only a few feet away from the two gunmen.

For some reason, the power had failed.

Lukert Turannen jumped aside as a second energy beam hissed, bathing everything in harsh light for a split second. A ghastly snapshot: the dead Amadeus on the ground; Enbert Dokkar ducking; and Benjamin furiously searching for a target. Then darkness returned, and Turannen threw himself to one side, bumping into a console and pausing behind it.

Benjamin fired again, and the energy beam hit a display, shattering it.

"Stop that!" Enbert Dokkar hissed.

Turannen knew that fate had given him one last chance. How much time did he have? A few seconds, no more. He listened, heard footsteps, concentrated on the images in his mind and tried to imagine the room in great detail. In his mind's eye he saw the many display panels on the walls, consoles, small control panels with armchairs...

Doors!

In three places there were narrow doors below the pseudo-realistic displays. Where did they go? Amadeus' infonaut could have given him an answer, but the device was lying with the corpse. Several possibilities occurred to Turannen.

Maintenance niches. Briefing rooms. Rest rooms for the headquarters crew. One of the doors was only a few feet away.

Turannen ran both hands over the console, using it as a landmark in the darkness. Behind him, to the left, fourteen or fifteen feet away, if memory served him correctly.

Everything depended on it now: on the accuracy of his memory.

He left the cover of the console and crept through the darkness as quietly as possible.

"You can't escape us," Benjamin's voice came from the darkness. At least he wasn't shooting anymore.

"Help me," said Dokkar, "let's try to restore the power. It's a mystery to me how it could have failed."

There were several clicks - presumably the two men were flipping switches.

The lights could be restored at any moment. Creeping faster through the darkness, Turannen bumped into an obstacle his memory had not shown him. A sharp panic seized him, threatening to break his concentration. Had he started from a false memory? Maybe there was no door in front of him in the featureless blackness? Had he become disoriented?

If Benjamin and Enbert Dokkar had heard the dull thud as he hit the obstacle, they didn't react. The soft clicking continued; apparently the two men were still trying to find the right switch.

Turannen's outstretched hands touched the wall, groped along it... and found the door.

Several catastrophes lay in wait, ready to crush the tender plant of his hope. The door might be locked. And the room beyond it... Perhaps there was no other way out. And if he opened the door and light flooded into the control center... Benjamin would surely not hesitate to shoot him.

Turannen pressed the release button, and a click relieved him of his first worry - the door swung open. And the second fear proved unfounded as well: It remained dark.

"What are you doing, Turannen?" asked Benjamin suspiciously.

Lukert Turannen slipped through the door, closed it behind him, and locked it by turning the knob-like mechanism that opened it.

Voices rang out from the other side, so muffled that he could not make out any words. A short time later, there was a knock - someone knocking on the door.

Turannen pushed himself along the wall, one arm out to the side, the other in front to spot obstacles in time. Another door. He needed to find another door. With their Hefoks, it wouldn't take Benjamin and Dokkar long to get into this room.

Further. Faster through a darkness that seemed to close around him like a fist, making it harder and harder to breathe. Turannen fought the feeling, fought to stay focused. Anything that disturbed his concentration threatened his survival.

Despite his outstretched arms, he bumped into objects several times, and certain things he felt gave him an idea of the room he was in. Some sort of break room or small kitchen, equipped with syntho machines that could synthesize food and drink in a matter of seconds. Turannen's fingers touched cupboards, chairs, a table, once making something clink that sounded like cutlery. And then... a second door.

Or was it the one he had come in through? He hesitated, trying to determine his own position in the mental image of the room he was in. No, it had to be a second door. He did not believe that he had returned to the starting point by following the walls.

He opened the door - it was not locked, proving that it could not be the first door - stepped through and into nothingness.

Suddenly there was no floor beneath his feet, and his hands reached into space. A second later, he landed, but not as hard as he had feared. It seemed he had only fallen down a short flight of stairs. He stood up, groped backward, and touched a railing. Yes, a staircase. And where was he now? Turannen was beginning to hate the darkness. Not having the slightest idea of the nature of his surroundings made every step a risk. He orientated himself with the help of the stairs and again pushed himself along a wall, this time a completely smooth one; maybe he was in a corridor now. It was not only the darkness that was oppressive. It was also the complete silence, except for the sounds he made. He saw nothing and heard nothing, relying only on his sense of touch.

He walked on, as fast as he dared, and several minutes passed without Turannen bumping into anything or falling into shafts that only existed in his imagination.

Then it was light.

Lukert Turannen stopped and closed his eyes. The return of light brought no relief, on the contrary: it meant that Dokkar and Benjamin had managed to restore the power supply. Surely they would waste no time in starting the search for him.

He began to run, though he was still blinded and could see little more than before. As the bright white gradually faded to a dull yellow, more details of his surroundings emerged, and Turannen realized that he was in a corridor leading to the reactors and generators. The wrong direction. He made a turn, letting the colored symbols on the walls lead him to the hangar, and thought about the security systems. If Dokkar activated them and they classified him as an enemy to be eliminated, he was as good as dead.

The corridor finally ended at an elevator whose doors willingly slid apart in front of him. On the way from the hangar to the Arsenal planetoid headquarters, Amadeus and he had not used an elevator. Those corridors led to other areas of the base, and the elevator provided a way to reach the primary areas without having to return to the headquarters first.

Turannen entered the car and the door closed.

He took several deep breaths to calm himself as he looked at the control panel and interpreted the markings. It was a mystery to him why Dokkar had not used the security system against him, but he gladly accepted such small miracles. He raised his hand, touched a button whose symbol he associated with the hangar, and felt the car begin to move immediately. Kinetic compensators ensured that changes in direction were felt only as a barely perceptible vibration. When the travel time gauge indicated that it was almost at the destination, Turannen pressed himself against the wall and looked toward the door. Its two halves slid apart with a whisper...

The corridor beyond was empty. Turannen let out the breath he had been holding, stepped out of the elevator car, got his bearings and started walking. A short time later, he saw a familiar-looking bulkhead further ahead: he had reached the hangar.

And still the security systems had not been activated against him.

He pressed the switch next to the bulkhead, whereupon the segments slid apart. Turannen entered the large room and saw the shuttle they had come in.

Behind him, the bulkhead closed.

Only a few more seconds and he was safe.

Lukert Turannen had almost reached the shuttle when he heard the hangar's inner bulkhead open again. He stopped, stiffening, expecting at any moment to feel the heat of a Hefok beam on his back.

Instead, a voice rang out. "So we meet again."

Turannen thought he couldn't believe his ears. Slowly, he turned around.

"Valdorian?" he uttered, stunned.

Voices

16 APRIL 421 SN, 15:55

Citadel of Kerberos

Police roamed the Citadel, and their presence indicated that things were changing even faster than Brother Eklund had feared. He thought about this as he waited outside one of the improvised interrogation rooms with other members of the Enlightened Community - with Raimon at his side. Yes, things were changing quickly, and the reason was Conrad. The shepherd had informed the police and probably considered this measure part of the "modernization." Eklund looked down at Raimon, met the gaze of his dark eyes and noticed a change in them as well, but of a different kind. There was an awakening in his pupils. He had regained his speech! How Eklund would have liked to talk to him now, to find out more about him and ... what had happened last night. Questions were waiting inside him, and he was almost afraid to formulate them, even if only in his mind. One of them was: Where were you when I woke up and found your bed empty?

Brother Eklund lifted his eyes to see the shepherd strutting through the tunnel, trying to give the impression that he had everything under control.

"I suppose this is your idea," Eklund said, half disengaging himself from the line of waiting people. He had spoken softly, but the shepherd replied loudly enough for all to hear:

"A murder has occurred, and it is a stain on our community. The culprit must be found and punished."

Eklund looked sadly at the short, fat Conrad. "We've always dealt with everything ourselves."

Conrad stood with his legs apart and his fists on his broad hips. Maybe he thought it made him look like an authoritative figure. To Eklund, he just looked like a pathetic fool. "No one has ever been murdered in the Citadel. And the murderer can only be one of us!" he added even louder, letting his eyes wander over the waiting people. The faces of most of the brothers and sisters showed no fear, but rather dismay and confusion.

"So far we have maintained our independence from the Urban Symposium and the autocrat, but the police..."

"It's time to open up," the shepherd announced. "And why should we object to the police looking around the citadel? We have nothing to hide, do we?"

"You yourself pointed out that this is a place of meditation and reflection. That's why you banned my orphanage."

"The police are not settling here, they are investigating a murder," Brother Conrad countered, smiling, thinking he had won a rhetorical victory.

Raimon stepped forward. "I can speak," he said quietly.

Eklund cursed inwardly.

"What?" the shepherd asked, puzzled. Then he remembered. "Hey, you said the boy couldn't speak. You lied!"

Eklund put his hand on the boy's shoulder. "He's recovering quickly. All indications are that he is indeed a self-healer."

The shepherd frowned and looked down at the boy suspiciously. Eklund watched as Raimon looked back, noticing a gleam in his dark eyes that he had seen before, in the mandala cave, after he had been knocked to the ground by Xalon.

"Next," a sharp voice rang out, and Brother Eklund gratefully turned away from the shepherd, grabbed Raimon's hand, and together they entered the cave where the interrogations in this part of the citadel were taking place.

One officer sat at the simple table in the center of the room, and a second stood a little further back, leaning against the wall. Both men were wearing rusty brown uniforms.

"Only one at a time," said the police officer at the table. His young face showed alertness and a sense of duty. The older man in the back looked bored.

"This is my novice," Brother Eklund replied. "He's recovering from a serious trauma, and I don't want to leave him alone, even for a few minutes."

The young man hesitated for a moment and nodded. Eklund pulled up a second chair and sat down at the table with Raimon.

"We are investigating the unusual death of a member of your community," the police officer said, looking at the things on the table in front of him: several documents, lists among them, and an infonaut whose display Eklund could not see.

"Brother Xalon."

"Yes, that was his name. Your brother Conrad reported his death to us, and we are questioning all members of your community who were in the citadel at the time in question." The words sounded as if they had been memorized, and they probably had been; surely the police officer had addressed them to the other brothers and sisters as well. "This is all routine for now. We are just gathering information. No one is being accused. Do you understand?" At these words, the young police officer looked up.

"Yes."

"Your name is?"

"I am Brother Eklund."

The infonaut's hum changed; presumably he was recording everything.

"Where were you when Xalon died?"

"In my cave."

"Did you notice anything out of the ordinary?"

Eklund thought for a moment and shook his head. "No. I was asleep."

The young police officer looked at the papers again, and also at the infonaut's display. "You were seen in Xalon's cave. Immediately after his death."

"Yes. Sometime during the night I woke up and got up. I noticed the commotion in the tunnels, and it led me to Brother Xalon's cave."

"Do you often take walks at night?"

"No." Eklund looked at the second officer, who was leaning against the wall farther back, still looking bored. But he wore the boredom like a mask; the alert gleam in his eyes gave him away.

"None of us killed Brother Xalon," he added, without being asked. "We are healers, not murderers."

"He exploded," said the young officer. "Something like that doesn't just happen for no reason."

"It doesn't have to be murder." Eklund knew he was only expressing hope. The walking stick he had across his legs seemed to get heavier and heavier!

"How do you think Xalon died?"

"I don't know. I only know that we are not murderers."

The officer looked at Brother Eklund for a few seconds, then at the boy. "You are..."

"This is Raimon, my novice. He has suffered severe trauma and does not speak." Eklund hoped the boy understood and remained silent.

"Trauma?"

Eklund summarized Elizabeth's medical report. "All indications are that he is a self-healer and would be a great asset to the Enlightened Community."

The older officer pushed himself away from the wall and came closer, stopping next to his younger colleague. He looked down at Raimon.

"Before Xalon's death, there was an encounter between you in another cave," he said. The words were directed at Eklund, but he continued to look at Raimon. "A confrontation."

"Oh, that." Eklund waved it off. "He did not approve of the child's presence in the cave of the mandala, our most sacred place."

"He pushed the boy to the ground."

"Raimon lost his balance and fell, yes. But..."

"Some brothers and sisters claim to have seen anger in the boy's face on that occasion.

"Do you think it is possible that Raimon killed brother Xalon? That is absurd! Xalon was a New Human and came from a world with twice normal gravity. He was extremely strong. And look at Raimon. How could he overpower someone like Xalon?"

"Where was he when Xalon died?"

Eklund had expected this question. "With me," he lied.

"The boy was not seen in Xalon's cave.

Why did you take your nighttime walk alone?"

"Why should I wake Raimon? I didn't know anyone had died. I let the boy sleep."

Raimon had been sitting quietly, completely motionless, but now he began to move. He tilted his upper body from side to side, looking first at Eklund and then at the two police officers in turn. "I can speak," he said.

The older officer raised his eyebrows. "I thought you said he couldn't talk."

"So far he hasn't spoken," Eklund said. "Physically, he has made a great recovery. Perhaps his mental recovery is progressing as well."

"Well, Raimon ... did you notice anything last night?"

Eklund felt his tension rise. It was the question he was afraid to ask, a terrible suspicion he didn't want to put into words, not even to himself.

The boy remained silent. He looked up at the older of the two uniformed men and made no sound, his face strangely blank.

"Did you see anything?" the older officer asked. The younger one was now reduced to the role of passive listener and observer.

"I can speak," Raimon said.

"Yes, you have already pointed that out," the officer replied patiently. "We would like to know if you noticed anything unusual last night."

Eklund turned halfway in the chair, feeling the old pain in his back.

"I can speak," the boy repeated again, and then his face seemed to turn into a visual display. The features changed as if different faces were laid on top of each other like transparencies that were gradually pulled away.

"I am me," Raimon said in a voice Eklund had never heard before. "I am ... Anita and I work at the Trapezes of Hulkland, I had a contract with a man, he never renewed it, but it doesn't matter, he never knew who I really am, who am I really, I dream and I wake and I wait, I wait for my destiny to be fulfilled, the purpose of my existence..."

The younger officer's eyes widened. The older one reacted a little more calmly but also did not hide his astonishment. Both saw the woman in Raimon's face and heard her voice.

By the World Soul, who are you?" thought Eklund.

Again the boy's face changed. "I am Raol the Dreamer, that's what they call me, because I speak about things others don't know, they are strange things, I can't control when I see them and when I don't, sometimes they just appear to me, and sometimes they hurt..."

Raimon stood up. He let his shoulders and arms drop, but his hands were clenched into fists.

Another layer peeled away and Raimon's young face showed the features of an older man. Even the eyes seemed to fade a bit. "I am Bertram and I work in a creative circle on the programming of Alternate Worlds, but I know that I will not be Bertram forever, I wait for the signal and when it comes Bertram will die and another will be born, I am Emmili and I fly, how beautiful to spread my wings and fly, caressed by the pressure so deep inside the gas giant..."

The face seemed delicate and brittle, fragile and frail, the face of a New Human.

"I... I... I am Tantary, half-sister of the Great Ikahan, sailing with twenty rafts across the Dust Ocean of Drankor, but I know that I am also someone else, I wait and others wait in me, I hear their voices, they want to live, to live like me, they... want... to live..."

Raimon wailed the last words, trembling all over. He raised his arms, pressed his fists to his temples, and screamed at the top of his lungs.

Eklund stood up and hugged the boy. "Easy, easy, Raimon," he kept saying, and gradually the screaming stopped. Soon the trembling stopped and Eklund felt Raimon go limp in his arms. He let go with one arm, leaned on the walking stick - the pain in his back had increased - and looked at the boy. Raimon now had his own face again, and nothing hinted of the alien features, the other people who had spoken out of him.

"That was the scariest thing I've ever experienced," the young officer breathed. Only now did Eklund realize that he had stood up and backed away.

The older uniformed man stared with his mouth open.

"Please allow me to take the boy away," Eklund said, pushing Raimon toward the door. There, curious brothers and sisters huddled together, attracted by the scream. "As I said, he has suffered a severe trauma and needs time and rest to recover."

The older officer just nodded.

World Crash

16 APRIL 421 SN, 16:35

Citadel of Kerberos

Brother Eklund watched Raimon out of the corner of his eye as they passed through a wide tunnel whose walls had been smoothed by hardworking hands many years ago. A shadow had fallen on the boy's face, which now seemed even narrower and more hollow-cheeked than before. At one point Raimon looked up briefly, and the strange darkness in his face seemed to intensify as he said, "It hurts."

Eklund stopped. "What hurts?"

Raimon raised his hands and pressed them to his temples. "In here. It hurts."

Brothers and sisters came by, accompanied by police. This was no place for conversation. "I'll try to help you," Eklund said earnestly. "But not here. I know a place... It's not far. Come, Raimon."

He took the boy's hand and they walked down the tunnel. In this peripheral area of the Citadel, a new project had recently begun. Some creative members of the Enlightened Community had created what they called light shafts - an extension of the natural vertical tunnels of erosion - and placed mirrors so that the light reached even distant corridors and living caves.

"Don't look directly at the mirrors," Eklund advised the boy. "The glare will blind you.

Soon they reached one of the light shafts, and Raimon immediately turned to the ladder leading up a wall.

"Oh no, my boy, I am too old for that kind of climbing." He stepped into a niche in the opposite wall, pulled out a levitator disk and activated it. A low hum sounded, and the gauges showed seventy percent battery charge. "This is quicker and more convenient. Like I said, the privilege of age."

The disk carried Brother Eklund and his novice through the light, past the mirrors. A long way up, they exited the shaft of light at the base of a deep cut that sliced through the Pillion Mountains like a gash. Eklund manipulated the controls of the levitator disk and sent it flying, along a narrow path that wound around rock formations and ended at a large, platform-like ledge that jutted out of the mountain wall and had a perfectly flat surface. From there, there was a magnificent view of the Reef Sea and part of the city. The delta looked like a silver carpet interspersed with green and brown patches. Dark clouds were gathering far above the sea; a storm was coming.

Eklund landed, stepped down from the disk with Raimon, and deactivated it.

Only the whisper of the wind could be heard. The roar of the sea did not reach this height, and it was not nearly as stuffy and hot as down in Chiron.

They sat down on a wooden bench that someone had made many years ago - the weathering marks were unmistakable.

Eklund pulled two pastries from one of his many pockets - they were from the citadel's communal kitchen. "Are you hungry?"

Raimon took a pastry and bit into it as carefully as he had done with Linda's roll. He seemed to like the taste and ate the pastry within seconds. Eklund smiled and let him have the second one, even though his stomach was growling.

He watched the boy eat, and when Raimon finished, he asked the question that had been on his mind for a while: "Where were you last night, Raimon?

The boy looked at him wide-eyed. "Last night?"

"I woke up and you weren't there. I went looking for you."

"Looking?"

"Do you understand what I'm saying, Raimon?"

"I... hear. And I can speak."

"Where were you? I entered Xalon's cave and saw what was left of him. And when I returned to my cave, you were there again. You were lying on your bed, sleeping. Where were you, Raimon?"

"It hurts so much."

Eklund moved a little closer and put an arm around his shoulders. "You're a self-healer, I don't doubt that anymore. You were able to help your body, but healing the mind is much harder, isn't it? Are you ready to entrust yourself to my guidance, Raimon? I'm going to take us to Elysium, the world above the world. Maybe there we can find out what it is about... the voices inside you. And maybe we can find a way to free you from the pain. Entrust yourself to me; do not use your own power. Do you understand?"

The boy nodded, and that one nod was enough to give Eklund confidence. He shook off all his mental baggage and saw it before him, the old portal of weathered wood, like the entrance to a fortress. But there were no high walls with battlements; gray emptiness stretched to the right and left of the portal. Eklund stepped closer and touched the portal, and a door swung open. Light glowed behind it, the shimmer of the world above the world.

"Come, Raimon," he said and stepped through the portal, accompanied by the boy. On the other side...

... stretched neither a long staircase nor a windswept plateau, but a floating city. Colorful crystal-like formations formed symmetrical and asymmetrical structures, composed of every geometric shape imaginable. Shimmering red and blue bubbles drifted through gas trails. For some reason, Eklund knew what the gases were: mostly hydrogen and helium, but also ammonia, methane, and ethane. Beneath the glittering city stretched a vast cloud - an ocean of gas giants; this was a world of genetically engineered New Humans.

"Raimon?"

A fragile-looking figure flew towards him, its delicate wings spread wide. Other figures flew behind it, but they remained far away, just dots against the background of the city.

Eklund did not wonder how he could exist in such a place. This was Elysium, a special world with special possibilities. He stood on solid ground, even though an infinite depth stretched beneath him; he breathed hydrogen and helium, exposed to pressures that would have crushed him instantly under normal circumstances. Strange: These new Humans had to deal with truly extreme environmental conditions, yet they seemed delicate.

Close in front of Eklund, the figure with outstretched semi-transparent wings stopped and smiled. He recognized a young woman, and in her face he saw something familiar, features he had seen in the boy's face during the interrogation by the two police officers. "Raimon?" he asked again.

"I am Emmili," said the winged one. "This is my home."

Eklund reached out to touch Emmili, but suddenly she disappeared, along with the floating city and the massive gas planet. The wind whistled, and something creaked above him. Eklund lifted his eyes to see great sails, snow-white and blood-red, billowing in a stiff breeze. He was standing at the rail of a ship, but its hull was sliding not through water but through a gray mass: dust so fine it almost took on the properties of a liquid. Again, Eklund could access information that could not possibly have come from his own memory, but he simply accepted it without question. The hull of the ship was divided into several narrow wedge-shaped outriggers that sank into the dust, leaving thin furrows that filled up again after a few seconds. The ship had to keep moving to avoid sinking into the gray mass, and even as it moved it depended on the helium-filled balloons of the payload stabilizers suspended above the outriggers, their upward pull reducing the relative weight of the ship.

More ships scurried across the dust ocean, large, massive-looking structures of biofiber and synthomass. Men and women hurried back and forth, pulling ropes, controlling sails, and preparing devices that resembled catapults.

"This is my family," said a young woman next to Eklund. "I am Tantary."

Eklund had seen those same features on Raimon's face.

"He's in sight, he's in sight!" rang out from a mast high above. "He's coming up, up!"

Eklund leaned over the railing, looked ahead, and saw something emerge from the gray: a body, a bulging back, crisscrossed with bony ridges.

"The Dust Juggernaut is surfacing!" it sounded, and audible signals came from the other ships: instructions to make certain maneuvers. The men and women at the catapults worked frantically.

"I am Tantary," repeated the woman next to Eklund, ignoring the hustle and bustle behind her. "Half-sister of the Great Ikahan, who sails the dust ocean of Drankor with twenty rafts, but I know I am also someone else, I wait and others wait inside me, I hear their voices, they want to live, live like me, they...want...to live..."

They were the same words Raimon had spoken during the interrogation, and Eklund saw the pain in Tantary's face. It hurts so much, the memory of Raimon's voice whispered.

"They want to live," repeated the woman named Tantary, and her face turned into a grimace of pain. "Live!"

From one second to the next, a storm roared, with gusts so violent that Eklund had to duck and hold on to the railing. The ship's sails tore, the masts splintered, the superstructure shattered... Everything dissolved in a whirlpool of destruction. Eklund lost his footing, and the wind, which was no wind at all, hurled him through Elysium. Someone followed him through the chaos, a figure at his side, and he knew who it was.

I am I, Raimon whispered, a mental voice accompanied by agony. I am we. We are I. I am a thousand. I am countless...

Behind the whisper was a second voice, not Raimon's, a murmur so low that Eklund had to concentrate to make it out.

Kill, kill, kill...

No, the first voice whispered. No, I don't want to kill. We all want to live...live...live...

Kill, kill, kill!

Eklund plunged through alien worlds. At first he was able to make out details - purple seas full of creatures of ethereal beauty; the metropolises of planets inhabited three thousand years ago during the first great wave of emigration, vast urban conglomerates with innumerable horizontal and vertical traffic corridors that far exceeded Eklund's powers of orientation; Habitat modules on ice worlds; solid large planets with a gravity that only gene-altered New Humans could withstand; here and there temporal anomalies reminiscent of the Time War that had not yet been reintegrated by the Kantaki time mechanics. .. And dozens, hundreds, thousands of other worlds and places, which soon followed each other so fast that the details merged into each other, merged into a colorful ripple. Everywhere there were Raimon persons, self-fragments with memories and desires, with hopes and longings, striving to unfold and live.

So far, Eklund had been able to maintain the integrity of his self, but the fall through the worlds tugged at him with increasing force.

"Raimon," he said, drowning out the whispers of the many voices and murmurs in the background. "Let me take control, Raimon. Back off."

He called upon the power, creating an image of the ancient portal in his mind's eye, and suddenly he stood before it, before the ancient gate of weathered wood. Without hesitation, he reached out and pulled the open door shut. With a soft thud, the portal closed...

...and Eklund was back on the bench. The sun was hiding behind clouds, and lightning flickered on the horizon - the storm was coming fast.

"We must return to the citadel," he said. "Soon the shafts will be closed to keep the rainwater out of the tunnels."

Raimon was slumped over.

"Does it still hurt?" asked Eklund.

"I'm tired..." the boy replied, and his eyes closed.

Eklund gently pulled him up. "Come, let's go back to my cave. You can sleep there."

The levitator disk carried them back to the shaft, and by the time they reached it, gusty winds had sprung up, carrying with them the smell of rain and lightning. At the bottom, Raimon could barely stay on his feet as they stepped off the disk and made their way through the wide tunnel. After a short time, the light faded as the shafts closed at the top. The brightness reflected from the mirrors gave way to a hazy gloom; a few chemo lamps struggled with the shadows.

Eklund had to carry the boy the last part of the way - the fall through his many selves seemed to have exhausted him. In his cave, he laid Raimon down on the bed and groaned softly as the pain in his back became a sharp ache that felt like someone was driving a dagger into his spine. This time he did not refrain from taking a second pill, leaning heavily on his walking stick and eyeing the sleeping boy.

In the light of a chemo lamp, he looked down at the sleeping boy, whose face now looked completely blank. He was a self-healer, and therefore unique, but his mind seemed to have suffered a great deal during that late-night incident. Or was there something in Raimon's consciousness that had been awakened by the injury? Eklund thought of multiple personalities that could reside in a single mind and take over alternately. But usually those different personalities didn't know about each other, right? Maybe he should talk to Elisabeth about this. But could a multiple personality consist of hundreds or even thousands of individual personalities, each with its own cultural background, with its own life? Was there enough mental space for that in one consciousness? And in Raimon's case, the individual personalities seemed to know each other, for he had heard them speak of "we."

It hurt. Of course it hurt. When a thousand fragments of self struggled with each other, each trying to assert itself against all the others and live ...

Deep compassion filled Eklund, and he leaned forward to touch the boy's forehead. "How can we help you?" he whispered.

Normally, Eklund prayed in his living cave, but he didn't want to disturb the boy, so he took his bundle of stones and made his way to the "shrine" - as the Enlightened Community called a cave with many branches that brothers and sisters used for prayer. Each had his or her own god, some had none, and over time the "shrine" had become a place of religious devotion, just as the cave with the mandala was used for meditation.

Eklund walked through dark and semi-dark tunnels, deep in thought - leaving it to his feet to find the right path. He met other brothers and sisters, greeted them and was greeted, and it relieved him to see no police. They didn't fit in the citadel; they didn't belong here. The Enlightened Community had always stood apart from all the institutions of Kerberos, but the shepherd seemed to want to change that, like so much else.

Few people lingered in the shrine, little more than shadows in shadowy corners. Eklund descended narrow stairs, past chemo lamps and candles whose flickering seemed to give life to the shadows. He didn't care for company at the moment, so he chose a side tunnel and followed its course until he reached an alcove carved out of the rock years ago with simple tools. There he sat down, lit a candle of his own, gazed into its flame, and sought peace in its glow while he let his thoughts drift for a while. Finally, he gathered them together - as a shepherd gathers his flock - and gave them a structure to hold the power. He opened the bundle, spread it out like a blanket, and looked at the small colored stones. They had accumulated over the years, like so much else in his life; he couldn't even remember when he started using them for prayer.

"World Soul," Eklund said softly, listening to the sound of the word and holding on to it. It was like a catalyst, making it easier for him to absorb the power in a different way, not to heal but to gain insight. He felt a presence that permeated everything, this world as well as those below and above. He had always felt the Presence, all his life: the Spirit from whom everything came, who had created everything. Eklund did not know if it was the same Spirit in which the Kantaki had seen the beginning of all being, and also the end, at the end of the Fifth Cosmic Age. It didn't matter whose spirit it was because the presence belonged to no one.

"World Soul," he repeated softly, his breath making the candle flicker, "I have placed my life in your hands and let you show me the way. Guide my steps in the right direction now, too."

He grabbed the colorful stones with both hands, shook them with his eyes closed, and then dropped them on the blanket. He opened his eyes again, looked at the patterns and tried to make sense of them, at the same time absorbing power and listening with mental ears.

The pattern conveyed ... meaning. Eklund tilted his head slightly to the side and listened. Yes, the wordless whisper of the Presence gave him a sense of importance. An important message?

Brother Eklund knew well that the stones themselves could not tell him anything. Stones did not speak, stones knew nothing. But as he threw them and watched the patterns that emerged, the voice of the World Soul seemed to become clearer.

Then again... Maybe it was just a habit he had developed over the years, nothing more than a routine that helped him concentrate.

"The boy is suffering," Eklund murmured, and again the flame of the candle moved. "How can I help him?"

He picked up the colored stones and threw them again.

As he looked at them...

Eklund's eyes opened. "You sent me to him?" he said.

His hands stopped over the stones. This time he didn't have to throw them again to understand. He received no communication, he heard no words, but he understood. The World Soul had led him to the boy to protect and help him.

"A... sacred mission?" came softly from Eklund's lips, and he wondered what the atheistic Elizabeth would have thought of it. Memories came back to him, of a golden, faceless figure, of a mission. Remember. Do not forget. I need you.

He moved, but amazingly, not only did the candle he lit flicker. The flickering spread to the other parts of the shrine, as if a gust of wind had passed through the cave, which should have been impossible since the light and air shafts had been closed during the storm.

Eklund pushed the colored stones into a pile and folded the cloth around them to form another bundle. Then he left the niche and returned through the side tunnel to the central area of the shrine, pausing by a limestone fountain with water running over it. The candles glowed steadily again, but with special sensitivity, perhaps due to his contact with the World Soul, Eklund sensed that something had happened. The other brothers and sisters didn't seem to notice; they remained shadows in dark corners, praying in whispers.

Eklund shuddered, seized by an ominous premonition. With the bundle in one hand and the walking stick in the other, he left the shrine and walked out through the main tunnel. For the first few minutes, he thought he was walking with no particular destination in mind, but then he realized that his legs knew more than he did - they were anxious to take him to a very specific cave.

"Brother Conrad?" No one was in the small anteroom. Eklund entered, looked around, and saw nothing out of the ordinary. Yet a hand of ice seemed to close around his heart, squeezing tighter and tighter.

The shepherd's main cave was also empty. Eklund heard the low hum of the data servo, and his gaze slid over the two walls of shelves and the portable air conditioner to the desk. He was about to turn and leave when he noticed two things. The objects on the desk were no longer parallel or at right angles to each other. And there was a strange smell in the air, like...

...blood.

Eklund stepped to the side of the desk and saw what lay behind it: a brown-red pile that looked half burned and half melted; in places, crooked bones protruded from the mass. And on this pile, grotesquely intact, lay the shepherd's head, his shoulder-length gray hair spread wide, his face a grimace of horror.

Eklund left the shepherd's cave, fervently hoping that no one had seen him near it. With shaking hands and a clattering walking stick, he hurried through the tunnels. How long would it be before Brother Conrad's body - or rather his remains - would be discovered? And what would be the consequences of his death? Eklund imagined the police returning, more suspicious than before, investigating more thoroughly. He thought of the pattern of the stones, of the message he had received. A sacred mission... Elisabeth and others might find such a thing absurd, but for him, it was absolute certainty.

Elizabeth...

The boy needed help. If Elisabeth spoke to him... Maybe it would yield a clue or two. Maybe she could give him some advice.

Eklund pulled himself together. It was just a suspicion, nothing more. And a rather nonsensical one at that. Brother Xalon had somehow exploded, and the shepherd seemed to have been ... burned and melted, a process that had excluded his head. How could Raimon have done such a thing?

"It's completely insane," Eklund muttered. "It doesn't make any sense!"

"What doesn't make sense?" asked a confused young brother who crossed his path.

Eklund waved him off and hurried on.

A short time later he reached his cave. Raimon was lying on his bed, but he was no longer asleep. His eyes were wide open and his lips formed a strange smile as he stared at the ceiling.

"Raimon..." Eklund stepped closer. "Have you been here the whole time?"

Slowly the boy turned his head. "I am here again. I am me. I can talk." Pain suddenly appeared on his face. "It hurts."

Eklund grabbed Raimon's hand and slowly pulled him up. "Come with me. I know someone who can help us."

Hunting Starts

16 APRIL 421 SN, 17:30

Kerberos

Lutor thought of Edwald Emmerson's report, which he had read in the meantime, as he looked into the pseudo-real display - the AI scouts had just finished their search, and the results of the preliminary data matches appeared. The metamorph ... An artificial creature, designed to be the perfect weapon and now running wild. A being endowed with unique abilities. Undoubtedly a dangerous opponent.

A dull pain caused Lutor to lower his gaze. The wound on his left arm had long since been bandaged and would heal quickly. It was not a problem, but it was a mystery. Whatever happened in Alternate Worlds could not possibly affect the physical. But the stranger in the mask had hurt him...

He pushed the thoughts away. Perhaps this surprising experience was due to an innovation in the AW technology here - he decided to deal with it later. For now, the data he had acquired demanded his attention.

Lightning flashed and Lutor turned his head briefly. A storm was moving across the Reef Sea and approaching the city of Chiron. A brief verbal command polarized the ceiling and windows; he didn't want to be disturbed by the flickering now.

A list of anomalies appeared in the display: strange events in the city during the last few days; things that, so far, could not be explained. People had disappeared and reappeared hours later, with no memory of the time that had passed. Such things could easily be explained by the use of drugs, of which there were many on Kerberos. Some people had gone to the police and told them they had observed strange things - Lutor leaned forward and read the relevant passages with greater interest. There was no shortage of cases of sudden insanity; in a city like Chiron, someone always went berserk.

"Sort the list by significance," Lutor instructed the data servo.

He read the first item. It was about a man who suddenly seemed possessed and began speaking in languages no one understood. Some witnesses reported that his appearance changed as well. But further down, it was said that the man had left Kerberos on an interplanetary shuttle a few hours ago. If he was the metamorph, the problem had probably already been solved, since Emmerson's report specifically indicated that the base mass would become unstable and disintegrate outside of Kerberos.

The second item was a shooting that had taken place shortly after the metamorph's escape from the lab, two days ago, near the NHD compound. A boy had been seriously injured and taken to a nearby hospital; a bullet had hit him in the chest, narrowly missing his heart. He was operated on that same night, but only a few hours later he was well enough to leave the hospital, accompanied by a certain Brother Eklund, a member of the Enlightened Community. And the following night, a strange incident had occurred at the citadel - another brother of the fellowship seemed to have exploded. Interestingly, there had been a confrontation between the boy and this second brother earlier in the day, according to the police files found by the AI scouts.

Lutor sat back, gazed into space for a while, and listened to his instincts. The first item seemed a bit more interesting - a man changing his appearance and suddenly speaking foreign languages - but the information about the boy also sounded promising. The clincher was that the man was not on Kerberos, but the boy was.

Lutor deactivated the data servo, stood up, and got ready.

Storm clouds brought early darkness, and the first thick drops of rain fell as Lutor got out of the levitator, secured it, and started walking. He walked along the road of smooth synthomass that led from Chiron into the continental forest, past pools of mud that the rain would soon turn into small ponds, past the barracks of those who, like so many others, had come to Kerberos full of hope, only to find misery instead of happiness on this world.

Lutor pulled the hood of his long leather jacket over his head as the rain grew heavier. Transporters hummed along the traffic corridor, few of them equipped with levitators. Their headlights groped through a night that began too soon, and water splashed from their wheels far across the sidewalks. Beyond the V Corridor, the lights of the NHD complex shone across the Acheron. That was where the metamorph had escaped, and subsequently, there had been a firefight here in which a certain Raimon had been seriously wounded. Lutor stopped where the ribbon of synthomass made a bend, and there was a larger open area in front of some huts standing on poles, also partially covered by a polymer coating. Here. At this spot. He remembered the images his AI scouts had found in the police database.

Lutor stood in the pouring rain, which didn't bother him at all, and looked back across the street to the NHD laboratories, paying no attention as another transporter roared by. The metamorph made it to freedom, and a short time later a boy was badly injured. But he recovered quickly, much faster than a normal human could...

As Lutor pondered, a part of him noticed shadows flitting through the darkness, probably thinking they remained unnoticed. The hunter in him remained alert, never closing his eyes, always listening. The hunter in him knew slums like this. They existed on other worlds, too, but the many narcotics on Kerberos had created an especially large reservoir for the disappointed and hopeless, for the losers in the game of money and luck. Lutor knew the special rules that governed life in such neighborhoods, and of course he had come prepared.

Headlights approached again, and another van hummed along the road. Then there was the rain. Whoever was approaching Lutor from behind probably believed that his would-be victim could not hear him. He was wrong.

Lutor half turned and tilted his head slightly to the side. The hood slipped back and raindrops hit his face. He smiled as the hunter in him enjoyed the tingling excitement.

"I'd think twice if I were you," he said just loud enough. "You and your friends - do you want to die on a night like this?"

The stranger, only a vague silhouette, as if insubstantial in the shadows and rain, hesitated.

"There are four of us," a voice rang out from the darkness. It came from the side. "And we are armed."

"Which means that none of you will have to die alone," Lutor replied with cool confidence, and his smile widened. Kordun seemed to awaken in him, a warrior accustomed to overcoming all obstacles and always achieving victory.

Or almost always. The dull pain in his left arm reminded him of a strange defeat...

"There was a shooting here two days ago," he said. "Do you know anything about it?"

"Are you a policeman?" one of the shadows asked.

"I am not a policeman. And I have a hundred transtel to spare for information. Interested?"

Four figures stepped out of the darkness, hesitant, uncertain, hoping for easy money. Four teenagers, between fourteen and eighteen years old, Lutor estimated. He saw narrow, rain-soaked faces with wide eyes; in their hands the four held simple weapons: a knife, a stun gun, and two small slingshots.

"One hundred transtel?" asked the oldest boy. He held one of the slingshots.

"Yes. What happened here the night before last?"

The four boys exchanged uncertain glances. Two of them holstered their weapons, a third lowered his. Only the eldest's slingshot still pointed at Lutor.

"What's to stop us from just taking it?" he asked foolishly - perhaps trying to establish his role as leader.

Three seconds later, Lutor was holding the slingshot, and the young man was on the ground, groaning.

"How did you do that?" asked one of the other boys.

Lutor carelessly threw away the slingshot. "That's one of my little specialties. You can still make a hundred. Of course, he's going home empty-handed now," he added, pointing at the groaning man.

"Rico and Rita got shot," one of the boys said.

"That was the name of the two dead men in the car." Lutor nodded. He knew the names from the files. "Did you see what happened?"

"No," was the reluctant answer, and Lutor heard the fear of coming up empty in it. "But we can take you to someone who saw it all. How much will you pay?"

"Thirty?" Lutor smiled again. "For each of you?"

A few minutes later, they walked over rickety, improvised boardwalks, the rain swelling puddles into ponds and small lakes. It did Lutor's nose a favor: Garbage was washed away, and the stench subsided. Lamps burned here and there, but their light seemed lost in the deluge of rain. They passed huts, mostly made of wood, but some made of cut pieces of synthomass. Tinny music emanated from some of the dwellings.

Finally, they reached a hut that seemed even shabbier than most of the others. "Please wait here," one of the youths said to Lutor, ducking through the narrow entrance. The other two teenagers backed away from the man as far as the walkway would allow. Lutor smiled in the shadows under the hood he had pulled back over his head.

Voices came from the hut, too low for him to make out individual words. Two of them sounded annoyed and even angry, then surprised. The boy returned a short time later. "All right. You can go in." He held out his hand. "Our ninety."

Lutor pulled out several credit tokens, and as he did so, the boy caught a glimpse of the weapons on his belt, including a Hefok and a micronaut laser. The nearest light was quite some distance away, but Lutor still saw the boy pale. He accepted the transtel credits and hurried away with his two friends.

Lutor entered the hut.

A young couple in their early twenties awaited him, their eyes wide in the dim light. A chemo lamp glowed on one side, slowly changing color, but its light only seemed to deepen the shadows.

"A hundred?" the young man asked hopefully.

"A hundred," Lutor said, looking around for a place to sit. The man pointed to the cushions lying around, and Lutor sat down with his legs crossed and pushed back his hood. The young woman sat in a corner of the hut, squeezed between a small food cupboard and a worn sanitation module. "Did you see the shooting the night before last?"

The young man nodded. "A hell of a bad one. Got Rico and Rita. Want to know who was behind it?"

"I don't care who did the shooting," Lutor said. "What about Raimon?"

The two young people exchanged a look of surprise. "You care about Raimon!"

"Did you see him get injured?"

"Injured?" the woman repeated, confused.

"He was taken to a nearby hospital and they operated on him."

The young woman leaned forward a little, and the young man shook his head. "There must have been a misunderstanding. Raimon was dead, definitely."

"Are you sure?" asked Lutor.

"Absolutely. We bent over him and saw the blood. The bullet must have gone right through his heart. Boy, it really wasn't his lucky day."

Lutor stood up, and after a moment's hesitation, the young man followed his lead.

"Is that all you want to know?" he asked.

"Are you sure there is not the slightest doubt that Raimon was dead when you saw him? Before he was taken away?"

"He was absolutely gone. No one can survive a gunshot wound like that."

Lutor reached thoughtfully into his pocket, pulled out more credits and handed them to the young man. Then he turned toward the exit.

"If you need more information..." the man said hopefully.

"I know who to contact." Lutor stepped out into the rain. He took off his hood, walked a few steps, then paused at the railing of the sidewalk, looking down at a pond and watching the raindrops make brief craters in the dirty water. A dead man who came back to life, underwent surgery, and recovered in a matter of hours. Well, maybe the two young people were wrong. Some gunshot wounds were very bloody but not necessarily fatal. But if they hadn't been wrong, if Raimon had really been dead...

Lutor started walking again and decided to pay a visit to the hospital.

The woman looked tired, Lutor thought, but the sparkle in her green eyes had not faded.

"I am Lutor, special representative of Global Director Lukert Turannen," he said. "I am conducting an investigation. The autocrat has confirmed my authority."

He handed the woman his identer. She glanced at it and handed it back.

"Elisabeth Demetrio," she said, though her name was on the small tag just below the collar of the doctor's coat. She pointed to the chair in front of the desk and sat down behind it. An old data servo hummed in the corner. "We have a lot of patients," she added, gesturing to the window that looked into one of the hospital's recovery rooms. "Please be brief," she said.

"The night before last, a young patient was brought in with a gunshot wound," Lutor said. "One Raimon."

Elizabeth leaned forward and looked at him in disbelief. "Is that why you came all the way to Kerberos? Because of Raimon!"

An intelligent woman, Lutor found, with an inner fire. He liked that. And he also liked her face. He thought about adding her into Kordun's world.

"Of course not," he said softly. Outside, lightning flashed and thunder rumbled. Rain was still pouring down, pounding the roof of the primitive-looking hospital. "But it's quite possible he's involved in the larger matter I'm concerned about. What did the tests show?"

The doctor turned to the controls of the data servo, and Lutor watched her with interest. Yes, a fascinating woman. Kordun would certainly take a liking to her. Lutor imagined the warrior wrapping her in his strong arms, how she would willingly give herself to him...

A pseudo-realistic window opened above the desk and images of a boy appeared. A gunshot wound to the chest was clearly visible. Next to it, medical data slid vertically through a text box.

"The bullet lodged near the heart," she said.

"I know. He was operated on here and recovered within a few hours. He left this hospital the next day in the company of someone named Eklund."

Elisabeth looked at her counterpart. "You've done your homework. Why did you come here if you already know everything?"

"I spoke to two eyewitnesses of the shooting. They were sure that Raimon had died."

The doctor laughed humorlessly. "Dead people don't just come back to life."

That depends, Lutor thought. "When Raimon arrived here, he was still alive?"

"Yes. As I said, the bullet was lodged near his heart. He was operated on immediately."

"Nothing unusual came up during the examinations?"

"No."

"Blood, tissue, biostructure...all normal?"

Elisabeth pointed at the display. The medical data was indeed all within the normal range.

"How could Raimon recover so quickly from such a serious injury?"

"Eklund suspects that he is a self-healer. Apparently the first of his kind. Have you heard of this power?"

Lutor nodded. "I've read about it."

"It exists only here on Kerberos. The members of the so-called Enlightened Community who live in the citadel can somehow access it and heal with it, small things as well as large. Surprisingly, they are not able to help each other or heal themselves. The boy's case is obviously different."

Lutor looked at the doctor in silence.

"The power does exist," she added, a little uneasily. "Strange as it may sound."

"Do you know there was a murder at the Citadel?"

"What?"

"A certain Brother Xalon was killed. Anyway, the police suspect murder. He exploded. And before that, there was a confrontation between him, Brother Eklund and the boy."

The doctor was silent for a few seconds. "Are you saying..."

Lutor shook his head. "I'm not saying anything. I'm just stating facts." He looked at the images on the screen again, scanned the medical data once more. A dead boy who had come back to life and recovered from a severe gunshot wound and surgery in a matter of hours...

He stood up. "Thank you for..." Lutor interrupted himself as an audible beep came from his communication servo. He pulled out the small device, raised it to his ear, and listened for several seconds.

"When did this happen?" he asked, listening again. "I'm on my way."

Lutor put the communication servo back in his pocket and looked at the doctor. Her green eyes in her tired face only looked alert, not curious.

"This might interest you," Lutor said. "There's been a second murder at the citadel."

Elizabeth frowned.

"This time the victim is the so-called shepherd, Brother Conrad. And Eklund was seen nearby."

He turned away from the speechless doctor, left the hospital, and trudged through the rain to the levitator car. His next destination was the citadel.

Black Case

16 APRIL 421 SN, 18:15

Kerberos

"Something has gone wrong," Raphael said. Constantine Alexander Stokkart, autocrat of Kerberos, turned in his chair and looked at the door. He was sitting in the middle of a room deep in the heart of the artificial island, accessible only to a few people. Among them was his closest aide, Raphael.

The man's eyes seemed even darker than usual; perhaps he had just taken a dose of Perfid. Stokkart gave him a questioning look.

"At NHD, they know that the metamorph's escape was not an accident, but an attack."

Behind the autocrat's brow, thoughts began to swirl, though his face remained completely unchanged.

"How was that conclusion reached?"

"Remnants of a silent bomb were discovered. Apparently, our man did not proceed with the necessary care."

"Who is responsible?"

Raphael mentioned the name. "Shall I see that he is taken out of circulation?"

Stokkart shook his head. "No. That would only cause an unnecessary stir." He turned his attention back to the many pseudo-realistic displays slowly floating around the room. They mostly showed scenes in Chiron: streets, squares, parks, apartments, manufacturing plants, laboratories, offices. People engaged in legal and illegal occupations, suffering and enjoying, crying and laughing. Visitors from other races, engaged in strange-looking activities in environments created especially for them. There were also images from the other cities on Kerberos, from the Continental Forest and the Emerald Sea. The autocrat reached over to the nearby console and tapped the controls, and new scenes appeared: Bases on the other planets of the Hades system; interplanetary shuttles passing between them; a huge Kantaki ship approaching, watched by the electronic eyes of a satellite. Everything was under surveillance...

Over the years, Stokkart had created a complex network of spy servers that were not only an integral part of most buildings, but also resided in levitator cars, shuttles and transporters. Several hundred of them flew around in the bodies of Adlats, whose biostructure was modeled after native creatures. Who would feel spied on by a cobalt fly?

The Urban Symposium and NHD - especially Emmerson - certainly knew that such spy servers existed, but none of them had any idea of the true extent of the surveillance. Rubens Lorgard and now Edwald Emmerson saw him as little more than a figurehead. They believed they were sitting at the controls of power on Kerberos, and so far, Stokkart had led them to believe that, and with good reason.

Raphael waited patiently.

"Accident or attack..." the autocrat said slowly. "The escape of the metamorph serves the desired purpose and distracts the NHD. We have now reached a critical stage, Raphael. We are close to the finish line, and I don't want to see our success snatched away by the NHD or some other Consortium magnate. Or the Alliance, for that matter. If we've really found what I think we've found, we'll soon be able to stand up to the Consortium, the Alliance, and whoever else. Then this game of hide-and-seek won't be necessary." He made a vague gesture. "How many inhabited worlds are out there?"

"I don't know," Raphael said.

"Thousands. Imagine if Kerberos could export its dreams without restriction. Our drugs are unique, we've known that for a long time. There is nothing like it anywhere else. There is a huge market out there." Stokkart smiled. "And that's nothing compared to eventual independence from the Kantaki."

A faint signal sounded. "Protected communications link," the synthesized voice of the communications servo announced. "Encryption integrity confirmed. Professor Ulgar wishes to speak to you, Your Serene Highness."

"Very well."

Another pseudo-real display formed directly in front of Stokkart, and the professor's spongy, bloated face appeared within it. Excitement showed in the right half of his face, while the left half remained rigid.

"The massive deployment of micronauts you ordered was successful," Ulgar said. "By loosening the sediments, the drills advanced faster."

"Have you penetrated to the point where Hopkins suspects a door in the first artifact?"

"Not yet. It will take a few more hours, I think. But the other shaft has been advanced to the second artifact, which is made of a less dense material. We can get into it any time we want."

Stokkart stood up. "Wait for me. I'm on my way." And to Raphael: "Take care of everything in my absence. Especially keep an eye on Emmerson. I don't want any surprises." With that, he left the room and hurried to the submersible.

Stokkart had imagined the shaft beneath the ocean floor to be dark and damp, but instead, it was bright and perfectly dry. Mobile lighting units filled it with a yellowish, warm glow, and occasionally strange movements appeared in the light: Here and there, the consistency of wall segments seemed to change.

Professor Ulgar pointed to the spots in question. "Some of the deployed micronaut swarms are still at work, analyzing the sediments and stabilizing the shaft."

In addition to Ulgar and the autocrat, Rupert Hopkins and Diana Dankert stood on the levitator disk that was descending through the shaft toward the second artifact. Stokkart and his three companions were wearing thermal suits. The scientists had sensors strapped to their belts, and the autocrat had a powerful Hefok that not only indicated his status - he wanted to be ready for anything. No one knew what they would find in the second alien object. The two artifacts had been resting in the sediment for twenty million years. An unimaginably long time. And yet they were intact.

Two sleeping giants, Stokkart thought, feeling a tingle of excitement.

Waiting at the end of the shaft were Frilor, Markins, Telirei and Gurhan, the remaining members of the scientific team led by Ulgar. Rest periods and work cycles didn't matter now; they all wanted a look inside the second artifact. Like Ulgar, Hopkins and Dankert, their thermal suits were silver-gray - only the autocrat's was black - and they already wore their helmets.

Stokkart and his companions stepped down from the levitator disk and found that all the preparations had already been made. The small room at the end of the shaft would serve as a sort of airlock - it could be sealed off from the shaft with a hermetically sealed door. The opposite wall was pitch black and smooth as glass: the outer shell of the second artifact. In front of it rose a rather massive-looking device made of steel ceramics, synthomass and electronic components.

Hopkins and Dankert closed the door and checked the seals. Professor Ulgar stepped to Stokkart's side and gestured to the device on the wall.

"This should be able to create an opening, and in such a way that it can be closed again later. Whatever's in there, we should avoid damaging it."

Stokkart nodded and looked briefly at Frilor and the others. Their faces were half hidden in their dark helmets, but he knew they were young faces, full of hope and enthusiasm. The price for their loyalty: he had offered them the glory of an epochal discovery. Their names would go down in history. Some people, the autocrat found, would settle for very little.

"We should put our helmets on now," said the professor. "We know there is a cavity on the other side, but it may contain gas that is poisonous to us."

Stokkart nodded again, reached back and pulled the hood of his thermal suit over his head. Immediately, its molecular memory kicked in, causing a structural change. The soft synthomass stiffened and became a helmet. The autocrat closed the collar seals and checked that the air supply, heating and communication servo were working properly.

Ulgar waited.

"Let's go," Stokkart said.

Frilor and Telirei turned to the device and operated the controls. It hummed, and metallic arms grew out of the structure, pausing at certain points on the black wall. High-energy beams glistened, thin as needles, and small clouds of mist seemed to emerge at the same time: Millions of tiny micronauts, machines only a few nanometers in size, were using the material destabilization caused by the beams to shatter the atomic and molecular structure. A thin line in the black marked the process, forming a rectangle about six feet high and a foot wide. Other metal arms sprayed synthomass and applied seals - a door was formed.

Stokkart watched the process with fascination, wondering for the hundredth time what might be on the other side. He watched as mobile servers detached from the central mass of the device, crawling like beetles across the black wall, stopping at the thin line created by the laser beams and micronauts.

"They're trying to measure the pressure on the other side," Ulgar explained. "We don't want to get crushed."

Markins and Gurhan stepped forward, fiddling with certain parts of the device and taking readings from the servers with handheld infonauts. "The pressure is a little higher on the other side. The gas mixture seems to be breathable, but I still think we should keep our helmets on. They will protect us from biological contamination.

The autocrat took this comment as a reason to check his thermal suit's biofilters - all was well.

There was a hiss as a connection was made between the airlock room and the interior of the alien object. Within a few seconds it grew quieter, then stopped altogether.

"Pressure equalization is established," Frilor said.

Professor Ulgar signaled him and he operated the controls of the device.

Vacuum modules sucked on the "door" and slowly, very slowly, pulled it out of the wall.

Behind it...

... everything was dark.

Stokkart stepped forward, looked into the opening, and saw only darkness.

Professor Ulgar himself stepped to the control panel of the device and operated the controls. Again the metal arms moved, directing spotlights....

Blinding light poured through the opening in the black wall into the interior of the artifact, and for a flicker of an instant Stokkart thought he saw a face, a grimace, but it immediately disappeared. A strange jumble of threads, webs and bubbles appeared, but remained indistinct and blurred - something seemed to be absorbing and consuming the light.

The autocrat held his breath for two or three seconds. The face...

"Did you see it, too?" he asked.

"What?"

"The...grimace?"

"The what?" asked Ulgar, confused.

"Never mind." Maybe I just imagined it, Stokkart thought, peering through the opening again. As bright as the light was, it didn't reach far, thirty feet at most. The autocrat likened the sight to an ancient cobwebbed tomb, where someone had stretched out filigree nets and then released thousands of balloons to float around it. Most of these gray bubbles had attached themselves to something, but others were still floating around. For twenty million years?" wondered Stokkart.

There were no clear contours; everything remained a little hazy as if trying to evade the gaze of the observer. After about thirty feet, the haziness increased until everything was lost in blackness.

"Why doesn't the light extend further?" asked Hopkins.

"Something seems to be absorbing it," replied Diana Dankert.

"Some sort of photon resistance." Ulgar removed the lamp from his instrument belt, stepped to the autocrat's side and gave him a questioning look. When Stokkart nodded, the professor stepped through the opening into the interior of the artifact. The light from the spotlights fell on him, but he still seemed to grow blurrier with each step.

Stokkart picked up his own lamp and followed Ungar. The other scientists hesitated before entering the strange object.

The autocrat sensed a change but did not know how to interpret it. Something shifted without changing its position. Perhaps it was some kind of phase transition, he thought, looking around while avoiding touching anything. When he looked back, the opening in the wall seemed much smaller than he had expected; dozens of feet seemed to separate him from it.

Stokkart carefully put one foot in front of the other, on a black floor that had grooves, hollows and holes in many places. He had to divide his attention between finding a safe path and not touching anything. Dankert appeared to his right, about ten feet away, if he could rely on that visual impression, and turned toward one of the spheres attached to a long thread.

"I wonder what these balloons are all about," he heard her voice over the small communication speaker in his helmet.

She raised her hand...

Stokkart knew she was making a mistake - the warning sirens of his instincts were screaming - but he didn't have time to warn the scientist. Her glove touched the bubble, which then changed color, shook, and burst.

For a second or two, Diana Dankert stood motionless, and then... she collapsed.

In the truest sense of the word.

She did not fall forward or backward or sideways, but vertically, seeming to shrink. The suit disintegrated, as did the body it contained. A pile of dust on the black floor was all that remained of Dankert.

"Diana!" cried Frilor, stunned.

"Dear God!" groaned Hopkins as he approached the pile, followed by the other scientists.

The autocrat's eyes darted back and forth as he shone his lamp. For a split second, he thought he saw the face again, the grimace, further ahead in the darkness. At the same time, he sensed that the surroundings were changing. The threads and webs began to move as if caught by a gentle wind that suddenly blew through the artifact.

A bubble drifted toward Stokkart.

He acted without thinking, threw himself to the side, caught on a sloping surface and began to slide as screams came from the communication speaker. Even the ground was no longer stationary; it began to tremble and vibrate, like the body of a massive creature. With one hand, Stokkart fumbled for the belt controls of his thermal suit and turned on the personal shield that was part of his equipment, while with the other he tried to hold on to something. He slid about fifteen or twenty feet, coming to rest on his back in a hollow, looking up to see the bubbles separating from the threads and cobweb-like structures. Like living creatures, they glided around as if searching for something or someone.

The hollow was quite deep, which prevented the autocrat from being able to look over the sides. He could only see what was happening directly above him, but he could hear the screams of the scientists fading away one by one. Finally, there was an eerie silence.

Stokkart could only hear his own heavy breathing. For a while he lay there, not moving, just breathing and listening.

"Professor Ulgar?" he finally whispered. The displays in the helmet showed that the communication servo was working properly. He also called out the names of the other scientists, but no one answered. No more bubbles were hovering over the hollow, but that didn't mean much; Stokkart didn't know what was outside his limited field of vision.

His memory reminded him again of what had happened to Dankert and perhaps to the others, and behind those memories, the grimace loomed dimly.

For the first time, Stokkart felt something like fear.

He hesitated for a few minutes, gathered his courage, and finally gave himself an inner jolt. Cautiously, he raised his head and straightened up enough to look over the edge of the hollow. His lamp lay nearby, its glow lost in the darkness, consumed by the gloom. Only a few bubbles floated through the darkness, some distance away. The others were again clinging to the threads and webs, as motionless as they had been when the autocrat and the scientists had first entered the artifact.

Stokkart slowly got to his feet, picked up the lamp, and only then did he realize that he was holding his Hefok in his hand; he did not even remember taking the weapon from his belt.

There was no sign of Ulgar and the others. Had they managed to get out of the artifact?

The opening with the airlock room behind it was a tiny rectangle that seemed to be a full mile away. Stokkart started walking, the Hefok in his right hand and the lamp in his left, cautiously pushing his way past threads and webs, careful not to touch anything, especially bubbles. He was careful where he put his foot, not wanting to slip and fall and touch something better left untouched. Sometimes he felt the ground give way beneath him, and then he quickly stepped back and looked for another way.

He left no room for the fear deep inside him, suppressing it as soon as it tried to spread. It was all about reaching the opening; Stokkart suppressed all other thoughts.

Surprisingly, the bright rectangle in the distance didn't get any bigger and remained far away, even though he had been walking for minutes. He wondered how far inside the artifact he had traveled with the scientists. Was it due to perspective distortion? Or was the distance really as great as it seemed?

After a few more minutes, the light from the lamp fell on an object that did not belong. After two or three steps, Stokkart recognized a figure lying on the ground, dressed in a silver-gray thermal suit. The markings on the sleeves revealed who it was: Ulgar.

The professor lay on his back, motionless as a rock, and Stokkart stepped closer, shining his lamp. The face behind the viewing glass bore little resemblance to Ulgar's, it belonged to a mummified dead man who seemed ancient. And the thermal suit... The colored markings had faded, and the material seemed dull as if it had lost its flexibility.

Stokkart nudged the dead man with his foot. Where the tip of his boot touched the thermal suit, the material disintegrated into fine dust.

Out of reflex, Stokkart stepped back, ducked, and watched for the gray bubbles. There were some floating far above, but they made no move to approach. Again he looked at the remains of the professor. Contact with the strange bubbles seemed to have aged him and his thermal suit by centuries or millennia in a matter of seconds. Of Diana Dankert only dust remained, of the others nothing at all... How much time had passed for them? Millions of years? Did the bubbles kill them by accelerating time?

What saved me? thought Stokkart as he pushed past Ulgar and continued on his way, faster than before. The personal shield? The fact that I slipped and fell into the deep hollow? Did he owe his life to chance alone?

The face came back to him, the grimace. The others had not seen it...

He hurried on over the trembling, vibrating ground, towards the bright rectangle that just wouldn't get any bigger. The ground trembled more and more, and more often Stokkart had to step aside when the black something beneath him threatened to give way.

And then he bumped into the wall.

The darkness in front of him simply grew more solid, becoming the outer shell of the artifact they had opened with the help of laser beams and micronauts.

But the bright rectangle had not grown larger.

Suddenly, Stokkart understood why.

The opening was shrinking. It had been shrinking all along, growing shut, closing like a wound. He opened his eyes, and while he was still staring, the black rectangle became tiny and disappeared.

He was stuck inside the artifact, inside a strange something that had killed Professor Ulgar and the other scientists.

There was no time for the autocrat to react emotionally to this realization, for suddenly the ground opened up beneath him and he fell into an unfathomable black depth.

Father Brrin

A TREMOR IN TIME

Munghar, Urirr System

Something caught Father Brrin's attention and he realized that his thoughts and feelings were once again lost in a kind of stupor. This had been happening with increasing frequency for some time, a clear sign of mental deterioration. His long life, he knew, was coming to an end, and he decided to look for a successor. But first ... What had brought him out of his stupor?

The old Kantaki looked through the mental lenses he had formed with the help of the nutrient mushroom, looked into the conduit and from there into the universe and trans-space. There were no boundaries. All galaxies and clusters of galaxies lay before him, islands of stars with countless forms of life, each organism an expression of the spirit that had become matter. Brrin sensed the presence of the other Timekeepers, who kept a constant vigil, always on the lookout for signs of temporal manipulation. Wherever and whenever, time had to remain untouched, for tampering with it might give the enemy trapped in the distant past an opportunity to return.

Brrin found it strange that no one but himself seemed to have noticed anything. Had he made a mistake? Was his aging causing his first hallucinations? He observed the fabric of time: smooth and even, no ripples anywhere to indicate manipulative influence.

Yet Brrin sensed that something was brewing. Perhaps his vast experience enabled him to feel it first.

And to hear it: a murmur that came from the past and met something in the now, the equivalent of a waiting ear. Something like an echo sounded, and that's what Father Brrin focused on. His thoughts rushed through the conduit into trans-space, and there they followed the course of a thread that led to the location of the echo. This galaxy... A human-inhabited planet called Kerberos.

Suddenly, the murmur in time became a loud screech and howl, and Brrin recoiled. The trans-space thread vibrated more and more violently, tilting from side to side like the funnel above the conduit.

Brrin curled the limbs he could still move, pushed the protective membranes in front of his multiple eyes, and shook all over, so violently that several sweepers fell from his back shield. He didn't see some of the youngest Timekeepers leave their humps, and he didn't look through the lenses anymore - he was trapped in pain.

When the agony finally subsided, there was silence, both around him and in the spirit world. Brrin opened his eyes to see Mother Krsah, one of the Great Five.

"What happened?" she asked softly. "The others couldn't explain it to me. They never experienced anything like it before."

Brrin straightened with difficulty. "A sliver of the Abissale," he clicked. "For a long time it has slept, half defeated. But now it awakens. And there is a connection to the Temporals."

That was enough. Mother Krsah understood the full extent of the danger at once. A fragment of the Abissale could breach the Void's shield and free the Temporals. Then they would have the chance to leave with their Time Fleet, along with the renegade Kantaki.

"Where?" asked Mother Krsah.

"A human world," Father Brrin replied, "Kerberos."

He gave in to weakness and collapsed. Mother Krsah touched him briefly, then turned and hurried away.

A Munghar day later, five great ships, larger than most of the black colossi of the Kantaki, left. They set out without transport bubbles, and in trans-space, their pilots connected them to the thread that led to Kerberos in the distant Hades system. Unlike all other Kantaki ships, these were armed: Each carried in its hyperdimensional interior a component of the energy matrix of the Spur.

Dark Calls

16 APRIL 421 SN, 20:43

Kerberos

"I gave him a strong sedative," Elisabeth said as she returned from the bedroom of her apartment and closed the hallway door. "The boy is asleep now."

Eklund stood at the wide window of the living room, next to the French door, and nodded as he looked out into the night. The storm had moved on; its lightning now flickered across the continental forest. But it was still raining, and the wind caused drops to slap against the windows. The lights of the city twinkled in the darkness, unaffected by the weather. Elizabeth's apartment was in a large, featureless block with separate sections. The view from the fifteenth floor was of the Delta on one side and the sprawling Bidonville on the other. It wasn't Eklund's first time here, but he came here so infrequently that he felt a little out of place. Perhaps the setting was too... personal.

Elizabeth stepped to his side and looked out as well. There was silence for a few seconds, then the doctor asked, "Did you meet him?"

"Who?"

"The investigator."

Eklund gave Elizabeth a questioning look.

"A certain Lutor, special representative of Global Director Lukert Turannen," Elisabeth said. "He is conducting an investigation. He asked about Raimon and then got the information about a second murder in the citadel. The shepherd is said to have been killed. Is that true?"

Eklund looked out again and nodded.

"Lutor pointed out that you were seen near the crime scene."

Elisabeth waited. When Eklund remained silent, she asked quietly. "What's going on?"

"I'd like to know myself." Brother Eklund turned away from the window and began to walk around the simply furnished living room - Elisabeth, like him, did not place much value on material things. He tried to collect his thoughts as he slowly put one foot in front of the other. "There's something wrong with that boy," he finally said. Elizabeth continued to stand by the window, listening quietly and intently. "He's a self-healer, I'm convinced of that now, but there's also something... dark in him."

He paused and contemplated, searching for the right words, while Elisabeth waited patiently. Eklund described the strange changes he had observed in Raimon's face, the excursions into Elysium, the countless identities that lay dormant in the boy's self. "Maybe it's a case of multiple personalities. I thought... I thought maybe you could help us. That's why I left the citadel with Raimon. You weren't at the hospital and so..."

Elisabeth asked the crucial question. "Do you think that Raimon killed Xalon and Conrad?"

"No," Eklund said immediately, but then hesitated as doubt gnawed at his certainty, ghastly, hideous doubt. "Xalon was a New Human, born on Durant, a planet with twice the normal gravity. How could Raimon have killed such a powerful human? And the shepherd..." Eklund shrugged.

"Xalon seemed to have literally exploded." He described how he had found Conrad. "How could Raimon have done such a thing?"

"You said he was gone when Xalon died."

"Yes."

"Have you asked Raimon where he was? He can speak now and tell you."

"I asked him, yes. But all he said was that it hurts. The many voices in his head ... they cause him pain."

Elizabeth sighed. "How would you like a cup of flavored coffee?"

"I'd love one," Eklund said gratefully. He took a seat while Elisabeth programmed the syntho machine in the kitchen. A short time later she returned with a small tray containing two cups. She handed one to Eklund.

He took a sip, momentarily listening to the sound of raindrops, and then said, "That's not all. I believe I have been given a... sacred mission. The World Soul has led me to the boy to protect him."

Elizabeth sank into the chair on the other side of the table and sighed, deeper than before.

"I know how you feel," Eklund added quickly, looking into the dark, steaming liquid that filled his cup. Then he raised his head to meet Elizabeth's gaze. "I took my stones and threw them in the shrine. Their patterns..."

"They're just colored stones, Eklund, nothing more," Elizabeth said quietly.

"I know. Yes, I know. But when I throw them and look at their patterns, sometimes I hear the voice of the World Soul."

"Your faith in all things..."

"I must protect the boy," Eklund said, noticing a particular firmness in his voice. "That is my task. What happened in the citadel... I don't think Raimon is to blame."

"You don't believe it, or you don't want to believe it?"

"How could he have killed Xalon?"

"He was gone."

"And he came back. What does that prove? Nothing."

"It's okay, Eklund, I'm just playing devil's advocate." Elizabeth noticed the old man's puzzled look and added, "I'm presenting the other side's arguments." She sighed again, took a sip of flavored coffee and set the cup down. "Raimon is underweight. He is certainly not strong. Killing two grown men, a New Human from Durant to boot..." She shook her head.

"I saw the boy in Elysium," Eklund said, sounding like a sad father. "There's something inside him, something dark, that's causing him pain and he wants to get rid of it. He's hoping that I can help him. I thought maybe you could..."

"I am not a psychotherapist or a psychiatrist. There are people at the Chiron Central Clinic who are well-versed in mental problems of all kinds. If this is a case of multiple personality disorder, they might be able to treat it. I could pull some strings and get the boy admitted, citing a very special case.

Eklund hesitated and listened again to the sound of the raindrops. It sounded almost like a tune.

"No," he said then. "I want to avoid him being questioned by the police again."

Across the table, Elizabeth leaned back in her chair and looked at Eklund thoughtfully.

"Why?"

"If his face changes again in such a strange and eerie way... The police might get the idea that something is wrong with him. And if they can't find the real killer, they might look for a scapegoat. We know their methods, Elisabeth."

"Yes," the doctor said quietly. Several times she had had to treat patients who had been "interrogated" by the police. "But that's not your only motive, is it? Be honest, Eklund. You left the citadel to come to me for help. But that is only half the truth. You also - and perhaps more importantly - left to avoid the police's attention being drawn to Raimon. You don't think he's the murderer. But do you think it possible that he had something to do with the deaths of Xalon and Conrad?"

Eklund opened and then closed his mouth, listening inwardly, searching for the truth. Looking back now ... All his life he had been waiting for something, for someone, for an event, for a truly significant moment, for a wind that would blow away the dust of insignificance and show him the relevance, the meaning of it all. He felt very close to this goal, and Raimon - the stones had shown him - was directly connected to it. He had to be protected, at all costs. And it didn't matter what he had or hadn't done in the citadel.

This last thought astonished Eklund and lifted part of the burden on his conscience. The mission of the World Soul - he not only believed in it, he knew it existed, no matter what Elisabeth thought - was more important than anything else. It was necessary to avert danger from Raimon until ... Until what happened? The answer came within reach, and Eklund opened himself to Elysium to reach for it...

Something touched him, like the hand of a woman who had once caressed him, many years ago. Then something scratched, and the hand - if it was a hand - moved away abruptly, shredding the answer and sending its fragments whirling away, caught by a wind that often seemed to blow in the Elysium, whenever Raimon was there.

Raimon...

Eklund stood up abruptly. "The boy! He's awake and..."

Elizabeth responded before he could even finish the sentence. She jumped to her feet quickly, ran, yanked open the door to the hallway, hurried down the hall, and opened the door to the second small bedroom...

Eklund followed the doctor, looking over her shoulder as she paused in the doorway. Only the boy's clothes were on the bed, but not Raimon. The window was open, and beyond it was a fifteen-story drop.

They took the elevator, which this time seemed to crawl in slow motion to the first floor. As soon as it got there, Elisabeth jumped off the platform and ran a few steps before remembering that her companion was no longer so nimble on his feet. Eklund leaned on his walking stick and ran as fast as he could.

Outside, they hurried through the front yard, passing plants that came from the continental forest. Most of them looked unkempt and neglected. Only scattered raindrops fell, and the sounds of the city pierced the night, like the humming and groaning of a huge creature.

"He must be here somewhere," Elizabeth said.

"If he jumped." Eklund paused and looked up at the building. Lights burned behind many windows, not just Elisabeth's, but he knew where her apartment was. They were standing almost directly below it.

Suddenly, several smaller lights darted toward them, stopping just in front of their faces.

"What are you doing?" came a voice from the darkness.

"I live here," Elisabeth said, pulling out her identer. A hand reached for it - that's all Eklund could see. The light shining directly in front of his eyes blinded him.

"I beg your pardon." The light suddenly disappeared. Eklund blinked several times and saw a man in a guard's uniform.

"Did you notice anything?" Elizabeth tried to speak calmly, but Eklund heard the concern in her words. "Did you see someone... fall out of a window up there?"

"What?" The guard raised his hand; several searchlights darted off, shining into every shadow of the overgrown front yard. Eklund's eyes followed them, and he was relieved to see that there was no shattered body anywhere. "Are you saying..."

"Never mind." Elisabeth took a deep breath. "I must have been mistaken. It was probably just a shadow, nothing more."

She and Eklund returned to the building. The guard watched them go in amazement.

Back in the apartment, they went to the room where Raimon had been sleeping. Eklund half expected to find him in bed, but his wish was not granted.

Elizabeth went to the window and looked down again before closing it and turning around.

"How is it possible? He left the room without opening the door. The window is the only way out."

Eklund looked at the bed, the blanket tossed to the side, and shook his head.

"He should be dead down there," Elisabeth added.

"We didn't find a body."

"He could have flown, but humans can't fly. At least not without technology to help them."

Eklund pulled up a chair and sat down. "I suggest we wait. He's disappeared and then returned before." He waved his walking stick. "Better open the window again. Who knows?"

A sound woke Rubens Lorgard. Not the soft patter of occasional raindrops, but something else. A sound that did not fit the familiar surroundings of his apartment.

Lorgard stayed in bed and listened. Over the continental forest, the occasional flash of lightning from the passing storm flickered, and its flickering light showed him snapshots of the surroundings. The bedroom door was wide open, as usual, allowing a view into the hallway and part of the large living room. There was a little more light there - it came from the pseudo-real display panel of the data servo, which he had not turned off. Its low hum, the patter of a few last raindrops, the very muffled sounds of the city, nothing else.

Lorgard stood, pulled on his pants and shirt... and stopped when he heard the sound again. A strange creaking, like floorboards under a heavy weight.

On silent feet, he left the bedroom, paused in the hallway, and wondered if he should sound an alarm. A brief verbal command would suffice, and the apartment's servers would immediately notify building security and the police.

"Turn on the lights," Rubens Lorgard said instead. Immediately it was bright.

A figure stood in the living room: five foot tall, three rubbery legs, skin like thick, old leather.

"What are you doing here?" asked Lorgard in amazement as he entered the living room. He remembered that the apartment door was locked and secured. "And how did you get in?"

He walked around the figure and looked into the two large eyes that were staring straight ahead. The light reflected in them, but Lorgard thought he saw something else, a strange glow.

The adlat made no reply, just stood there. It’s strange behavior aside... something about it seemed out of place. Surprisingly, it took Lorgard several seconds to identify what was out of place. The face with the nose that specialized in detecting dirt particles and toxic substances showed pain.

The sound he had thought was a creak... It was a deep, muffled moan.

"It hurts so much," the adlat said in a voice Lorgard had never heard before.

Lorgard stepped back, and a premonition, accompanied by horror and grief, stirred within him. This was his creation. Not the adlat who kept the apartment clean, but...

The figure changed, became thinner and larger, its substance, its living flesh structured by the formation matrix, seemed to half liquefy, only to solidify again and fulfill its biological functions. A humanoid stood before Lorgard, a naked, sexless human with a face that seemed to have the features of several people in it: The features changed, merged, frayed, and unraveled, only to stabilize in a new form.

The naked, gender-neutral human - the metamorph - stretched out its arms as if pleading. "It hurts so much," he wailed. Two tears escaped its eyes and ran down its cheeks. "All these voices... it hurts so much."

A thousand thoughts raced through Lorgard's mind. He remembered the conversation with Emmerson, the metamorph's programming, and his multiple kill order. Danger!" cried the voice of instinct inside him.

But he also felt like a father who had found his lost son. This was his creation, his work.

He stepped forward, reached for it...

Again the figure changed, but much faster than before. Within a fraction of a second, the human being - neither man nor woman - became a large mouth with dagger-like teeth, which immediately snapped shut.

A hand clasped Eklund's shoulder almost painfully, waking him.

"He's back!" hissed Elizabeth.

Raimon was lying on the bed, naked and shivering as if from a fever. His eyes were wide open and he stared into the void as he shook all over. Eklund stood up jerkily, ignoring the pain in his back, rushed to the bed, and was startled when he touched the boy. Raimon's skin was hot; he seemed to be on fire. A small whimper came from his lips.

"I fell asleep too," Elizabeth said quietly.

"Then I heard something and..." She shook her head.

"The door is locked, from the inside. He must have come in through the window."

"Raimon?" Eklund leaned forward. "Can you hear me, Raimon? How did you leave the room? And how did you return?"

"Dead," the boy breathed. He blinked several times, and his eyes seemed to focus on something only he could see. His face changed, taking on a grimace. "He's dead, dead, dead." Each word was a low, guttural rumble. Then the boy's voice rang out again, anguished, full of pain. "It hurts so much..."

He closed his eyes and seemed to fall asleep. The agony drained from his face, and his boyish features softened. Eklund felt the boy's forehead and noticed that the skin had grown cooler.

"We have to help him somehow," he said compassionately.

Elisabeth came to his side. She looked very pensive. "I suggest that we take him to the hospital. I want to examine him again."

Shadow of Death

16 APRIL 421 SN, 20:45

Kerberos

Without the slightest emotional reaction, Lutor looked at the brown-red pile that remained of the shepherd's body. Bones protruded here and there from the mass, and at the top lay the head, intact, the face frozen in a grimace of horror. Police forensic specialists were at work in Conrad's office, trying to secure evidence.

"Who or what kills in this way?" asked the older policeman who had checked Lutor's identity. He seemed to be in charge of the investigation.

The metamorph, Lutor thought. Aloud he said, "Someone who can change the structure of organic tissue. He made Xalon's body explode, here he made the body... melt."

The police gave him a thoughtful look, and Lutor recognized an experienced man who knew his stuff. "Do you think it was the same killer?"

"Two unusual murders, in quick succession, in the Citadel?"

The police officer was still eyeing him, and Lutor met his gaze effortlessly.

"Why are you here?" he asked, so quietly that the other police officers could not hear him.

"That's my business," Lutor said coolly.

"Why did Global Director Turannen send you here? It must be something important. And your being here suggests a connection."

Do we have another Edwald Emmerson here?" thought Lutor, a vague anger stirring within him. "Beware of jumping to conclusions." He looked around demonstratively. "I want to talk to the woman who found the dead man," he said.

"If you withhold information, you will complicate the investigation."

"Where is the woman?"

The police officer sighed. "Come with me." In the smaller room outside the office, several members of the Enlightened Community were standing. Lutor glanced briefly over their faces, seeing horror, dismay, and deep uncertainty.

"Sister Talis?" the older police officer asked.

One of the women - small, pale, her eyes still wide - broke away from the group and looked questioningly at the uniformed man.

"This man wants to talk to you," he said.

"Let's take a seat at the table," Lutor said. "Everyone else, please leave the room."

The woman sat down at the table while the rest of the brothers and sisters left the cave. The older police officer stopped about ten feet away and leaned against the wall. Lutor toyed with the idea of sending him away as well, then decided against it. He might need the help of the police one day; he had learned not to make enemies unnecessarily.

The woman - around thirty, Lutor estimated - was clearly frightened. Her fingers kept moving as she sat there, groping back and forth as if looking for something to hold onto.

"You found the dead man," Lutor said.

Talis looked at the police officer as if seeking his permission before answering. The man in the reddish-brown uniform did not respond to the look, presumably a show of neutrality.

"Yes," the woman said.

"Was there anyone else in the shepherd's office or this cave?"

She shook her head, briefly and violently, as if startled. "No."

"Eklund was seen nearby, wasn't he?"

Some of the dismay left Talis's face, giving way to astonishment. "You don't think Brother Eklund...? He's old and his back is giving him trouble; he couldn't possibly have killed the shepherd."

"Did you notice anything on the way here?"

Talis frowned and thought.

"Did you see anyone coming from here?"

The woman hesitated a moment. "Yes. The boy."

"What boy?"

"Raimon, Eklund's novice."

Lutor felt the police officer's gaze but knew that his features gave nothing away. "Raimon approached you when you were on your way to see the shepherd?"

"Yes."

"What was your impression of him?"

"His face was ... blank. But at the same time he was smiling, but only with his lips. The rest of his face was blank."

"Where is the boy now?"

Talis shook her head again, more slowly this time. "I don't know. I haven't seen him since."

"All right. You may go."

The woman stood up and almost fled the cave. The older police officer pushed himself away from the wall and came closer.

"Who led the interrogations after Xalon's murder?"

"I did."

"Did you speak with Brother Eklund and his novice?"

"Yes, I did. A younger colleague started the interrogation, but I was there from the beginning."

"Did anything come up?"

The police officer took the seat where Sister Talis had just been sitting. "What do you mean?"

"You know exactly what I mean," Lutor said with a certain sharpness. "Don't play dumb with me. Did you notice something?"

Again the uniformed man gave Lutor an appraising look. "The boy's face..." he said finally. "It changed. It kept morphing into the features of other people, and he spoke in their voices. My colleague said he had never seen anything more sinister."

The metamorph, Lutor thought. There's no doubt about it now. He put his hands flat on the table and stood up. "Please establish the current whereabouts of Eklund and Raimon."

"They are no longer in the citadel." The older police officer, whose name Lutor had heard and immediately forgotten, stood up as well. "I would like to speak to them myself, and I have started a search for them. They are not here."

"Where could they be?"

The uniformed man raised and lowered his shoulders. "I don't know. Chiron is big, and Kerberos is even bigger."

Lutor took a step toward the man and pierced him with a look. "It seems to me that you're not being very cooperative. Need I remind you that Global Director Turannen has given me full authority?"

The police officer refused to be intimidated. "I report to the Urban Symposium and am not an employee of the NHD," he said, his tone as neutral as his expression. "And I would like to appeal to you again: If you have additional information, please share it with us. It is in all of our interests to prevent further murders."

"I will let you know as soon as I feel it is time and appropriate," Lutor replied. "Until then, I expect you to cooperate fully with my investigation."

The police officer nodded curtly.

"I don't want to waste time interviewing dozens of members of this community. You've already done that, and I'm sure you've found out a thing or two. What contacts does Eklund have outside the Citadel? Friends and acquaintances in town? Who is close to him?"

For a few seconds, the older police officer seemed to be struggling with himself. "The doctor," he said finally. "He often visits the hospital not far from Bidonville. He offers his services there as a healer.

Some members of the community have testified that he is friends with a doctor named Elisabeth."

"Elisabeth Demetrio?"

"Do you know her?"

"I have spoken to her." Who would have thought it? A direct connection. "Well, it's a starting point."

The police officer reached for a communications servo.

"No," Lutor said. "Leave it to me."

"I've started the investigation and..."

"And you will leave the rest of the steps to me. Please do not force me to go to the autocrat after consulting with Global Director Turannen. That might cause embarrassment for certain people. I'm sure you understand what I mean."

The police officer's face was no longer neutral, but stony. "Yes."

"Continue to gather information here. Have your people keep their eyes open in the city as well, but don't interfere with whatever happens."

"Whatever happens?" the man repeated anxiously. "What do you expect to happen?"

"There may be an incident or two," Lutor said evasively. "I'll keep in touch with you."

The levitator car was where Lutor had left it, on a broad ledge jutting out of the rock face of the Pillion Mountains. Far below, a carpet of lights stretched across Chiron in the delta of the Acheron. The storm had moved on, and lightning now flickered across the seemingly endless continental forest. Lutor got in, activated the levitator, switched to manual control, and steered the car away from the citadel.

He intended on paying Elizabeth Demetrio a second visit.

The police only interfered. The hunt was between him and the metamorph, him and the prey, as always. Nothing else had any business in this confrontation.

Lutor had only been on Kerberos for a short time, but he believed he was close on the metamorph's heels. If Raimon was indeed the metamorph. Maybe, with a little luck, he could catch him tonight.

As he steered the levitator car down towards the upper flight corridors of the city, movement caught his attention out of the corner of his eye. He turned his head to look out over the Reef Sea and the colorful array of lights that twinkled and shone where the autocrat's artificial island floated. Some distance behind the island, the air shimmered as if from extreme heat, and a great black thing rose, a huge object that seemed to be alive.

Lutor blinked in confusion, and when he looked again, the thing had disappeared.

Instead, the city beneath him no longer existed.

A much larger delta with only a few islands stretched out below him, bathed in the light of a sun that hung as if bloated in the sky. Lutor stared into the depths, stunned, and saw not a single building. There was not a single sign anywhere that humans were or had ever been here.

Red flickered in front of him as all of the levitator's security systems simultaneously sounded the alarm.

Night had turned to day, and the sun shone down on an Acheron delta completely untouched by man. The air seemed almost motionless, yet the levitator car was suddenly tossed from side to side. Fine cracks appeared in the windshield, and the supporting structure of steel-ceramic and synthomass creaked and cracked. The displays in front of Lutor flickered, but the data they displayed made no sense at all. The various servers of the levitator car seemed to confuse up with down, left with right. He operated the manual controls....

... and suddenly found himself in the apartment NHD had provided for him. Outside the windows, poison-green and blood-red clouds chased across a burning sky. Lutor retreated from the sight, turned to the door, opened it ... and looked into a black abyss. The wind howled, tugging at him, trying to pull him into the abyss. He held on, fought the pull, and slammed the door shut.

There was an abrupt silence, and in that silence he heard words, like a whisper from afar: I'm waiting for you.

A blink, nothing more...

...and he was back in the levitator car. Darkness surrounded him, the city lights glowed below him, and lightning flickered across the continental forest. Clouds parted and the light of a moon shone down on the Reef Sea, on the black shadow rising from it, like a part of the night that had decided to swallow all light.

The levitator car fell.

Lutor's hands flew over the controls...

... Gray. A gray world stretched out around him. Where once the continental forest had sprawled and flourished, colorless skeletons rose, and where the city of Chiron had stretched, gray dust covered the ground like a shroud. Lutor slowly put one foot in front of the other, breathing in the hot, dry air as he looked at the pitiful remains of the steel ceramic walls. Nothing moved in this sterile, dead environment; not even insects.

"This is not reality," he said aloud, as if to convince himself. "I'm sitting in a levitator car and..."

He stopped abruptly. I'm in a crashing levitator car!

For some reason, he began to walk, as if by doing so he could shorten the spatial and temporal distance to the reality he knew.

I am waiting for you.

A city, resembling a sea of lights, nestled in the darkness. And the levitator car was hurtling towards it. Lutor managed to intercept it and stabilize the levitator car to prevent it from colliding with vehicles in the upper traffic corridors. He thought he had the car back under control when something knocked him aside like a Titan's fist...

Once again he stood in the all-encompassing gray, and immediately Lutor noticed two differences. The remnants of steel ceramics had become buildings, but they seemed ancient, lifeless, long abandoned. And he was no longer Lutor, but Kordun, the warrior from the Northland.

It was completely impossible.

Kordun only existed in a fictional Alternate World, and only by being connected to an AW data servo could he slip into his character. He raised his hands and looked at them, and realized that they were Kordun's hands, and his muscles, his strength, his determination, and his anger at ... Echna? No. This Kordun was not thinking of the Lord of the Shadow World and the Infernal Guard, but of another opponent, someone smaller and lankier than himself, dressed in leather, black as night, his face hidden behind a silver mask.

I am waiting for you.

Kordun stood tall, his fists clenched so tightly they crunched softly. "Where are you?" he growled. The two-handed sword hung from his belt, but he no longer had a backpack. Whatever happened, he would have to make do without his magical paraphernalia.

I'm still in the levitator car, Lutor/Kordun thought, wondering how one could escape from a dream experienced while awake. But was it really just a dream?

And then he saw him, the other warrior, the mysterious figure who had injured him, though one could not be injured in an Alternate World. As if to confirm it, he felt a dull pain again, lifted Kordun's left arm, and saw the red welt of a recently healed cut. The figure stood in the middle of a wide street, just in front of the place where it turned to the right and disappeared behind a tall, empty, dead building. No wind blew, nothing moved, and silence reigned over the deserted city.

There are only the two of us here, Lutor thought with sudden certainty. Everything else on Kerberos has been dead for many, many years.

When Kordun began to move, his steps were slow but purposeful. The heavy leather boots kicked up the gray dust.

The black figure with the silver mask did not move. He stood motionless as a statue, but Lutor felt his watchful gaze.

A few feet from the stranger, he stopped without drawing his sword. "Who are you?"

I am we, was the enigmatic answer. Lutor didn't know if he heard the words or if they reached his brain without passing through his ears.

"I'm not really here," he said. "I'm in a levitator car that is about to crash. A thousand questions assailed him, and two of them were: Was time passing in reality while he was experiencing this? Was he in danger of dying while... dreaming?

The figure moved. By reflex, Lutor drew the flamberge and...

...stood in a long corridor that he recognized immediately. It was part of his father's residence, the great clan house built many centuries ago on a plateau in the Thousand Ridges of Aburrka, high above a long fjord whose icy blue waters glittered nearly a thousand feet below. He walked along the walls, looking at the old documents in their protective frames, at the static three-dimensional images, at the original weapons in display cases, at the memorabilia, and even better: most of the weapons had actually been used in battle against enemies, first against humans during the Dynastic Wars, then against the Temporals during the Thousand Year Time War. A proud family whose members had been soldiers and warriors for centuries, in the service of certain magnates during the Second Dynasty, and in the service of all humanity as well as the Kantaki and Feyn during the Time War. The Kordun Clan. A family that was highly respected on Aburrka. Lutor carried on their ancient traditions in his own way: as a relentless hunter.

He stopped at a window and looked down at the long fjord, overcome by nostalgia and homesickness. When he turned around, he saw his father at the end of the hall, and that was impossible, because his father had been dead for more than ten years.

He reached out his hand...

... and heard the screeching of the levitator. The synthetic voices of the servers were trying to tell him something, but Lutor knew that the car's on-board systems were under enormous strain.

No, this was no dream. This was really happening. Something was happening on Kerberos, something that was not just messing with his levitator car's systems. The lights in the traffic corridors above Chiron were dancing in the night, as if subject to the whims of a violent storm.

"Landing approach," Lutor instructed the main servo of the levitator car. "Take me down."

When there was no response, he reached for the manual controls again. Only a few hundred feet separated him from the chaos of the city's traffic corridors, and while he was still looking out, two large transport pods collided and burst apart. Lutor forced the levitator car to the side and managed to gain some altitude and set a new course....

A blow hit him in the center of his face, so hard that he almost lost consciousness...

Lutor lay on his back in the gray dust, trying to wipe the blood from his nose with his hand.

The stranger stood over him, his face still hidden behind the silver mask. He had no weapon in his hands and had struck him with his fist alone.

Lutor remembered Kordun's strength, shook off his stupor, half rose and then leapt. He threw himself at the figure, raised the sword with his right hand, spun in the air - how wonderful this agility was! -landed on his feet and struck.

But the stranger was not where he expected, but behind him.

A second blow struck him between the shoulder blades, knocking him to the ground with such force that the impact drove the air out of his lungs. After two or three seconds, he managed to turn around.

There, just a foot away, was the stranger, now holding a sword and pointing it at Lutor. The cold, sharp point touched the base of his neck.

"Who are you?" he managed to get out.

I am we, the stranger repeated, raising his left hand and removing his mask.

Lutor looked into a thousand different faces...

...and something seemed to tear him apart. There was a crash and thunder all around him, so loud that it completely drowned out the synthetic sounds of the servers. The safety harness closed around him, so tight that he found it hard to breathe, and a compensation field erupted, absorbing kinetic energy that would have seriously injured or even killed him.

Time passed. Lutor did not know how long he remained in the cocoon of numbness that kept the pain and questions at bay. At some point, perhaps after a few minutes, faces began to appear in his field of vision - police and paramedics - along with the wailing of sirens.

Someone unbuckled his safety harness, and they freed him from the wreckage of the crashed levitator car. As he was carried to the nearby ambulance, he saw several bodies - apparently the car had crashed into a group of passersby. Some onlookers were standing nearby, and in their midst Lutor thought he saw a silver mask.

Orbital Station MeteoTech-14

16 APRIL 421 SN, 21:15

Orbit around Kerberos

Darkness fell on board as the day slipped away below on Kerberos. Anton Filip, the orbital station's chief meteorologist, loved these moments of quiet; he found the view of the planet through the wide panoramic windows of transparent steel ceramic conducive to thought. He sat at one of the four horseshoe-shaped control consoles in MeteoTech-14's control center, leaning back in his chair, a mug of flavored coffee in his hands. Occasionally he glanced at the displays, but mostly he looked out into space, watching Kerberos spin beneath him. A great landmass appeared and slid along as if inert. The oceans glittered, reflecting the light of the Hades sun: the Emerald Sea, the Reef Sea, the vast Meridional Ocean - blue and turquoise, dotted with thousands of islands large and small - the partially frozen Polar Seas. Everything seemed somehow fragile, Filip thought, small, delicate and fragile, the largest oceans as well as the highest mountains. It's all in the perspective, he thought, pleased with himself and the small, manageable world that surrounded him.

As he thought, watched and drank coffee, the terminator approached again, that line that separated day from night. He looked at the cloud patterns, read the data overlaid on the window by the various servers, and realized that an area of bad weather had formed over the Reef Sea and was moving toward Chiron. The lights of the capital of Kerberos were hidden beneath storm clouds in which lightning repeatedly flickered. Filip glanced briefly at the clock. The next routine evaluation of meteorological and other data wasn't due for another hour, and he didn't even have to bother with it - the data servos did most of the work themselves. Sometimes Filip felt his own importance reduced to that of a maintenance technician, and then he jokingly told himself that he wasn't even needed for that. MeteoTech-14's equipment included twenty special adlats, adapted to the unique working conditions inside and outside the orbital station. One of them, as if summoned by Anton Filip's thoughts, crawled along the edge of the wide window outside. The creature had two legs and more than ten short and long arms and did not need any protective clothing, for its skin of flexible silicon protected it from the cold, vacuum and radiation. Suction cups held the adlat - which, as Filip knew, was not made of Kerberos base material - to the outer shell while it tirelessly checked the external installations.

After a few seconds, the creature slipped out of sight, and Filip's gaze returned to the flashes on the planet's night side.

A red light flashed on the control panel.

The chief meteorologist leaned forward, placed the mug on the shelf to the right of the console, and activated a pseudo-real display. Data appeared, columns of letters and numbers.

A second display flashed red, then a third.

Filip heard a strange scraping sound, looked to the side and saw the cup of flavored coffee sliding across the shelf.

The whole orbital station was vibrating.

With one hand Filip held the cup, with the other he operated switches, and called up more information.

"Eurelia?"

"How may I be of service?" sounded the synthesized voice of the central data servo. Filip did not know which of his predecessors had called him Eurelia and if there was any meaning behind the name. The personalization of the orbital station's primary data servo was now an integral part of MeteoTech-14 and it was impossible to imagine life without it.

"Wake the others," Filip said. "I need help."

"Acknowledged," Eurelia replied.

A second later, a torrent of red flooded the control panel, and the vibration became several violent jolts. The cup of flavored coffee fell from the chief meteorologist's hand, hit the floor, and rolled away, leaving a trail of black liquid in its wake. Filip paid no attention. His eyes darted between the displays and the panoramic window. A shadow slipped between Kerberos and MeteoTech-14, the dark colossus of a Kantaki ship rising from the planet's gravity field, and for an irrational moment the chief meteorologist feared a collision with the black giant. However the superimposed data indicated that the distance between them was several dozen miles. The Kantaki ship glided by, followed by a transport bubble...

... which seemed to burst behind the ship.

Filip's eyes widened in horror. The delicate webbing of the large bubble behind the Kantaki ship was fraying. Cargo containers, small habitats and passenger capsules burst apart, their contents suddenly exposed to the cold vacuum of space.

A blink...

And the Kantaki ship was gone.

For several seconds, Anton Filip paused, dumbfounded, and looked out the panoramic window for a huge spaceship of which no trace could be seen anywhere. Switches clicked under the chief meteorologist's fingers as he activated additional external sensors to peer and listen into interplanetary space. Several shuttles were traveling between the outer planets of the Hades system, but there was no sign of a Kantaki ship anywhere.

Seals hissed softly as the bulkhead opened. Anton Filip turned his head briefly to see the still rather sleepy Helen and Girdo, both around thirty-five and newly in love. A pink cloud seemed to hover over them even now, despite the confusion on their faces and the ill-fitting clothes they had thrown on in a hurry. The couple was followed by the young, lanky Boris, who again gave the impression of barely being able to stay on his feet. Most of the time - not always - he was so pale that his skin seemed colorless, and then the blood vessels stood out, red and blue. Anton Filip had known for a long time that he could not apply normal standards to Boris, because he was a genetically altered New Human. The chief meteorologist did not know to which special environmental conditions he was adapted and what had brought him to Kerberos and finally to this orbital station. But such things did not matter here, Boris was a first-class data collector and evaluator, making him a valuable member of the scientific team aboard MeteoTech-14.

Wordlessly, the young man stepped past Filip's coffee mug, took a seat at the console, activated pseudo-realistic displays and called up the current data.

"What happened?" asked Helen, brushing back her long, fiery red hair and sitting down, as did Girdo.

"I'd like to know myself," Anton Filip replied. "It was all quiet, and then suddenly all the systems began to alarm. There were vibrations and jolts..."

"They threw us out of bed," Girdo said, exchanging a quick look with Helen before turning back to his station's displays.

"A Kantaki ship passed by, and there was something wrong with its transport bubble. The cargo containers and passenger pods were rupturing..."

"What?" gasped Helen, startled.

"And then the ship just disappeared. I've tried to find it again with the external sensors, but there's no trace of it."

"What's wrong with the planet?" gasped Girdo.

Filip looked past the flood of red on his console to the panoramic window. Something like a gray fog was creeping over Kerberos, swallowing the darkness of the night side and covering the entire planet in a robe of colorless uniformity. A few blinking dots in various orbits - indications of the positions of the main satellites and the other orbital stations, overlaid by the central data servo - disappeared, as had the Kantaki ship earlier.

"Eurelia, what happened to the other satellites and stations?"

No answer.

Filip turned his head and realized that the strange gray fog was not limited to Kerberos, but had reached MeteoTec-14 as well. It was a dead gray that spoke of age and cold, in which everything froze. Boris, Helen, Girdo... They had stopped moving, sitting motionless at their stations, a hand outstretched here, a head tilted to the side there.

The gray continued to crawl through the headquarters, reached the chief meteorologist, climbed up his legs .....

Filip jumped up but could not escape. He backed away, but the colorlessness ate its way up him, reaching his torso and neck....

He thought he felt the cold of a million-year-old glacier, a frost that stopped his heart, froze his thoughts and feelings....

From one frozen moment to the next, the gray ceased to exist. Helen half jumped to her feet, her hand raised to her mouth. Girdo withdrew his hands from the controls as abruptly as if he had been burned. Boris, on the other hand... He sat in awe, watching columns of data slide frantically across multiple displays.

"I see a pattern," he said.

Anton Filip returned to his seat. There were no more jolts, and the vibrations had subsided. The panoramic window showed the night side of Kerberos, part of it under the clouds of a vast storm system. Flashing dots marked the positions of satellites and other orbital stations.

"What's going on?" he asked softly. "Eurelia?"

"How can I be of assistance?"

"I asked you a question earlier and you did not answer."

"The last verbal contact with you was a few minutes ago when you gave me instructions to wake the others."

"Boris?" Filip looked into space. The memory of the gray he had seen so clearly still horrified him. "What about the patterns?"

"It's definitely not a meteorological phenomenon," Boris replied.

Of course not, thought Filip. Meteorological phenomena from the planet can't affect us in orbit.

"Nor is there any unusual solar activity," the young man continued. His hands were in constant motion, repeatedly touching switches, retrieving data and adding it to the correlation patterns already formed. A projection field formed in front of the panoramic window, showing a spider web-like structure with threads emanating from a single center. The individual threads were not straight, but crooked and twisted. The display slid across the planet, and its center was over the Reef Sea, not far from Chiron - the lights of the city shone through gaps in the clouds.

"What is that?" asked Filip.

"A temporal anomaly," Boris explained. "It has since stabilized. But further temporal eruptions cannot be ruled out."

"When the Temporal War took place, Kerberos was uninhabited," Girdo said. "I have never heard of the Kantaki and Feyn temporal mechanics closing portals here."

"This is not an anomaly as we know it. Some kind of... funnel seems to be forming, a tunnel through time."

The cobweb-like structure deformed, becoming a spiral of tightening coils.

"But how could this happen? What is causing a temporal anomaly to suddenly form on Kerberos? What is the cause of this phenomenon?"

"Certainly not a natural one. The records in the Time War databases show certain structural parallels."

The eyes of the other three crew members rested on Boris. In his previously pale face, Filip now noticed some blotches. A sign of excitement?

"And that means?" he asked.

"I think we're dealing with an attempt by the temporals to return to our time."

Curvatures

16 APRIL 421 SN, 21:15

Kerberos

"The apartment's security units triggered the alarm," the chief security officer said.

Edwald Emmerson looked around. No devastation. Everything in Ruben Lorgard's apartment was in its place, as far as he could tell. The data server...

"When?" he asked, approaching the device. A younger security officer stood in front of it, looking at the data on the pseudo-realistic display.

The uniformed man in charge of the investigation followed him. "Half an hour ago. Building security alerted us and we came here immediately to notify you."

"If I may..." Edwald Emmerson pushed the young man aside and deactivated the data server. "This device contains confidential NHD data," he said.

"We can seal it if you wish," the chief security officer offered. His name tag read Tanbert.

"That is not necessary. Once deactivated, the data can only be retrieved by entering an authorization code." Emmerson looked around once more, then returned to where bloodstains and tissue residue were still visible on the floor. "The results of the genetic analysis are conclusive?"

"Yes," Tanbert confirmed as the other security officers continued their investigation. They took pictures, searched for traces, and analyzed the data recorded by the various devices in the apartment. "The organic material came from Rubens Lorgard."

"He was killed."

"Everything points to that."

"And the rest of the body?"

Tanbert made a vague gesture. "The killer made it disappear somehow."

"How?"

"I'm afraid I don't know."

Edwald Emmerson sighed softly. "The door was secured, wasn't it? And the windows closed?"

"Yes."

"How did the killer get into the apartment?"

"Perhaps he was here before Rubens Lorgard closed the windows and secured the door."

"Even if that were the case, there should be some clue in the server records. But how did the killer leave the apartment, especially with the remains of the body?"

The security officer looked unsure. "It's all very puzzling."

No, it's not, thought Edwald Emmerson. The answer is obvious.

He stepped to one of the large windows and looked out into the night. The storm had passed, and there was hardly any rain. The carpet of lights of the city, the glow of a moon shining through a gap in the cloud cover, the reef sea stretching silvery to the horizon...

Everything looked peaceful. But Edwald Emmerson knew only too well how deceptive appearances can be. An extremely dangerous creature prowled the city, programmed to kill.

We are all in danger, he thought, remembering the killing program. He was here, the metamorph.

To a creature like him, locked doors and shuttered windows were no obstacle.

The communication servo in his pocket buzzed. Emmerson pulled out the small device and turned it on. A pseudo-realistic projection field appeared, and in it appeared the face of Elroy Tobias.

"We have an initial report," the new NHD security chief said.

"One moment." Emmerson walked into the hallway, entered the bedroom, closed the door, and walked to a corner of the room. "I'm listening."

"Several spies followed Lutor as he left the suite at the Hotel Caravel," Elroy Tobias said. "He seems to have found a lead and started a more specific investigation."

"So soon?"

"Global Director Turannen certainly didn't send him here for no reason. Whatever you may think of him, he seems very capable."

"And?"

"He talked to several people. His investigation seems to be focused on a boy named Raimon, who is about twelve years old." Tobias described Raimon's background. "A member of the Enlightened Community, Brother Eklund, took Raimon as a novice to the citadel. Interestingly, two mysterious murders occurred there a short time later." He spoke of Xalon and the shepherd.

Emmerson nodded slowly. "A third murder has been committed. Rubens Lorgard is dead."

Tobias reacted with shock.

Emmerson told him the details. "In my opinion, everything points to the metamorph."

"Do you think the boy..."

"Lutor seems to think it's possible. The question is, what do we do now..."

The pseudo-realistic display disappeared. Emmerson tried to activate the device again, but the controls did not respond. After a moment's hesitation, he stood up, opened the bedroom door, and returned to the living room....

A strange resistance met his movements - the air seemed to condense, taking on the consistency of water and then mush. The security officers in the living room stood frozen, hunched over, one hand raised here, one outstretched there. At first, Emmerson thought they were completely motionless, but when he looked closer, he saw movement as if in extreme slow motion, and at the same time he heard a dull humming, as if of very long drawn-out voices.

Edwald Emmerson walked past the traces of blood and tissue on the floor, each step costing him great strength as the resistance he faced seemed to grow stronger. He paused at the wide window where he had stood before and again tried to activate the communication servo. The device still did not work.

The window in front of him swelled, slowly bulging inward and shattering. Shards flew toward Emmerson, and he instinctively raised his arms to shield his face. But not a shard touched him. The shards liquefied and vaporized before they reached him, and he felt only a brief, damp heat. Then there was a crackle, like static electricity about to discharge.

The dark water in the delta... it seemed to bubble and boil. Islands shrank as it rose furiously, faster than any flood Kerberos had ever seen. The lights went out as the dark tide reached them and continued to rise, engulfing the last islands in the delta, washing over the seawalls, shooting up, not up, at the buildings...

Something made Emmerson look down and he found that he had sunk into the floor of the apartment up to his knees. He tried to free his right leg from the soft mass the floor had become, but he was stuck. The dark water of the enormously swollen Reef Sea reached the cracked window, poured in, rose higher, higher and higher, Emmerson craned his neck in horror, gasped for air....

The water disappeared, and he stood before the window, which was there again, as solid and impermeable as it should be.

There were confused voices behind him, and one was louder than the others. It belonged to Tanbert.

"What is going on?"

Emmerson looked down at himself - his legs were no longer stuck in the floor of the apartment.

Sirens were wailing in the city, and dancing lights in the traffic corridors indicated that dozens or even hundreds of levitator cars had lost control. Emmerson tried again to use his communications servo. This time the LEDs lit up, but he could not connect with Elroy Tobias at NHD headquarters.

"Our equipment is down," one of the security officers said.

Emmerson turned to Tanbert. "For some reason, the communication network in Chiron seems to be down. I suggest you continue your investigation here. Whatever is happening out there - your colleagues can handle it."

Without even seeing the security officer nod, Edwald Emmerson took long steps toward the door. In the building's common hallway, he hesitated at the elevator, then decided to take the stairs.

Outside, the full extent of the chaos became apparent. Crashed levitator cars lay not only in the traffic corridors reserved for ground vehicles but also in the traffic-free zones reserved for pedestrians. The flickering light of flames added to the glow of the lamps. Sirens wailed from near and far. People rushed back and forth, some trying to help the injured.

One look around was enough, and Emmerson decided to walk. Fortunately, his destination, the Chiron Security Operations Center, was not far away. Now there were two reasons for him to talk to Petrokos, the Grand Commissioner of Security. One was called Raimon. The other was a question, which was: What was happening to the city?

As he walked, he paid close attention to what was happening around him. Was what he had experienced in Ruben Lorgard's apartment more than just a hallucination? Was it related to the unknown cause of the crashing of the levitator cars and the malfunction of many devices? Not all levitator-equipped vehicles had fallen from the night sky. Coincidence? Or the result of a selective factor?

To reach the operations center, Emmerson had to cross a long, narrow bridge that spanned a side channel of the delta. After a few feet, the noisy background of wailing sirens, shouts, excited voices, and the hum of levitators was joined by another sound, a strange gurgling, smacking, and splashing. He stepped to the railing and looked down. The light from the bridge lights was enough to make out details a few feet below. Dozens, hundreds of mudskippers were leaving the safety of the overgrown shoreline and leaping through the water toward the Reef Sea: the females fat and bloated, the males small, with fetuses, without which fertilization was impossible, clinging to the males' backs and looking like ulcers.

Edwald Emmerson had lived in Chiron long enough to know that this process was unique. The so-called fertility migration occurred once a year, and it would take several months for it to occur. What had caused the mudskippers to leave on this night of all nights?

He walked on, through a city that was beginning to calm down. No other vehicles were crashing; all the levitators seemed to be working properly again. The wailing of sirens subsided; ambulances carried away the injured.

As Edwald Emmerson entered the multi-story Security Operations Center not far from the harbor, he had the impression that there had been brief pandemonium. He stopped and looked around, but the people around him - security guards in rusty brown uniforms and brightly dressed civilians - seemed oblivious. Emmerson made it as far as the second floor without anyone stopping him, perhaps due to his plain, inconspicuous clothing - he didn't like to stand out, preferring to keep a low profile and observe. As he approached the Grand Commissioner's office, he was confronted by a burly security guard. "May I help you?"

"I am Edwald Emmerson, Planetary Director of NHD Kerberos," he said quietly. "I wish to see Petrokos."

The security guard eyed him suspiciously. "Planetary director? You..."

"Please inform the Grand Commissioner," Emmerson said, this time giving his words an edge.

The man stepped through a nearby door. Ten seconds later he reappeared, pushed into the hallway by Petrokos. "Come in, Emmerson. I wasn't expecting you. If you had given me advance notice..."

"My communications servo wasn't working."

"Planetary Director, huh? They promoted you."

"Yes. And my predecessor is dead. I was informed by your people. I was in Lorgard's apartment when it happened."

"It," Petrokos repeated, taking a seat behind a desk above which glowed at least ten pseudo-realistic displays of varying sizes. Some showed security locations around the city, others relayed data from situational assessments and situation reports.

Emmerson had known Petrokos for many years and considered him a kindred spirit. Like himself, the tall, stocky man with dark, curly hair and paw-like hands was a cop through and through, someone who cared first and foremost about the law, order, and following the rules. In a private conversation just a few months ago, Petrokos had described himself as a construction worker in the scaffolding of civilization: People like him ensured everything remained stable and nothing collapsed.

"What happened?"

The Grand Commissioner leaned back, spread his arms, and lowered them again. "I have no idea. Something was interfering with levitators, data servers, and other technical things. Levitator cars crashed. There were deaths, fortunately not too many, but there are a lot of injuries. Some people are reporting strange hallucinations..."

Emmerson nodded and described his strange experiences in Lorgard's apartment.

A security guard came in with reports and opened his mouth, but Petrokos immediately waved him out and touched a switch on the desk. The door closed.

"Something weird is going on," Emmerson said, wondering if it was related to the metamorph.

"I couldn't agree more. Reports keep coming in. As soon as I get an overview, I'll let you know."

"Thank you," Emmerson said. "But that's not the only reason I'm here. I have a favor to ask of you."

"If I can help..."

"Have you heard of a man named Lutor?"

"You mean the man who came to Kerberos on behalf of Global Director Turannen?"

"Yes. Has he been here?"

"No. But I have heard of him. Arkan mentioned him in his reports. Seems like a rather unpleasant fellow."

"To say the least. Is Arkan at the citadel?" Emmerson knew the policeman: an older man with experience.

"Yes. He is making inquiries about two strange murders. A certain brother Eklund and a boy named Raimon seem to be involved somehow. This Lutor has made it clear to Arkan that he should stay out of things. We are to confine ourselves to the role of observers and inform him if we find out anything, but otherwise leave everything to him." Petrokos added a snort to his words that clearly indicated what he thought of the whole thing.

"Find brother Eklund and the boy for me. Notify me and don't inform Lutor until later. I want to see them before he gets to them."

That piqued Petrokos' professional interest. "What do you know, Edwald? What's this all about?"

"It's an NHD matter," he said.

"And you can't or won't talk about it?"

"No. I'm sorry."

"You're not sorry, but I understand," Petrokos said. "All right. I'll put out an APB. All very discreet."

"Thank you." Emmerson stood. "I won't take up any more of your time. I'm sure you have a lot on your plate."

"More than I'd like." Petrokos also stood and flipped a switch. The door to his office opened again, and the buzz of voices in the hallway poured in. "By the way... I've been trying to reach the autocrat without success. Do you know where he is?"

"No. Talk to Raphael."

They stepped into the hallway. "I have. He doesn't know where Stokkart is either. Supposedly."

Petrokos shook hands with Emmerson and returned to his office. Several uniformed security guards with infonauts followed him.

Emmerson heard the beep of his communications servo and pulled out what appeared to be a functioning device again. A pseudo-realistic representation of Elroy Tobias appeared.

"Director..." The new head of security for NHD Kerberos smiled. "I found out who Lutor really is."

Swing

16 APRIL 421 SN, 22:05

Kerberos

"I don't want to, I don't want to," Raimon said, shaking his head violently.

The boy was stretched out on a couch in a room in the hospital's neurology ward. A hood-shaped device descended, and Raimon stared at it as if it were a guillotine.

"Don't worry, Elisabeth won't hurt you." Eklund stepped closer to the couch and placed a hand on the trembling boy's shoulder, which seemed to calm him a bit. "With this device, we may be able to see the many voices in your head and help you."

He nodded to Elisabeth.

The doctor switched on the neural scanner. A greenish light fell on the boy's head, his eyes still wide open. Eklund touched his shoulder again, and the physical contact seemed to help Raimon.

Lines appeared on a two-dimensional projection screen on the wall. The left side showed patterns of calm, the right side dramatic peaks that kept changing. Elisabeth had explained it to Eklund earlier: the left side showed a normal brain's activity pattern, the right side showed Raimon's neural activity.

Some smooth lines on the left side developed into peaks and spikes on the right.

"He's agitated," Elisabeth said quietly to Eklund. Then she turned to the boy. "Please try to concentrate on one of the voices in your head. Maybe the loudest one. Or the one that causes you the least pain."

Raimon's eyes moved. His gaze dropped from the hood of the scanner, slid to the doctor, and a strange glow showed in his dark pupils. "What am I doing here?" a woman's puzzled voice rang out.

More lines appeared on the right side of the screen, like the growing and shrinking crests of an ocean.

"Kill," a man's voice whispered from Raimon's mouth. "Kill. Kill."

More lines appeared, their jagged patterns overlapping the others. The boy's shaking increased, and Eklund closed his hand a little tighter around Raimon's shoulder. "Elisabeth? I don't know if this is a good idea. I..."

"Kill, kill, kill!" the boy howled, abruptly straightening his torso and banging his head against the edge of the scanner so hard that his skin split and blood gushed out.

A mental fist grabbed Eklund's consciousness, closed tightly around it, and dragged him along with it.

He raced through a whirlwind of images, so fast that he could not make out details, only vague impressions of color. Most were dark, brown and black, and whenever he saw light and wanted to turn toward it, the fist clenched tighter, squeezing his self. For a second or two he saw the old portal leading to Elysium, the world above the world. It remained closed, not letting him pass, but at the same time he knew that this - whatever it was - belonged to Elysium.

The wind sighed, blowing the sails of a ship whose hull plowed through a turquoise sea. It was a stiff breeze that made the rigging creak, and Eklund felt the great ship slowly tilt back and forth, like a creature seeking a comfortable position on its bed.

Raimon stood at the bow, looking out over the ocean to the distant horizon. The wind tugged at his clothes, ruffled his hair.

There was no one else on board. Eklund didn't have to look - he knew.

He walked across the deck, again accompanied by the pain in his back, leaning on his walking stick.

"Where are we going?" he asked as he approached the boy.

Raimon didn't answer but stretched out his arms towards something only he could see.

"Are you looking for the right course, the right way?" asked Eklund gently.

The boy still did not answer. Eklund stepped to his side and looked into his face. Tears rolled down Raimon's cheeks as he looked into the distance, searching for something.

Eklund lifted his arm and put it around Raimon's shoulders.

And was back in the room with the scanner. But strangely, he didn't seem to have fully returned from the overworld.

Elizabeth stood on the other side of the couch, and something stretched her like a rubber band. The walls were bulging inward, and strange sounds were emanating, a dull humming in various pitches. Eklund suddenly realized they were distant sirens and nearby voices, stretched and distorted. He was struck by conflicting sensations: he thought he was falling, yet at the same time he felt himself being pulled upward by something. Eklund blinked several times, and with each blink, Elizabeth's position changed. She stood by the couch, then by the door, then in a corner of the room.

The last blink restored reality, bringing time and space back into balance. Everything seemed normal - except for the wailing of sirens in the city and the excited voices outside.

"What happened?" asked Elisabeth in wonder, swaying and holding on to the edge of the couch.

"I went to Elysium with Raimon," Eklund said. "And then... I don't know."

The doctor went to the door. "I'm going to see what's going on out there."

Eklund turned to the boy, who was lying down again. The laceration on his forehead...was closing. The edges closed, the blood somehow disappeared - perhaps absorbed by the skin - and a few minutes later there was no sign of the injury at all. The boy's dark eyes stared into space, even as Eklund leaned over him.

"A self-healer, no doubt." And much more than that, Eklund thought, associating both fear and hope with the words. "Who are you, Raimon?" he asked quietly, not expecting an answer.

"She needs my help," Raimon said.

Eklund leaned closer. "Who, who needs your help?"

"She."

"Who is she?"

"I..." The boy's smooth, relaxed face turned into a grimace. "I don't know," he said in anguish. "I'm looking for her, but the other voices... They confuse me. They distract me from the path that leads to her. And they want me to kill."

"You don't have to kill anyone if you don't want to," Eklund said, hearing the almost pleading undertone in his words.

"I am me," Raimon whispered, the shadows of other faces flitting through his expression. "I am we. We are me. I am a thousand. I am countless. And they will all be killed, killed..."

The door opened and Elizabeth came back. She looked quite worried. "Something has caused dozens of levitator cars to crash in the city. There are dead and many injured..."

Eklund understood. "You are needed." He pointed to the boy. "Look at the wound."

Elisabeth came closer. "It was a large laceration that bled quite heavily. I remember it well."

"He healed himself."

"One thing's for sure: there's more than just him in there." Elisabeth pointed at Raimon's head. "The neuroscanner showed it clearly." She handed Eklund a small, cylindrical device. "Here, take this. I know you don't think much of these things, but if you have the communication servo with you, we can talk anytime. This is not an eviction, quite the opposite. It would be best if you waited here. I now know that there is more than one person in him, but we still don't have an answer to the question of how he was able to leave the apartment and return. That should be investigated further. And remember the investigator, Eklund. I didn't get a good impression of him. A ruthless man. Who knows what he'll do to Raimon if he finds him.

"Raimon is my novice," Eklund said firmly. "I will protect him."

"She needs me." Raimon swung his legs over the edge of the bed, got up, and walked to the door.

Eklund put the cylinder in his pocket and followed the boy. "It seems to me that Raimon doesn't want to wait here."

"We'll talk as soon as things are reasonably quiet again. Take care of yourselves!" Elisabeth shouted the last words, for the boy was already hurrying down the hall, followed by Eklund, who leaned on his walking stick, trying not to lose sight of Raimon in the confusion of doctors, nurses, and patients.

Brother Eklund and his novice walked through a city in turmoil. Time and again they passed the wreckage of crashed levitator cars, and bloodstains on the ground indicated that their occupants had been injured or even killed. No one seemed to be at home sleeping. All the townspeople were wide awake and on their feet, standing in the streets and squares, talking about the strange visions or hallucinations some of them had experienced. Eklund heard only fragments of the conversations. Here and there he would have liked to stop to listen or join in, but Raimon pulled him along whenever he hesitated, driven by a restlessness that led him to the harbor of Chiron.

It had stopped raining. The sky cleared; the gaps between the clouds grew larger. Sparkling stars appeared, and soon they were accompanied by one of Kerberos' two moons. Its light fell on the Reef Sea, seeming to turn it silver.

"Out there," Raimon said, stretching out his arm.

"What's out there?" asked Eklund.

The boy pointed across the boats and ships. "She's out there. She needs me."

Beyond the delta, the lights of the autocrat's artificial island glowed and flickered. Eklund watched them for a few seconds, then crouched down and looked at Raimon. "Who do you mean? Who needs you, Raimon?"

"I ..." Again Raimon's face changed strangely. "I know she needs me, but I can't reach her. The voices prevent me. They keep me away from her. They want me to kill."

"Try not to pay attention to the voices," Eklund said. "Focus on her, the one who needs you. Maybe you'll recognize her better then."

Raimon nodded. He didn't close his eyes but continued to stare into the distance.

The texture of the world changed. A part of reality seemed to fray and fade, to merge with another, usually intangible reality. Eklund saw the sea, the delta, and the many lights of the city, heard the waves crashing against the quay wall, the creaking of the rocking boats - it brought back memories of the empty sailing ship - and the hum of the levitators.

He heard the heartbeat of the living city, and at the same time, like one image superimposed on another, he saw ochre wasteland and within it white spindle towers, ancient yet without the slightest sign of weathering. There, where the distances between the towers widened, where they seemed to recede, stood the pedestal, in the real world - the world Eklund thought was real - in the middle of the dock. A figure sat there. In the darkness, Eklund couldn't make out details, but he'd seen the silhouette up close: an old woman, dressed in a blue-black stained robe, her wrinkled face blank, without eyes, nose, or mouth.

"You mean her?" asked Eklund. "Does she need your help?"

"I can't reach her." It sounded unspeakably sad. "I can't reach her from here. But she needs me. She's been waiting for me for so long. She needs me now because the other one is awakening."

Eklund struggled to straighten up with the help of his cane. The pain in his back had increased. "The other one?"

Raimon turned his head to look at Eklund. "The second soul on Kerberos."

"Stop," a voice rang out behind them.

Eklund looked around in surprise, and his eyes landed on two sekuritos. One of them approached; the other stayed by the levitator car, which bore the insignia of the Security of Chiron. The men were young, Eklund noticed, barely in their thirties.

"Are these the two?" asked the sekuritos at the car.

"I think so," replied his colleague. "Brother Eklund, isn't it?"

"That's me." Eklund saw no reason to deny it.

"And this is..."

"My novice."

"You will accompany us to the operations center." The man half turned and added louder, "Pass on the message. We have them."

"Why do you want to take us to the operations center?" asked Eklund, thinking of the investigator Elisabeth had mentioned. Was there a connection? "We haven't done anything wrong."

The sekuritos did not answer the question. "Come on."

"No," Raimon said. "She needs me. I have to go to her."

"Don't argue, kid. You're coming with me." The guard stepped closer and grabbed Raimon's arm.

Raimon hissed like a predator, and Eklund saw the boy's face, for a split second, become a snout with the long fangs and poisonous spikes of a shadow lurker.

The sekuritos recoiled in horror and drew his weapon, not a Hefok, but a gun.

"To the car!" he ordered, "Yurik? Something's wrong with this kid. His face..."

Raimon growled low and jumped.

And as he jumped, he changed. The boy's clothes ripped and fell away from a much larger creature that spread leathery wings, flapped them once, and soared.

The sekuritos fired. His gun went off several times in quick succession, and Eklund saw dark blood spurting from the winged creature's body where the bullets struck it. But the wounds closed immediately and didn't seem to bother the creature in the least. It opened its beak-like mouth and spat a ball of slime that hit the guard in the face. The man let out a horrified scream that immediately turned into a howl of pain as the acid from the slime began to dissolve his head. A second flap of wings, and the creature was at the levitator car, grabbing the second guard, named Jurik, with one of its long claws and squeezing.

The man was killed instantly.

A third flap of wings, a rush as if from the nearby sea...

The claw that had just killed a guard grabbed Eklund, but much more gently and carefully, lifting him and pressing him gently against its body. The city remained far below.

The creature let itself be carried by the wind and sailed with Eklund towards the dark continental forest.

Deep Whispers

16 APRIL 421 SN, 22:10 KERBEROS TIME

On the way to Kerberos

Once again, Valdorian gazed into a reflective field and enjoyed the sight of his own reflection. So young, so magnificent, so wonderfully young! Nothing resembled the cadaverous old man he had last seen in Lidia's eyes and in the crystals on the Mirror, the living dead separated from death by mere seconds. The man smiling before him in the pseudo-real mirror was about forty years old, with only a few wrinkles showing in his otherwise smooth face. The ash-blond hair was thick, and there was a vital glow in the large gray eyes.

"We did it," Valdorian said to himself.

There was a whisper behind those words of triumph and profound relief. Most of the time Valdorian did not hear the whispering because he blocked it out of his consciousness, but when he concentrated, he heard the wordless voice of the Temporal.

A pact. An agreement with the enemy of the temporal war. So what. He had received a new life in return, and that was all that mattered. And besides, the Temporals were above all enemies of the Kantaki.

Old anger stirred in Valdorian.

The door opened and Jonathan entered the spacious cabin. Only he had direct access.

"The Akuhashi are asking for extra money to transport the equipment," Valdorian's secretary said.

"That was to be expected. How much?"

"Twenty million transtel."

Valdorian deactivated the reflective field and turned around. "Not exactly a small amount, but not a lot either." He took his identer out of a pocket of his new clothes and looked at it thoughtfully.

"We can't use that," Jonathan said. "The Kantaki would identify us and undoubtedly take action against us. After all, you killed Father Hirl, the Kantaki whose ship the pilot Esmeralda was flying."

He deserved no better, Valdorian thought, associating satisfaction with the thought. The whispering in the background of his mental world grew louder for a moment, then faded.

Time quanta changed their structure of meaning. Sometimes a single thought was enough to affect the probability of developing patterns.

"You're right," Valdorian said, pointing to the door. "Come."

The short corridor led to an observation room of the small habitat pod, and Valdorian paused at the wide window that looked out into the transport bubble of the Kantaki ship and the trans-space beyond. Inside the delicate, spidery webs of force fields and monofiber canvas were not only the usual groups of containers and passenger pods, but also special cargo containers containing interplanetary fighters: ninety Tiger-class, one hundred and fifty Panther-class, and three hundred and fifty Wolf-class units - nearly the entire force of the Arsenal planetoid in System 437/Skalgard 1. The crews were already on board, as were the soldiers assigned to duty on Kerberos and the other planets and moons of the Hades system: forty-five thousand individuals in all, designed for battle, utterly reliable and loyal. Once again, Valdorian was surprised that the Kantaki transported troops and military equipment without objection. Apparently, such things did not violate their Sacred Code. But granting me more time, a longer life - that couldn't be done according to their damned rules.

With one last look at the huge Kantaki ship pulling the transport bubble through trans-space, Valdorian turned away from the window and entered another of the five corridors radiating from the observation room. After only a few feet, he reached the door of a booth where two soldiers from the arsenal stood guard. The two men stood erect and motionless as statues, their skin gray, their heads hairless, their faces narrow with protruding cheekbones, their eyes black as obsidian, a combination of organic matter and microservers that provided visual perception far beyond normal. The two soldiers wore light battle suits, gray like their skin, with equipment and weapons on their instrument belts.

Valdorian pointed to the door.

One of the two men unlocked the door with an electronic key resembling an identer, pulled out a Hefok, and entered.

Valdorian and Jonathan followed.

Enbert Dokkar and Benjamin Valdorian looked at them.

Ignoring his son, who stared at him with a strange mixture of horror and confusion, Valdorian turned to Dokkar, whose face remained stony, betraying nothing.

"I demand my immediate release," the Alliance leader said.

Valdorian gestured to the soldier standing by the door. "One word from me and he will shoot you." He held out his hand. "Give me your identer."

Enbert Dokkar hesitated for a moment, then took it out. "What do you want it for?"

"The Kantaki want to be paid for taking us to Kerberos. I'm sure the Alliance would be willing to pay for the transportation, right?" Valdorian took the identer and handed it to Jonathan. "Take care of everything," he instructed his secretary.

Jonathan left the passenger compartment.

"How is this possible?" asked Dokkar.

Valdorian smiled coolly and looked down at the man who had been his most bitter opponent for many years. "From victor to vanquished in a matter of seconds. How quickly the tide can turn."

"How is it possible?" repeated Enbert Dokkar, pointing to Valdorian's face.

"Amazing, isn't it?" Valdorian turned his head briefly and looked at Benjamin, who was trying to shrink in his chair.

"That is not the result of a normal resurrection."

"The how doesn't matter. What matters is that a hundred years have been taken off my life. I am young again. Soon I will have regained control of the Consortium. And that's just the beginning."

Dokkar sat back and folded his hands. "I admit that your force is quite impressive. But my forces are now on hundreds of your worlds. You lack a logistical base of operations."

"We are on our way to it now."

"Kerberos in the Hades system? A single planet?"

Valdorian smiled again, cool and confident of victory. "Kerberos has exactly what I need." He turned away from Enbert Dokkar and walked over to Benjamin, looking into his son's spongy, bloated face. "You killed your own brother, and your mother died of her injuries. You tried to kill me several times."

Panic flickered in Benjamin's eyes. Silks, gems, rings - his outfit seemed ridiculous and absurd.

"Father, I..."

Valdorian held out his hand, and Benjamin tried to back away. The back of the chair creaked. "I should have shot you on Guraki. Then your brother would be alive."

"It's all a misunderstanding," Benjamin stammered, his voice shaking with fear. "I can explain..."

Valdorian ignored the words and touched the forehead of his son, who seemed older than himself. "Kerberos, or Cerberus, the hellhound that guards the entrance to the underworld. You will meet him soon."

"Father..."

Valdorian turned and headed for the door.

"Perhaps we could make a... deal," Enbert Dokkar said from behind him.

"What would you have to offer me?" asked Valdorian, looking over his shoulder. "The Consortium? The Alliance? Soon it will all be mine anyway. And this is just the beginning."

He returned to the corridor, and the soldier closed and locked the door behind him. At the panoramic window, Valdorian paused once more, gazing into the transport bubble and trans-space beyond it, listening to the whispers at the edge of his mind, savoring the power that filled him.

And the knowledge.

He knew exactly what awaited him on Kerberos. He knew his task. He knew the rewards that would follow if he succeeded in the Hades system. And there was no doubt that he would succeed. His force was large enough.

Valdorian wondered why he had not killed Benjamin and Dokkar on the Arsenal planetoid. Strangely, he could not find an answer to that question. Killing them here, in the passenger pod, inside the transport bubble of a Kantaki ship - that was out of the question, for it would violate the Sacred Code and invite punitive action from the Kantaki. But on the planetoid, when he had confronted them with the first reawakened soldiers... Something had stopped him from shooting them. The voice that had been with him since the Pact?

He was also aware that he was a tool, a hammer in a hand that reached from the distant past into the present. But he considered himself intelligent and skilled enough to soon become a hand again, directing and guiding, transforming from the used to the user.

A great step was coming, on Kerberos, and more would follow, beyond.

Valdorian heard something and turned his head. Jonathan stepped closer and handed him Dokkar's identer. He took it and put it away.

"Trouble?"

"No," Jonathan said.

"They will regret this bitterly."

"What?"

Valdorian pointed outside, to the gray-black colossus in front of the transport bubble. "The Kantaki. They will bitterly regret not helping me." It's all their fault, he thought with an anger he knew was irrational, but he did not try to curb. This particular fire of anger had already burned in the other Valdorian, in the old man who had searched for Lidia, for the Kantaki pilot named Diamond, hoping that she would help him, perhaps use her influence with the Kantaki to give him new life with the help of recursive time. Or that she would take him in as her confidant, allowing him to stay with her away from the ordinary timestream.

The temporal had given him much more, granted him his greatest wish: to be young again, to have a whole new life.

The rage felt almost as good as the new power in his physical and psychic cosmos. He didn't care that there was a connection to the whispers deep inside him.

"Are you going to do something to the Kantaki?" asked Jonathan, startled.

"Not me," Valdorian replied quietly, still looking out. "But someone else will." He turned away from the window and focused his thoughts on the things that needed attention. "There's someone else I should talk to, isn't there?"

"You mean the Coordinator."

"So that's his title."

The image had burned itself into Lukert Turannen's mind with the permanence of a brand: Valdorian in the hangar of the Arsenal planetoid, a coldly smiling young Valdorian.

One look, and everything Turannen had worked for, hoped for, and dreamed of burst like a soap bubble. Valdorian was alive, and not only that - he controlled the soldiers of the Arsenal.

Turannen continued his restless pacing through his plain quarters, unable to calm himself. His thoughts were completely out of control, like everything else in his life, which had always been so carefully planned. Where he had once seen structure and order, there was now only chaos.

One of the thoughts that seemed to be wandering aimlessly came to the fore and demanded attention: Was he about to die?

Turannen paused, right at the window, but his eyes did not stray outside, they remained turned inward.

Enbert Dokkar and Benjamin would have killed him for sure, that much was certain. He was lucky that they hadn't discovered him in the hangar, but Valdorian, who had no reason to hate him.

The rejuvenated Valdorian ... What had happened? Where had he come from? Since the defeat of the Consortium forces at Kabaea in the Epsilon Eridani system, Valdorian had been missing, presumed dead. But he was alive, and no longer an old man, but a comparatively young one. No resurrection, no matter how thorough and complete, could have produced such a result. There was something else behind this.

Turannen took several deep breaths, feeling some of the anxiety leave him as he thought furiously. How had Valdorian, the new, much younger Valdorian, reached the planetoid? In which ship had he arrived?

Turannen couldn't remember any suspicious tracks when he and Amadeus had flown the shuttle to the arsenal.

Questions upon questions. Whatever the answers were: Turannen's first priority was his own survival. Everything else was secondary.

The electronic security system buzzed and the door opened. Lukert Turannen thought he had just overcome his fear and anxiety, but a sudden tension gripped him as he turned to see who had entered the quarters: Valdorian, accompanied by a soldier from the Arsenal.

Turannen didn't blink, trying to hide his sudden fear. The next seconds or minutes would decide whether he would live or die.

The soldier stopped at the door, which closed again. Valdorian casually walked over to an armchair and sat down. Turannen remembered his villa on Tintiran, heard Judith's voice already planning and redesigning things, and he had the terrible feeling that these memories were appearing on his face as if on a projection screen, clearly visible to any observer, but especially to Valdorian, whose successor he had wanted to become.

Valdorian sat back and studied him for a while. The silence continued and became leaden.

"Sit down," Valdorian finally said.

Turannen obeyed the request with a haste for which he loathed himself.

He saw the young, almost perfectly smooth face of the former Primus inter Pares of the Consortium, and remembered the eighteen portraits of Valdorian's predecessors in the mansion, and the nineteenth showing an older version of Rungard Avar Valdorian, who now sat before him.

Turannen noticed that no one was pointing a weapon at him.

"You must be wondering what will happen to you," Valdorian said.

Turannen thought for a moment. "I must confess to being a bit puzzled by recent events," he said.

"You were probably hoping for a great opportunity. The Consistory of the Consortium appointed you Coordinator. And in that capacity, you ordered my arrest and extradition to the Alliance."

Turannen felt a chill spreading deep within him. He corrected himself: there was a reason for Valdorian to hate him after all.

"I had no choice," he said as calmly as he could. "You started a war that led the Consortium to disaster."

"I started a war that I will soon win."

Lukert Turannen waited, his tension rising.

"Do you not question my certainty?"

"I don't think I'm in a position to question anything. But since you bring it up: I doubt that the military potential of the arsenals is sufficient to defeat the Alliance now. They have already taken over far too many of the Consortium's worlds. As coordinator, I have tried to salvage what can be salvaged."

"Soon I will have something at my disposal that the Alliance will not be able to counter. From Kerberos, I will launch a victorious march that will dwarf anything that happened during the Dynasty Wars."

"Kerberos!" thought Turannen. The metamorph? Does he mean the metamorph? But the creature escaped. Another thought brought more icy cold. And I have sent Lutor to Kerberos. He will kill the metamorph if he can.

Valdorian's gaze lingered on Turannen, but he was silent, as if waiting for something. For a reaction? How much did he know of the recent events on Kerberos?

Twenty or more seconds passed in complete silence as Turannen's unease grew. He sat still, as motionless as the soldier by the door.

Finally, Valdorian reached under his jacket, pulled out a small Hefok, and pointed the weapon at Turannen.

"I don't need the soldier to kill you," he said. "I can do it myself."

Turannen stared at the Hefok, seeing death and feeling fear clutter his thoughts.

"I..." he began.

"On the other hand..." Valdorian lowered the ray gun, looked at it thoughtfully, and tucked it back under his jacket. "I can't do everything myself. I need someone to take care of the organization and administration of the Consortium, and soon to take over the administration of the Alliance. You've already been appointed Coordinator, and I'm sure you're up to the task."

Turannen experienced an emotional roller coaster. First mortal fear, then deep relief, and all the emotions in between, all within a few seconds. His heart was in his throat and he searched Valdorian's face - his young face - for signs that he meant what he said and was not mocking him.

Valdorian's lips curved into a thin smile. He seemed to know exactly what was going on in his opponent's mind.

Turannen hated him with all his soul. But he was also deeply grateful to him for keeping him alive.

"Are you ready to enter my service?" asked Valdorian.

The villa, Judith, a dream that seemed to have come true... and then melted away.

Life. I am still alive. I could have been dead.

"Yes, of course," he said quickly.

"Good." Valdorian got up and went to the door. The soldier opened it for him. "You are free again and will remain the Coordinator of the Consortium, but you will follow the instructions I give you. Please stand by."

Turannen rose as well. "As you wish."

Valdorian and the soldier left the passenger quarters.

Lukert Turannen, old and new coordinator of the Consortium, but stripped of his power, listened to the silence for a while, as if something inside him expected Valdorian to return, point the gun at him again, and this time pull the trigger. Slowly, very slowly, the tension drained from him and he began to shake. He sat down as his legs threatened to give out under him, put his hands on his knees and clasped them.

I'm alive, he thought again, but the gratitude quickly dissipated to make room for hatred. In the silence that surrounded him, he began to plan again. That was what his life was all about, making plans and finding ways to make them work.

How close he had been to his goal…

Why the hell was Valdorian going to Kerberos? Was Project Double-M the reason? In his mind, Turannen reviewed the conversation, connecting facial expressions and words, trying to draw conclusions. Valdorian was absolutely certain that he would regain control of the Consortium very soon, and with the same certainty he believed in a quick victory over the Alliance. On Kerberos, he believed, was something that could help him achieve that goal: Project Double-M. But he had to realize that there was only one prototype of the metamorph. And even if that prototype had not escaped due to an explosion in the lab: No war could be fought with only one prototype, and certainly not won in a short time.

From what followed: There was something else on Kerberos.

What was it?

A dangerous question, Turannen knew, because it directly affected Valdorian interests.

But if he could find the answer on Kerberos... he might gain some breathing room.

When Valdorian reached the panoramic window, he stopped in astonishment. The Kantaki ship was no longer flying through trans-space - stars were shimmering beyond the transport bubble. But he searched in vain for nearby planets.

"There's a problem," Jonathan said, coming out of one of the corridors.

"When we reach the destination... Where's Kerberos?"

Jonathan pointed to a star barely brighter than the others. "That's Hades. We are outside the Kuiper belt. An Akuhashi informed me that we can't fly into the interior of the solar system."

"Why not?"

"It's sealed off. Five Kantaki ships from Munghar have arrived with a spur. No one is allowed to enter the system."

Enigma

16 APRIL 421 SN, 22:30

Kerberos

Elroy Tobias greeted the new planetary director as he entered his office.

"You're up late," Edwald Emmerson remarked.

"So are you."

Tobias took a seat behind his desk, looking almost embarrassed. Emmerson thought he understood why. This had been his office until recently, the office of the Head of Security for NHD Kerberos. He sat down in the chair in front of the desk and heard the hum of a data servo on standby.

"Things seem to have gone haywire in the city, Chief," Tobias said.

"Something disrupted the levitators. Dozens of levitator cars have crashed. There was also massive... sensory distortions."

"Maybe there's more to it than that." Elroy Tobias handed an infonaut across the table. "The latest report from the orbital station MeteoTech-14."

Emmerson looked at the screen and read. "A temporal anomaly?"

"Which has since stabilized. However, further temporal eruptions cannot be ruled out."

Emmerson was tired and wondered if Rubens Lorgard had felt similarly after his promotion to Planetary Director. Lorgard, creator of the metamorph, had always seen himself as a creator, and as Director he had suddenly been faced with a whole new set of responsibilities. He had tried to meet all the demands while continuing to work as a creator. But at some point, you reach your limit trying to do everything yourself. Emmerson now also faced this problem: He was struggling to be both head of security and director. And now, on top of an already difficult situation, there is now another mystery that demands his attention.

"Has the data been verified?" he asked.

"Yes. Other stations have confirmed it. The anomaly has even been located. It lies beneath the seafloor of the Reef Sea, just off the continental shelf. Oddly enough, that's exactly where the autocrat banned diving for reef opals a few months ago. Supposedly for conservation purposes."

"Do you suspect a connection to the anomaly?"

"The matter struck me as odd, and I made further inquiries," Elroy Tobias said. "After our conversation, the search programs I used found the following information." He pointed to the infonaut, and Emmerson flipped a switch. The display changed.

Tobias spoke as Emmerson read. "The autocrat used considerable resources to build a station on the ocean floor, right where the anomaly is, just deeper in the ocean floor. He primarily used money from his drug trade to do so, and clearly went to great lengths to keep it a secret."

"A few months ago, the temporal anomaly didn't exist."

"True. But the fact that it's right where Stokkart had a secret naval base built can hardly be a coincidence."

Edwald Emmerson leaned back and looked at Tobias. "That's not all, is it?"

"Do you remember the programming of the metamorph? The people it was programmed to kill?"

Emmerson nodded slowly. "Lorgard was one of them. But not the two murdered members of the Enlightened Community."

"The manipulated programming module contained the data of many people, but the missing information is particularly interesting."

Emmerson had been used to thinking along certain lines for many years, as had Elroy Tobias, who like himself was a cop through and through.

"The autocrat?" he asked.

"Yes," Tobias confirmed. "There are only a few important people whose data is not included in the metamorph's killing program. They include Constantine Alexander Stokkart, his right-hand man Raphael, and a few other people in the autocrat's organization."

"Is he behind the silent bombing?"

"The investigation is ongoing. There is no evidence yet, but..."

"What does your intuition say?"

"I believe that the autocrat has something to do with the attack on the laboratory."

"Motive?"

Elroy Tobias raised and lowered his shoulders. "I don't know. Stokkart makes sure the metamorph escapes and stores the data from a manipulated programming module. He had a secret station built on the ocean floor some time ago. And right there, a temporal anomaly has been created, which could even be the Temporals' attempt to enter our time. I'm sure there's a connection, but I can't put it together yet.

"Petrokos told me that he tried to contact the autocrat, but to no avail. Stokkart seems to have vanished."

"I know where I would look for him."

"On the ocean floor off the continental shelf?"

"Yes."

"Distraction?" mused Edwald Emmerson. "Could that be the reason? Was the metamorph supposed to escape from the lab to keep us busy? And how did Stokkart find out about it in the first place? The project was and still is top secret."

"I suspect there are informants for the Autocrat among the staff of NHD Kerberos," Tobias said. "I will eventually identify them."

"If Stokkart knew about the metamorph, he must have been aware of its potential. And if he wanted to let it escape anyway, just to distract us..."

"That would mean he was preoccupied with something even more important than the metamorph."

"If the data collector from MeteoTech-14 is correct, and this is indeed the Temporal's attempt to return to our time..." Emmerson listened to the sound of his own words and heard the seriousness in them. "It could be the beginning of a Second Time War."

Elroy Tobias was silent, just looking at him in silence. His face suddenly seemed much more hollow-cheeked.

"We would have to inform all the other human worlds," Emmerson added. "And the Kantaki as well."

"Lukert Turannen is on his way. As Coordinator of the Consortium, he has the necessary authority to make that decision."

Emmerson nodded. "This matter is beyond the authority of a planetary director. But we should try to gather as much information as possible." He smiled wryly. "I'm afraid we'll have to continue getting very little sleep."

He half stood - and remembered what he had come for in the first place. "Lutor," he said, sinking back into his chair. "What have you found out about him?"

Tobias half turned to the side and touched a switch on the waiting data servo. A pseudo-realistic display appeared above the desk, showing a mountainous landscape of high, ice-covered peaks and plateaus rising three thousand feet or more above green-blue fjords. One of these plateaus supported a complex of buildings consisting of several clan houses. Data scrolled across an information bar below the projection.

"This is Aburrka," Tobias said. "The planet played an important role in the dynastic wars and especially during the Time War. Many families became warrior clans, gaining high status and maintaining it to this day. Combat is a central part of their heritage."

The images changed, showing a gangly, almost sad-looking boy, then a teenager who also looked a little too thin, and finally, a young adult wearing a light battle suit and exuding much more confidence than the child and teenager. In his eyes, Emmerson saw a familiar cold arrogance.

"Lutor?" he asked.

"Yes. He belongs to the Kordun clan, a family that is highly respected on Aburrka." Again the image changed, showing the Lutor they knew: a man whose appearance suggested an age of about forty standard years, straight nose, thin-lipped mouth, flat chin, ash-blond hair, piercing and penetrating eyes. He was wearing what appeared to be leather clothing with crest-like symbols in several places. The data feed confirmed Emmerson's suspicion: they were Clan markings. There was also a small, almost inconspicuous badge on his collar with a stylized image of a comet.

"A member of KOKA?" asked Emmerson, pointing to the badge.

"Yes. In terms of what became of the fighting cadre. They were founded in 2731 of the Old Era, during the Second Dynasty, as a joint force of the Anarchic Confederation and the Separate Worlds. They were active on many planets, mostly in small groups. Their greatest successes came in 2861 when the KOKA defeated the task forces of the Congregation, and especially in 2959, when an attack by the large economic conglomerates on the central planets of the Anarchic Federation and the Separate Worlds failed, much to the surprise of the strategists, who had greatly underestimated the military strength of the defenders. Shortly thereafter, the Time War began, and it is virtually impossible to know what became of the former combat cadres over the next thousand years. After the Time War, some cadres reformed as interstellar mercenary groups, specializing in particularly difficult missions and critical situations."

The images changed in a matter of seconds: Lutor as a lone fighter on various worlds, in combat gear, aboard a one-man fighter in orbit around a ringed planet.....

"Lutor has virtually every accolade a mercenary can receive," continued Elroy Tobias. "For the past six years, he has been working for a special division of NHD headquarters, dealing with 'difficult' cases."

"Failed creation experiments?" speculated Edwald Emmerson. "Industrial espionage?"

A particularly bright flash flickered in the distance above the Continental Forest. Its light shone through the windows behind Tobias, creating stark patterns of light and dark in the security office. Elroy's face seemed to grimace for a split second.

"Two items on a long list," the new Head of Security said. "And Lutor has always done an excellent job, completing every assignment to Lukert Turannen's complete satisfaction. A very competent man."

"A born hunter," Emmerson said. "Arrogant and absolutely ruthless."

"Yes. Perhaps that's why he's so successful."

Emmerson waited.

"This is the official Lutor Kordun," Tobias said slowly. "The investigator described in the files at NHD headquarters. I did an extensive data search via Translink, and of course I have some security codes to access confidential information."

Tobias looked at Emmerson. "Lutor Kordun doesn't exist."

"What do you mean?"

"This is the real Lutor." Again Tobias touched a switch on the data servo, and complex formula data slid across the pseudo-real display. Emmerson understood immediately what he was looking at: a formation matrix.

"He's a creation?"

"Yes. And he doesn't know it. He's utterly convinced that he's a real person, from a family steeped in tradition. He thinks he's better and more capable than anyone else. I suspect that is why the Global Director sent him. He probably thinks that Lutor, as an artificial being, has a better chance against the metamorph than a human investigator."

"And maybe he has special abilities we don't know about," Emmerson muttered as new suspicions arose in him.

"That may well be the case. I suspect the Kordun background was chosen for him on purpose."

"Could he actually stand a chance against the metamorph?"

"I doubt it. I'm afraid Lukert Turannen doesn't have a clear idea of the metamorph's true potential. As capable as Lutor may be, I do not believe he can achieve victory in a direct confrontation."

"A creation..." muttered Edwald Emmerson. "Most likely endowed with special abilities." He took a deep breath. "Search for the neutralization sequence."

"If he has one."

"I am certain he does. I find it hard to imagine Lukert sending creatures like Lutor around the galaxy without being able to bring them under control immediately if things got dicey. Try to access the remaining protected files. The cost of the trans connections doesn't matter."

"As you wish. And if you'll allow me one question - why?"

"Why what?" Emmerson was already up and halfway to the door.

"Why do you want to know the neutralization sequence? To incapacitate Lutor? He could lead us to the metamorph. Actually, he already has. We can use him as a kind of tool."

Emmerson pondered. Apart from a personal dislike ... "This is my world," he said after a few seconds. "Whatever happens on it now: I don't like the idea of someone like Lutor coming here and thinking he can do whatever he wants."

"He came as an official investigator for the Global Director," he said.

"And I am the planetary director. And you are my head of Security."

An audible signal sounded. "Priority message," announced the synthetic voice of the communications servo.

'Transmit message," Tobias said.

"Lutor was aboard a levitator car that crashed in the city," someone said. "He was injured, and they took him to the hospital. There was also a very strange incident at the harbor. According to eyewitnesses, two sekuritos tried to arrest someone from the Enlightened Community and a boy, but ... I know it sounds absurd, but the eyewitnesses claim that the boy suddenly turned into a winged creature and killed the two sekuritos, then flew away with his companion.

Tobias and Emmerson exchanged serious looks.

"Thank you for the information," the security chief said, breaking the connection.

"The metamorph," Emmerson said.

"No doubt about it. I'm using all the spy capabilities we have."

"I only asked Petrokos to locate Brother Eklund and Raimon. There was no mention of an attempted arrest." Emmerson hesitated at the door and reconsidered. "Elroy, find out if there is a way to reach the autocrat's base at the bottom of the sea."

"Yes, Chief."

"That reminds me... Have you heard from Turannen? Do you know when he will arrive on Kerberos?"

"There has been no word from him."

"All right." Edwald Emmerson opened the door. "I'm going to visit the patient Lutor. Wish him a speedy recovery."

In the Void

Agoron was not asleep, but neither was he awake. His more mature, larger, immortal self moved through the memory dream that told of his people from the beginning of the Eterne to the present, to their imprisonment in the largest and safest temporal dungeon the Kantaki and Feyn had ever created, the Void. Only the ego of a secular could handle so much knowledge, and Agoron slowly absorbed it. Whispering voices and delicate images told of the initial conflict that had made the Eterne what they were today, and as the Self listened and contemplated in the dream, it noticed a... disturbing something, like a streak on a palette of bright colors, like a... soft, very soft shriek in an otherwise perfect melody. Agoron turned to look at the strange something, but before he could focus his thoughts on it, the calm of the memory dream ended.

He opened pitch-black eyes and found himself in the memory chamber. Countless data modules formed bumps on the walls, ceiling and floor, and two thin nerve lines connected him to the information hub.

They have noticed, was whispered from a distance, separated from him by only a few walls. The voices quickly grew louder, echoing not only in Agoron's head but reaching his ears. "They have noticed."

Agoron suddenly understood, shuddered briefly, and severed the nerve connections to the node. The resting field slowly spun him around, lowering him at the same time. When his feet touched the ground, he immediately ran, leaving the memory chamber and, shortly after, the area of the city of Aeon reserved for seculars.

"All observers stand by!" he shouted, knowing that his voice could be heard throughout the city and even in the observation tunnels. "Suggestors, stand by."

Acknowledged. Acknowledged. "Acknowledged."

The Kantaki Timekeepers on Munghar... The changes in the event and probability patterns are no longer hidden from them. They have become active.

With a collector capsule, Agoron left the city and flew past the time fleet, where they had started to prepare for the imminent departure.

The moment that would decide everything was approaching, in the distant future as well as here. Agoron felt the burden of responsibility but did not allow his thoughts and feelings to dwell on it. The responsibility was enormous, he knew better than anyone, but right now he could not allow himself to be distracted. As the collector capsule carried him to the edge of the Void, to the shield created by Kantaki and Feyn, he connected to the capsule's systems that expanded his self: he received the data collected by the observers, saw the time streams and the turbulence in them, lines like the threads the Kantaki ships followed in trans-space, like snakes and eels in the time streams.

New possibilities were available to his new self, the consciousness of the secular, the potential of which Agoron had not yet tapped into. But one thing was already clear: His gaze reached much farther into the temporal chaos beyond the shield, quite a distance along the time shafts into the future.

"From now on, no more caution," he said, and his voice reached all the Eterne in the Void, including the other members of the Circle of Seven. "The Timekeepers on Munghar know what we're up to..." Images from the future wafted towards him, composed of countless data fragments transmitted by the observers. They showed five large Kantaki ships, even larger than most of them, and onboard... "They are bringing a spur to the solar system whose central star humans call Hades. It must not be used under any circumstances."

Agoron checked his connections to the systems of the collector capsule. The expansion of his self they induced was ready for absorption.

Worry and fear emanated from Aeon and the observation tunnels, also from the time ships.

"Soon we will be free," said Agoron. "Soon we will be free. Suggestors, give me your strength."

Agoron surrendered to the resting field inside the collector capsule and closed his eyes.

Energy surged toward him, and the expansion of his ego absorbed it, giving it the form of a needle with which he pierced the shield. He expanded into the time streams, past the temporal eddies, into the future....

Valdorian, Agoron thought, and this time he did not try to make contact carefully and gently. There was no point in hiding the manipulation attempts from the Temporal guardians. Valdorian...

Devouring Fire

16 APRIL 421 SN, 23:10

On the way to Kerberos

Valdorian was inside a gray giant, a Tiger-class interplanetary battleship, oval and nearly three hundred feet long, its stern blunt. Pseudo-realistic displays positioned like windows on the walls of the central control room showed almost ghostly activity inside the transport bubble of the Kantaki ship that had brought them to the Hades system and interrupted their flight in the Kuiper Belt region. Large cargo bins and containers opened like the chalices of exotic flowers, and Tiger-, Panther-, and Wolf-class battleships emerged. Levitators steered them away from the passenger pods and habitat modules, past the delicate filaments and power scaffolding, toward the edge of the transport bubble.

Rungard Avar Valdorian watched the activity and at the same time heard the voice whispering to him from the distant past. And behind that voice, thousands of others whispered, urgent and hopeful.

Do not get stopped. The voice of Agoron, as he was now called, and behind it the whispers of the other Temporals trapped in the Void. Valdorian almost thought he could see them, like shadow images in the control room. Don't let anything or anyone stop you.

An Akuhashi appeared in the central window. He didn't speak Interlingua, but the linguists translated his Akuha.

"You must not leave the transport bubble," the Akuhashi said. He wore a Direal that connected him to the Kantaki ship's systems, and there was a glint in his long, vertical slits. "Father Mrreg has expressly forbidden it."

One of the soldiers at the controls turned his head and looked at Valdorian.

"Do not answer and continue your mission. I don't care what Father Mrreg has forbidden." The anger at the Kantaki was as palpable as the whispers of the Temporals. It never faded, at most it receded a bit when other feelings came to the fore, but it never left Valdorian's self.

He had taken a seat at one of the spare consoles, leaving the soldiers to operate the ship's controls. Jonathan sat nearby, as did Valdorian and the awakened sleepers from the Arsenal planetoid, dressed in light battle suits. Energized safety armor protected them, and the chairs were equipped with mini-compensators.

Kantaki machines flew through the transport bubble, as irregularly shaped as the ship. Ahead of Valdorian’s fleet, they gathered where a web of monofibers and control conduits of hyperdimensional energy separated the interior of the transport bubble from open space. They glowed in the darkness, and a glowing structure appeared.

"Once again, I urge you to stay within the transport bubble," the Akuhashi said, his voice now sounding a bit harsher. "If you try to leave it, we will be forced to take countermeasures."

"The K-machines are setting up some kind of protective field," one of the soldiers reported.

"Continue the flight," Valdorian said coolly. "Use your weapons."

The ships were still using only their levitators, not their main engines, as they glided past large and small habitat modules. Valdorian imagined the many passengers huddled at the panoramic windows, watching the large fleet of battleships, no doubt wondering what the hell was going on.

Don't let them stop you. It was no longer a murmur, but a command from the past.

Several large Tiger ships opened fire with their Hefok cannons. Beams from the high-energy emission focusers blazed at the K-machines, and several of them burst apart. Panther units hurled swarms of missiles at the obstacle, and all hit a target: Kantaki machines, monofiber lines, web fragments. The protective field projected by the K-machines flickered and disappeared, leaving a gap in the outer skin of the transport bubble.

The fleet headed for it.

"I protest this outrageous use of force," the Akuhashi, who peered into the control room through a large display window, said angrily. "You are violating the Sacred Code!"

"So what," Valdorian muttered. He thought briefly of Enbert Dokkar and his son Benjamin, who were under arrest in a cabin aboard the ship but could see what was happening. What are they thinking now? Lukert Turannen, the old and new Coordinator of the Consortium, sat in an alcove on the opposite side of the control room, looking paler than he had a few minutes ago. What a sacrilege to break Kantaki rules, Valdorian thought mockingly.

The ships ignited their plasma engines, jumped through the opening in the outer web of the transport bubble, and a few seconds later were in open space. Interference tore the image of the Akuhashi apart. Only fragments of his Akuha words arrived, and the linguator could not translate those fragments.

"To Kerberos," Valdorian said.

"The Alliance," Jonathan muttered. "They could get in trouble for this. I used Dokkar's identer to pay for the transport of the containers and the cargo. The Kantaki are bound to assume that it was he who violated the Sacred Code."

Valdorian hadn't even thought of that. He smiled thinly. "How unfortunate," he said sarcastically, turning his attention to the pilot's pseudo-real windows. The Tiger-, Panther-, and Wolf-class ships sped past chunks of ice and asteroids, cosmic debris from the origin of the Hades system. A few minutes later, the Kuiper Belt was behind them.

The sun Hades shone in the distance, pale and tiny, surrounded by invisible planets. The third of them was called Kerberos, and there...

Faster, it whispered, and the urgency in those two syllables became a tremor that spread through Valdorian's thoughts and feelings. Faster. The Kantaki want to deploy the spur, and they've almost completed the thread structure of its installation.

"Status?" asked Valdorian.

"The Kantaki ship on the other side of the Kuiper Belt is stationary," the pilot reported. "No one is following us."

"When will we reach Kerberos?"

"At current speed, four days."

Too long, it muttered. It's taking too long. You must reach the planet sooner.

Vague glimpses of events on Kerberos followed, of things moving in a certain direction outside the Temporal's sphere of influence that had since picked up a great deal of momentum.

"Maximum speed," Valdorian ordered, thinking of the crystal wedge in his quarters, the time key he had received from Agoron. He would have liked to hold it in his hand now and let its emanations soothe him, but something kept him from showing it to others. Only one person had seen it: Jonathan. Apart from him, no one else knew anything about it.

"Maximum speed," the pilot confirmed, and the dull hiss of the plasma engine became an angry growl.

The pseudo-real displays showed the engine glow of the other ships changing to a reddish-yellow glow as they accelerated as well. Occasionally there were flashes here and there as dust or small rocks in space hit the ships' protective fields and burned up instantly.

"How long?" asked Valdorian.

"Nine hours," the pilot replied.

That's still too long, came Agoron's voice from a past separated from Valdorian by billions of years and countless temporal traps built after the First Time War and left behind by the Kantaki and Feyn.

"That's as fast as I can go," muttered Valdorian.

"Excuse me?" asked Jonathan next to him.

"Never mind." He kept looking at the window-like displays and thought he saw the light of several stars disappearing and reappearing. Something was moving in space ahead of the fleet, an object as dark as space.

"Tracking," a soldier said. "One of the five Kantaki ships that sealed off the Hades system is launching an intercept maneuver.

"Do not let them stop you!" shouted the temporals, a thousand voices bundled by Agoron and sent into the future.

"Maintain course and speed," Valdorian ordered.

"Primus..." Concern appeared on Jonathan's face. "Do you want to risk a direct, immediate confrontation with the Kantaki?"

Valdorian eyed him briefly. He knows nothing, he thought. Jonathan had no idea what awaited them on Kerberos, nor did he know anything about the mission Valdorian had to accomplish on behalf of Agoron in the Hades system. "I have a job to do," he said, and that was only half the truth, or rather half a lie. He intended to go from being a tool to being someone who used a tool, and that was certainly not part of the agreement he had made with Agoron.

The image in one of the larger pseudo-realistic displays changed to show an insectoid creature resembling a praying mantis. Fragments of cloth and colored ribbons hung here and there from its long, thin limbs, and a fluorescent glow flickered across its midsection with each movement. The creature lowered its triangular head, and there was a glint in the two multiple eyes that bulged over each half of its face, each consisting of thousands of visual organs.

Clicking sounds came from the speaker of the communication servo, and the linguator translated. "I am Mother Yurrl," said the Kantaki. "I request that you turn around."

"Maintain course and speed," Valdorian repeated. "Distance?"

"One light minute," the pilot replied. "It's a Translink."

The Kantaki tilted her head from side to side, and the flickering on her body looked like ember fire. "The Timekeepers on Munghar have detected temporal manipulation," she clicked. "They are focused on the third planet of the solar system, whose central star you call Hades. It could be an attempt by the temporals to leave their dungeon in the distant past and return to our time. Therefore, we have sealed off the solar system. No starships are allowed in or out. We are preparing to deploy a spur."

The worry lines ate deeper into Jonathan's forehead. "Is that true, Primus?" he asked quietly, leaning as close as the security armor would allow. "Is there really a chance the temporals will return?"

"We will stay on course," Valdorian turned to the soldiers. "Prepare the weapon systems and synchronize them with those of the other ships."

"Are you going to fire on a Kantaki ship?" snapped Lukert Turannen from the other side of the control room.

Valdorian ignored him, glanced at the display window and saw not only Mother Yurrl but also memory images showing him a pilot dome and another Kantaki, Father Hirl. He had shot him, aboard the ship piloted by the seven hundred-year-old Esmeralda.

"Synchronization is complete," the pilot reported coolly. The other soldiers remained silent, operating the controls as patiently and steadily as organic machines.

"Once again, I urge you to turn around immediately," Mother Yurrl clicked. "If the Temporals succeed in escaping the Void, a Second Time War is imminent."

"Is that true, Primus?" Jonathan asked again. "Perhaps it would be better if we-"

"No." Valdorian's gaze slid briefly to Turannen, who stared at him in horror. Only the soldiers, in the control room of the fleet's flagship as well as aboard the other ships, remained completely unfazed. Don't let them stop you!, came the voices of the temporals from the past, a choir with Agoron as conductor. Why the name change?, Valdorian wondered for a moment, but half a second later the thought was gone.

"It was a mistake to start a war against the Alliance." Jonathan still spoke quietly but with more urgency than before. "But it would be an even greater catastrophe if it came to a Second Time

War."

"The Kantaki ship is erecting a barrier of force fields," the pilot reported.

"Open fire as soon as we get close enough," Valdorian said. "Continue at maximum speed."

"Primus, this is madness..."

Don't get stopped, don't get stopped, don't get stopped... echoed from the past.

"Whoever is in command of the fleet...", Mother Yurrl clicked. "I urge you to abort the approach. Otherwise we will be forced to take countermeasures..."

Hefok cannons hurled high-energy fire through space. Swarms of missiles followed like angry hornets, and their thermonuclear warheads exploded close to the giant Kantaki ship, whose weak defensive fields flickered for a moment before collapsing.

The unarmed black giant disintegrated.

Lukert Turannen watched the event unfold, stunned as if he could not believe his own eyes. Jonathan sat stiffly, not quite as dismayed as Turannen - he had been through too much for that - but with an unmistakable sadness on his face.

Valdorian, on the other hand, felt deep satisfaction as he watched the segments of the Kantaki colossus burst and burn in atomic fire.

"When was the last time someone destroyed a Kantaki ship?" he asked.

"During the Time War," Jonathan said half aloud. "Many centuries ago."

It won't be the last, Valdorian thought, and the thought gave him greater satisfaction. How good it felt to take revenge and blaze a new trail into the future.

The fleet continued on its way to Kerberos.

In the depth

17 APRIL 421 SN, 00:21

Kerberos

Edwald Emmerson heard the voices while still in the hallway. "Are you trying to hold me here?"

"No, no one wants to keep you. But the examination is not yet complete. You may have suffered internal injuries in the levitator accident."

Emmerson paused at the door, trying to stay out of the way as much as possible of the doctors and nurses who were hurrying down the hall, pushing patient beds and equipment carts in front of them. Still, he received a few annoyed looks.

He was at Chiron Central Hospital. It was late at night - or early morning - but after the chaos in the city caused by the emergence of the temporal anomaly, hectic activity had replaced the quiet routine that usually prevailed at this time. Numerous people had been injured in the accidents.

"I'm fully recovered."

"In just three hours?"

Emmerson glanced into the room and saw Lutor pulling on his clothes. Beside him stood a tall, tired-looking man in doctor's scrubs. The shadows on his narrow face indicated that he had been on his feet for many hours. He pointed to the display of an infonaut.

"Some of the tests we've done so far have shown readings outside the norm..."

Lutor put on his weapon belt, checked the Hefok, micronaut bundles and other items, nodded in satisfaction and reached for his leather jacket.

"So what," he said coolly. "I'm leaving now. Thanks for your help."

The doctor sighed and placed the infonaut on the nearby table. "As you wish."

Edwald Emmerson entered the room.

"For some reason, I'm not surprised to see you here," Lutor said, measuring the newcomer with an icy stare.

"Please leave," Emmerson addressed the doctor.

"Who are you? You can't just barge in here and-"

"I can, believe me. Please leave us alone."

The astonished doctor left. Behind him, Emmerson closed the door, turned and looked at the investigator Lukert Turannen had sent to Kerberos. He seemed to have survived the accident just fine. He seemed unharmed and alert. He looked awake, vigilant, ready to continue the search for the metamorph.

"Why didn't you tell me?" asked Emmerson.

"About what?"

"That you identified the metamorph."

"How do you know that?"

Emmerson raised and lowered his shoulders.

"I suppose you had me watched."

"If you had informed me, a joint operation would have been possible. Two guards would still be alive and Raimon would not have escaped."

Lutor narrowed his eyes questioningly. "What happened?"

Emmerson recounted the incident at the harbor.

"According to witnesses, the boy turned into a large winged creature and flew away with Brother Eklund."

Lutor smoothed his jacket thoughtfully.

"Do you finally realize that together we have a much better chance of success?"

"Where did the creature go?"

"Supposedly into the continental forest. Will you continue your search for the metamorph there?"

Lutor came around the table and headed for the door. "I will find him. I've always been successful, in all my missions. It's only a matter of time."

"Interesting that you should mention that. Time, I mean. Do you know what caused all the accidents in the city?"

Lutor stopped halfway to the door.

"A temporal anomaly that originated on the ocean floor off the continental shelf." Edwald Emmerson slowly walked over to the table, picked up the still-on infonaut, and looked at the display. "There is evidence of an attempt by the temporals to leave their time dungeon and return to the present."

Lutor was silent for two or three seconds. "What does that have to do with me or the metamorph?"

"A Second Time War would affect all of us." Emmerson was still looking at the screen. "The doctor is right. These bio-readings are indeed anything but normal. And I know why.

Lutor gave him a quick look, stepped to the door and opened it. "I'm not interested in the temporal anomaly. I came here to find the metamorph, and I will find him, wherever he is."

With that he left.

Emmerson looked at the infonaut's display. He couldn't understand most of the data, but colored highlights indicated deviations from normal values.

"That's personal medical data, none of your business," a voice rang out.

Emmerson looked up. The doctor who had left the room earlier was standing in the open doorway, next to a man in uniform, a member of the hospital's internal security force.

"Make sure this man leaves the hospital," the doctor turned to his companion.

"He's the head of security for NHD Kerberos," the uniformed man replied.

"I've since been promoted to Planetary Director." Emmerson remembered that no official announcement had been made. "Please accept my apologies," he added with diplomatic friendliness, looking at the doctor. "I should have identified myself."

The anger drained from the man's features. He pointed at the infonaut. "That information is private."

Emmerson handed him the device. "Did you noticed anything unusual about Lutor?"

"Aside from his stubbornness and arrogance, you mean?"

"Yes."

"Some of the values are quite far outside the usual norms.

"Do you have any explanation for this?"

"I would have liked to have kept him here and run more tests, but you heard him."

"Yes, I did." Emmerson's communication servo buzzed and he pulled it out.

A pseudo-real image of Elroy Tobias appeared. "I have a submersible ready for you, Chief."

"Excellent."

"With a pilot. A certain Raphael is ready to take you to the station on the ocean floor." The tired Tobias smiled wryly.

"I guess you helped a little."

"I... persuaded him. He's waiting for you on the autocrat's Island."

"Thank you." Edwald Emmerson disconnected and pocketed the communication servo. A long day and almost a long night lay behind him, and sleep was still out of the question. He walked to the door and the two men standing there stepped aside so he could step into the hallway. The medical personnel were still hurrying back and forth. "Sorry to bother you. I see you've been busy."

We all have been, he thought as he left the hospital. And it could get a lot worse soon.

As Emmerson climbed into the submersible, almost completely black eyes watched him with Perfid heightened attention. Raphael was already at the controls. Emmerson took a seat beside him, trying to keep his thoughts under control as he fastened the safety harness. "Stokkart's down there, isn't he?"

Raphael hesitated for a moment. "I don't know where His Serene Highness is."

Emmerson turned to him, looking straight into his black, drugged eyes. "You know what's going on here, Raphael. You should have learned by now that a temporal anomaly has developed down there in the sea - or rather, under the sea. You should also be aware of the dangers that could cause. This is a matter that goes far beyond your drug business, and perhaps even far beyond Kerberos. It's a good time for you to come clean and put your cards on the table. When was the last time you spoke to Stokkart?"

"It was many hours ago." Raphael looked away and operated the controls of the submersible, which seemed to be some kind of transporter. Behind the pilot and co-pilot seats were more seats for passengers, and the stern of the cylinder-shaped craft contained several cargo compartments. Engines hummed and the vessel sank slowly into the water, sliding through an access tunnel and then over the reef. Headlights groped like bright fingers through the night-dark sea.

"And he hasn't responded to any of your attempts to contact him since?"

"No."

The bow of the submersible turned into a large window through which one could look out into the sea. Sea creatures appeared briefly in the spotlight and scuttled away.

"He's down there, isn't he?" asked Emmerson.

"Yes."

"If he hasn't checked in ... maybe something's happened to him. The autocrat doesn't usually neglect his government business, does he? Not to mention his other business. Who else is down there besides him?"

"Some scientists."

"What about the station at the bottom of the sea?"

Raphael remained silent, operating the submersible's controls.

"I know almost nothing about the project," he finally said.

"Tell me what you do know."

Again, Raphael did not answer immediately, taking his time.

Emmerson watched him intently, knowing how to interpret small, barely perceptible clues. A twitch in his cheek, an effort to avoid his gaze, attention fully focused on the instruments ... Raphael was nervous and trying to hide it. He knew more than he was letting on.

They reached the end of the reef, behind which the continental shelf fell steeply. The bow window showed blackness. Emmerson knew that the ocean floor lay at a depth of about ten thousand feet.

Raphael steered the submersible down. He didn't engage the navigation servo, Emmerson noticed; presumably he wanted to keep busy.

"As far as I know, it's deep-sea fauna and sediment research," the man with the black Perfid eyes finally said. "Talk to Professor Ulgar. He's in charge of the project."

"If it's really about deep-sea fauna and sediments - why have they kept it all secret?"

"You're asking the wrong person."

"You think so? Well, were you able to reach the professor?"

"No."

"Or any of the other scientists?"

"No."

"In other words, there is no contact with the station at all."

"That's right."

Emmerson looked down into the depths, wondering what awaited him down there. Deep in the ocean floor, a temporal anomaly had formed, possibly a sign that the temporals were attempting to return to the present. And the scientists in the station at the bottom of the sea were as unresponsive to communication signals as the autocrat. Emmerson felt uneasy. Everything pointed in a direction he did not like. For the first time he questioned the wisdom of his decision to visit the station only with Raphael. Perhaps it would have been better to assemble a properly equipped task force and take all the necessary precautions. On the other hand: it would have taken time, valuable time.

"That's strange," Raphael said after a while.

"What do you mean?"

"The exterior lights of the station are off."

"Isn't that usually the case?"

"I've been down here several times, and the lights have been on every time."

Raphael's fingers touched the controls and the hum of the engines changed. Emmerson felt the sub tilt sideways, and a moment later the light from the headlights was no longer lost in a black void, but gliding across the muddy and sandy seabed.

"Still no response to our communication signals."

Emmerson glanced at the displays, trying to get his bearings. The sonar had long since picked up the station's structures - three domes of varying sizes - but it took another minute for them to appear in the bow window.

"I don't see any damage." Raphael steered the ship closer, and the domes seemed to swell, to inflate. Externally, the station was intact, and to Emmerson's great relief, nothing indicated the proximity of a temporal anomaly.

But why was no one responding?

Raphael proved to be a skilled pilot as he brought the submersible alongside the main dome and connected the submersible's airlock seal to that of the dome wall. When the data servo confirmed that the position was fixed, Raphael removed his safety harness and stood up. Farther back, there was a hiss and a bulkhead opened. "We can enter the station."

A short time later, they were standing in the small airlock, watching the inner bulkhead close. A few seconds passed, and the other bulkhead slid open.

They entered the station.

Immediately they saw evidence of sheer destruction. Furnishings were smashed. Things lay scattered on the floor, most of them torn to pieces. There was even evidence of a fire in one place: Sticky firefighting foam formed a gray layer over a pile of clothes that someone had set on fire.

"Madness," Emmerson said quietly, looking around, "someone's run amok."

They walked down a hallway where only a few light fixtures were still burning on the ceiling - most of them had been smashed. Strange scribbles appeared on the walls, and when Emmerson looked closer, he realized it was blood. But not human.

In the next room, an equipment room, his suspicions were confirmed. Against one wall lay two creatures that looked like a cross between an ape and a dolphin, but whose skin was more like that of snakes.

"Semi-intelligent workers," he said. "Looks like they beat each other to death."

Nearly all the equipment lockers were open, their contents a jumbled mess on the floor. Raphael and Emmerson continued on their way, and the other rooms in the station presented a similar picture. They found more dead workers, but there was no sign of the scientists or the autocrat. None of the semi-intelligent creatures seemed to have survived, and certain signs of decomposition on their limbs indicated that they had been dead for hours.

Half an hour later, they had searched all three domes without finding Stokkart, Ulgar, or the others.

"They must be further down," Emmerson said. "There are still station areas under the domes, aren't there? I saw an elevator."

Raphael's unease grew. "We'd better get out of the station," he said.

"Without finding out what happened to Stokkart, Ulgar and the others?"

Raphael looked around. "Something drove the Adlats crazy. Perhaps the anomaly is responsible."

That possibility can't be ruled out, Emmerson thought, but continued on his way to the elevator anyway. Raphael followed him, giving the bodies of the Adlats as wide a berth as possible.

After a short search, with no help from his companion, Edwald Emmerson found the elevator and realized that he had to push a button to bring the car up from the bottom. "Whoever used the elevator last - went down in it."

The door slid open and the car was empty and undamaged. Emmerson stepped inside. Raphael hesitated.

"Come on. Or do you want me to look around down there by myself?"

For two or three seconds, Raphael struggled with himself, then entered the elevator as well. Emmerson pressed the lowest button on the wall, and the door immediately closed. With a quiet whir, the car began to move.

"You know I take Perfid," Raphael said. His voice was not as firm as usual. "You also know the effects of the drug."

"Yes," Emmerson growled. "It's addictive."

"It heightens perception. And I sense something I don't like."

"What?"

"I... don't know. All I know is that we'd better leave this place as soon as possible. Let's go back to Chiron."

The elevator stopped and the door opened.

Emmerson stepped into a brightly lit corridor. No one had broken any lights, and there was no blood on the walls. "Is anyone here?" he called out. "Can anyone hear me?"

All was silent.

Emmerson would have preferred to act on Raphael's words, but instead, driven by curiosity and a deeply ingrained sense of duty, he walked through the corridor whose walls were made first of steel ceramic and synthomass, then of the sedimentary rock of the ocean floor. Several times, door-like openings to the left and right gave access to rooms that actually seemed more like caves, some of them dark, others as brightly lit as the corridor. Emmerson took a quick look inside - furniture, equipment, provisions, mobile devices - and continued on until he finally reached a room whose back wall revealed something strange: a gently curved object, or part of an object, yellow as gold and completely smooth. Emmerson stepped closer and touched the metallic substance.

"Warm," he said in amazement. "What is it?"

"I don't know. Please, Emmerson, let's go. There is something here... something dangerous."

Edwald Emmerson turned to find that Raphael's nervousness had turned to fear. "I want to know what this is," he said, pointing to the curved surface.

"I don't know, I really don't. His Serene Highness always just called it an 'artifact.' There's a second one, and Professor Ulgar and the other scientists were looking for a way into it."

A second corridor led out of the room. "Where does it go?"

"Please, Emmerson, believe me, there is something here that..."

"Have you seen something, Raphael? Apart from the things you think you perceive with the help of the drug, we haven't seen a single Adlat down here."

"Maybe they all went to the upper levels."

"The elevator car was downstairs." Emmerson turned to the second corridor.

"I implore you..." Raphael shivered.

Edwald Emmerson ignored him and walked down a corridor that gave the impression of having been recently built. After about one hundred feet it ended in a cavern dug out of the sedimentary rock. Several mobile cores lined the walls, and several deactivated micronaut swarms rested in a scaffold. A large equipment cart contained lighting units and various probes. Next to it were two levitator disks.

A large hole yawned in the floor in the center of the room.

But Emmerson's attention was drawn to something else. Huddled together in one corner of the room were several of the semi-intelligent workers. Their exact number could not be determined, for the adlats body substance - basic mass structured by a formation matrix - had partially fused. Some limbs remained visible; the creatures seemed to have hugged each other.

"Like children afraid of something, huddling together for protection," Emmerson murmured.

He turned towards the hole.

"It's close," Raphael breathed, who had also entered the room. "There." He pointed to the opening in the floor.

Emmerson stepped to the edge of the hole and looked down a deep shaft. He could not see how far down it led, for darkness blocked the view of the end of the shaft.

With a few quick steps, Emmerson was back at the equipment cart, picked up a light servo, activated it, returned to the hole, and dropped the small device in. The light illuminated the shaft for a few feet, but further down it dimmed and disappeared altogether. The darkness seemed to literally swallow it up.

Something in the shaft...rippled. Something shimmered, like hot air expanding upward...

Raphael screamed, pressing both hands to his temples and staggered away from the hole. He screamed and screamed as loud as he could, at the top of his lungs, and his cries announced unimaginable mental pain. Emmerson saw him roll his eyes and suddenly run, his upper body leaning forward as he did so...

With full force, he slammed into the wall, head first. There was a loud crack, the screams stopped, and Raphael sank to the ground, no longer moving. Blood poured from his crushed skull.

Edwald Emmerson ran as well. Raphael was right. There was something here, a strange, dark something that had driven the adlats mad and Raphael to suicide. Emmerson didn't think about what had happened to Stokkart, Professor Ulgar and the others. He understood only one thing: He had to get out of here if he wanted to survive.

He felt an unpleasant tug as he walked like sandpaper scraping across the core of his being, and he tried to build an inner barrier against the stranger's prying into his thoughts. Through the room with the golden-yellow object only partially exposed, through the corridor to the elevator that willingly picked him up and carried him up, slowly, much too slowly...the tugging grew stronger, like pincers slowly crushing his brain...to the main dome, through the chaos created by destruction, past the dead adlats, to the airlock...

Emmerson gasped and sweated as the sub's bulkhead opened. Quick, quick, to the controls, away from the station, as far away as possible... One step, and another, and then his brain seemed to explode and collapse at the same time, to contract. He fell, touching switches and controls as he fell, hearing the hum of engines, feeling movement as he lay on the floor, hands clasped around his head, fingers curled as if to bore into his skull, where pain bathed every thought in a mental acid bath.

Darkness came out of the shaft, and Edwald Emmerson surrendered to it gratefully, for it freed him from the torment.

In the continental forest

17 APRIL 421 SN, 07:50

Kerberos

When Brother Eklund awoke, he was unsure whether he had slept or lost consciousness. He opened his eyes and saw three mummified bodies.

They were lying on the other side of the hut he had woken up in, huddled against the wall as if they had sought shelter there in the last seconds of their lives. An elderly man and two women who appeared to be much younger, their faces frozen in death's grimace.

Something touched Eklund and answered the question of what had awakened him. He noticed shadowy movements here and there in the hut: small beetle-like creatures scurrying back and forth with quivering antennae and clacking jaws. Some of them crawled over Eklund's body, touched him with their antennae, paused, then hurried on.

He shook them off, straightened up, grabbed his walking stick and used it to shoo away some of the restless creatures that were also crawling over the three mummies. Eklund knew what these creatures were: they were swarmers, the eyes and ears of a divorator. This led to only one conclusion - he was in the continental forest.

Eklund rose - he had been lying on a narrow, simple wooden bed - and leaned on his walking stick as he walked to the open door of the cabin. The swarmers finished their inspection of the cabin's interior and returned to the outside through the door and window, paying no attention to Eklund.

In front of the entrance was a small porch, and there Brother Eklund stopped, clinging to the railing and gazing into the depths. Nearly three hundred feet separated him from the dark floor of the continental forest, which was barely illuminated by the sun's rays. Even up here, at mid-altitude, it remained gloomy. Only the upper two of the six so-called main levels of the forest received bright light.

"Raimon?"

Only the chirping and humming of the forest dwellers answered him. Air roots hung from far above, from the treetops three hundred feet away. Wind brushed the tops of the giant trees there, sometimes creating small gaps in the canopy through which light streamed.

Light. A new day.

Brother Eklund turned to see that the hut stood on a small platform where several thick primary branches, each several feet in diameter, extended from the trunk. He was not surprised that the hut had been built in this location, for it offered protection from some of the more dangerous members of the local fauna. However, this place did not offer protection from a divorator.

Eklund looked down again, watching the beetle-like swarm crawl over the trunk. Somewhere out there in the darkness of the forest floor, the divorator waited for his eyes and ears, which he had sent out in all directions, to return before choosing a target. Eklund hoped that some of the swarmers had found more promising prey elsewhere.

He returned to the hut and tried to remember. The horrible death of the two sekuritos at Chiron Harbor was very clear in his mind, as was the creature Raimon had turned into. But the events remained shadowy and blurred, without clear contours, without details. Raimon - the monstrous being the boy had become - had brought him to the Continental Forest, to this hut, and then... And then what?

Once again, Eklund had the strange feeling that his thoughts were moving on their own, without the control of his conscious self, and he did not like the direction they were taking. It was becoming more and more likely that Raimon was indeed behind the two strange deaths in the Citadel. If that was true, he was a murderer - a murderer who did not want to kill, as Eklund knew. Not a perpetrator, but a victim. But whose victim? Who or what was behind this?

He remembered the pattern of colored stones and thought he heard the whisper of the World Soul again. A mission, a holy mission... Protect the boy.

But recent events indicated that Raimon could take very good care of himself. Who was he? What was he? These two questions came to the fore more and more.

Eklund's gaze fell on the three mummified bodies against a wall of the hut. Normally, scavengers of all kinds in the continental forest consumed dead flesh in a very short time, and if they missed something, the heat and high humidity caused it to decompose quickly. In the case of these three individuals, neither had happened. Eklund suspected that they, like so many others, had been in the forest looking for new drugs, hoping to get rich quick. Apparently, they had also been avid Kerberos drug users themselves - which explained the mummification. It was one of the effects of the many intoxicating substances produced by the animals and especially the plants of Kerberos.

They gave the mind and soul dreams, dangerously beautiful, and under certain conditions they preserved the body after death.

Eklund looked at the three mummies. "This is the wrong way to eternity," he said quietly. "Drugs mean fleeing."

Unless you make money from them, like the autocrat and many others on Kerberos. The three dead had tried that, too, but the simple hut and its primitive furnishings suggested that they had not been particularly successful.

Brother Eklund stepped into the middle of the room, leaned on his walking stick, and let his eyes wander through the dim light. Chairs, a table against one wall, small cabinets made of cheap synthesizers, two entertainment units, a battery next to them. Eklund approached it and looked at the display. Not a single indicator was lit; the device contained no power.

Once more he looked around the room. Raimon - the creature that had brought him here - seemed to have left no traces anywhere.

A strange noise came from outside.

Eklund walked slowly to the door, stepped onto the porch and listened. From far above came a distant rustling, the sound of the wind in the high treetops, like a sigh of the forest. Below, where there had been silence, there was scratching and scraping.

Eklund leaned over the railing and looked down.

A divorator was crawling up the tree.

In his long life, Brother Eklund had been to the Continental Forest only twice, many years ago, and on those occasions he had not seen divorators. He only knew them from pseudo-realistic depictions. Most of the creature remained hidden in the darkness of the forest floor, and even the organic matter crawling up the tree did not reveal any details in the darkness. Still, Eklund knew it was a divorator; unfortunately, the swarmers had probably not reported any other prey to it.

He remembered what he knew about these creatures. Neither plant nor animal, biologists compared divorators to a cross between a snail, a fungus, and an amoeba. They flowed and burrowed through the forest floor, sending out the swarmers when they got hungry. When the emitted eyes and ears detected something, the divorator in question turned its stomach upward and devoured the target, in this case an entire giant tree with everything on it.

Eklund looked down again. The divorator’s stomach wrapped around the tree on all sides, expanding and growing upward, slowly but relentlessly.

The way down was certain death. Eklund held on to the railing, tilted his head back and looked up. A younger, more agile man might have been able to climb up the trunk, though it offered little support, but Eklund realized immediately that such a thing was out of the question for him. Even if he could somehow climb up, even the top of the giant tree offered no safety. The divorator's stomach would continue to rise and begin to digest as soon as it had everything firmly in its grasp. Of course, there were connections to other trees, branches and twigs, bridges of flying moss, the sticky walkways of the lurkers, paths through the six main levels of the continental forest. But treading these paths required great skill and a strength that Eklund lacked.

He was stuck in the hut.

How much time did he have left? He looked down again and tried to estimate when the divorator's stomach would reach the hut. In about fifteen minutes, he estimated.

His life was suddenly reduced to fifteen minutes.

He searched the hut for anything that might be used as a weapon, even though he knew the futility of the search. Apart from fire, there was no effective weapon against a divorator. The only option was escape, and that was not an option for Eklund.

Fourteen minutes to go. Or only thirteen?

Eklund left the cabin, stopped on the porch, and resisted the morbid temptation to look down again. Instead, he called out as loud as he could, "Raimon, where are you? I need your help."

The scratching and scraping grew louder. No one answered.

Eklund took a deep breath, thought of Elysium, and...

... found himself at the old portal of weathered wood. He pushed open a panel with a hand made of thought and hope, and beyond it was bright light and ... cold. He stood at the edge of a vast expanse of ice that stretched to the horizon in a frosty glow. About one thousand six hundred feet away, a spindle tower rose up, looking exactly like the towers in the dead world where Raimon and he had met the faceless woman. There was movement there.

"Raimon!" cried Eklund and started to run. He put one foot in front of the other as fast as he could, even though he risked slipping on the slippery ice. Every second counted. Elysium might be a refuge for the spirit, but not for the body that still stood on the porch of the tree hut. If the divorator swallowed him, his life would end, even if his consciousness was still in the world above.

Eklund had traveled about a hundred feet when there was a crunching and cracking beneath him. Thin cracks formed in the ice, jagged lines that quickly lengthened. He tried to go faster, to reach a place where the ice was thicker, but suddenly it gave way beneath him and he fell into the water, its cold nearly paralyzing him...

A hand grabbed him, a very strong hand even though it belonged to a twelve-year-old boy, and pulled him out of the water. Effortlessly, he lifted him up and set him down on the ice, which no longer cracked and crunched.

"Raimon..." The cold made Eklund shiver all over. Astonished, he realized that he was still holding his walking stick. "I need your help!"

The boy had a thousand faces, one on top of the other, like gauzy membranes someone had glued together.

"I've been looking for her," Raimon said, and his voice sounded sad. "I've been looking for her, but I can't find her."

Eklund wanted to leave Elysium and return to the continental forest, to material reality, but the scene around him did not change: a plain of ice, in it a lonely spindle tower. The boy was keeping them both here.

"Please, Raimon, we have to go back," Eklund said. "A divorator is approaching the tree hut, and its stomach will devour me, my body, in a few minutes..."

"I can't find her." Raimon raised his hands in slow motion and pressed them to his temples. "All the voices... it hurts so much."

"Raimon..." Eklund touched the boy's cheek - it was as cold as the water under the ice. "Please, help me..."

"I've been looking for her," the boy said, and this time his voice rang out on the porch. Eklund immediately saw that the divorator had reached the platform where the hut stood. "I've looked everywhere for her, but I can't find her."

"Carry me away from here!" pleaded Eklund. "Turn into..."

Raimon - naked Raimon - jumped over the railing and fell.

Eklund watched as the boy transformed as he fell. The human body became what looked like the shaft of a lance, and dozens of small, transparent wings gave his fall a new direction. Raimon, the lance, pierced the divorator's upturned stomach from the side and disappeared completely inside.

Eklund wrapped his left hand tightly around the porch railing. His right hand rested on the walking stick. For a few seconds, nothing happened, and a strange silence fell over the continental forest.

The ground beneath Eklund vibrated.

What began as a slight vibration quickly became a violent trembling, accompanied by a whistling sound that was soft at first, but swelled and grew, gaining a painful intensity. Finally, Eklund couldn't stand it any longer. He dropped his walking stick on the porch of the hut, removed his left hand from the railing, and covered his ears. Probably no one else on Kerberos had heard that sound before him - it was the death cry of a divorator.

The shaking continued, and Eklund found it very difficult to stay on his feet. He pressed his hands to his ears as he staggered backward, bumping into the hut wall and leaning heavily against it to keep from falling.

A minute later, the ghastly whistling stopped abruptly, and the violent vibrations subsided as well. Eklund lowered his hands, stooped carefully, picked up his walking stick, and staggered to the railing. A worried glance down showed him that the gray mass of the divorator's stomach around the trunk of the giant tree was loosening and liquefying. Muscle flesh became slime, then a sickeningly sweet-smelling liquid that dripped and flowed downward.

But from within the dissolving mass, something was reaching upward. On one side of the tree, a head appeared in the gray, dying flesh of a creature that was not an animal, Raimon's head, followed by the boy's torso.

But where arms had been, paddle-like extensions with suction cups moved, sucking at the bark of the tree with smacking sounds. The legs were also missing. In their place were several umbilical cord-like pulsating strands that thinned downward and disappeared into the dying divorator's stomach.

The boy - the creature - climbed slowly and laboriously, his face a grimace of pain and exhaustion. He reached the platform under the hut, pulled himself up onto the porch, and lay there exhausted, breathing heavily.

"I don't want to kill," Raimon managed, gasping for air. "I don't want to kill anymore."

Eklund walked over, dropped to his knees in front of him, and touched the torso from which the strange paddle-like appendages still protruded. The legs were missing as well. Raimon's stomach merged with the pulsing strands that reached down, down into the darkness, down to the dead divorator.

"You killed to preserve life," Eklund said quietly. "Mine."

"I looked for her," Raimon murmured, so softly that Eklund could barely understand him. "I've looked everywhere for her, but I can't find her."

He closed his eyes and didn't move. For a terrible second, Eklund feared that Raimon had died, from the effort, or because the divorator had half-digested him. For a horrible second, he thought he had failed the World Soul and his mission, which required him to protect this creature that killed against its will.

But then he realized that Raimon was asleep. He was breathing more evenly now, and Eklund watched in amazement as the paddle-like extensions changed their structure, becoming the arms of a boy again. And the pulsating strands became legs with smooth skin, without a single scratch. Raimon was Raimon again, human and yet something else entirely, and while Eklund was still looking down at him, his perspective shifted...

A barren world, ochre-colored, and in the midst of its desolation, a forest of white spindle towers. Eklund walked past them with an effortlessness that amazed him - a strange new strength filled him and gave confidence to his steps. Each tower he passed began to glow, sending light into the dark sky, to the dark clouds that raced across the firmament as if fleeing something. They passed a slowly swelling circular area, and as on the first visit to this place, there were no stars shining down: eyes were staring down that were not human.

Brother Eklund continued on his way, knowing the destination: the platform where the distances between the towers grew.

Raimon stood there, dressed as he had been before his transformation into the winged creature that had brought them from Chiron to the continental forest. He looked up at the podium, at the empty bench, and tears streamed down his cheeks.

Eklund reached over and put a sympathetic hand on the boy's shoulder.

"She's not here," Raimon said with such deep sadness that it almost broke the old man's heart. "I've looked everywhere for her, and I can't find her."

"The woman without a face," Eklund replied, remembering.

"She needs me and I need her. But I can't find her. And I don't have much time."

Eklund blinked and looked back down at the naked boy lying on the porch, sleeping the sleep of exhaustion.

"The woman with no face," he said slowly. "You almost touched her. But Xalon's anger stopped you, didn't it?"

He reached for his walking stick and stood up with its help - the strength he had felt before was now gone.

"I know where we can find the woman you seek," he said to the sleeping boy. "In the mandala."

Behind the Mirror

17 APRIL 421 SN, 07:50

Kerberos

Visions of Darkness...

Are there different kinds of darkness? asked Constantine Alexander Stokkart, autocrat of Kerberos. Is one darkness darker than another, one darkness more sinister than another? Am I still alive, or is this death? And something in him feared the answer to that question. He fell through a blackness that could not be darker, and yet he thought he saw different shades in it, different kinds of absence of light. Sometimes he felt touched by something, mentally and physically, and at such moments he thought with horror of being suspended in limbo, trapped forever in this non-world.

Then he heard a whisper in the distance, a wordless murmur that brought change to the blackness. The feeling of falling ended, and beneath him, hidden from his eyes, something solid formed to support his feet. Stokkart stood on a stable surface, surrounded by a darkness that gave way here and there to a vague gray. He breathed, felt coolness, was aware of the presence of his body in a very intense way and took a step forward.

The whisper in the distance became a sudden shriek that threatened to burst his eardrums, and the darkness receded as suddenly as if a mighty hand had grabbed it and torn it away.

A glittering curtain stretched before the autocrat, like a vertical sheet of water or a wall of mercury. A strange, pungent smell emanated from it, like a mixture of ozone and nutmeg. Behind Stokkart, everything remained dark; if there was anything, it was beyond his visual perception.

The shiny silver curtain kept rippling, showing vague images. Stokkart looked closer and thought he saw someone who bore some resemblance to himself. But the image immediately dissolved and was replaced by others, little more than streaks of color in the shining silver. Tentatively, Stokkart raised his hand and touched the curtain with the tip of his index finger. Stronger ripples emanated from the point of contact, and something pulled his finger deeper into the silver, seeming to want to draw his whole body into it. Startled, he jerked his hand back, looked at his index finger, and saw no injury or change. What is this place? he thought. Am I still inside the artifact? And how do I get out?

// Don't leave. Further. Into the center. \\

Stokkart turned around several times, searching for the origin of the words he had neither heard nor received telepathically. They appeared directly in his consciousness, bearing a strong resemblance to his own thoughts, but with a different mental flavor.

// Into the center. To the damaged center. Complete the center. Restoration has begun. Resurrection. \\

More images flashed through the glittering, billowing curtain, and Stokkart guessed they were related to his sensations and thought patterns. A mirror of the mind? he wondered.

The silvery substance arched toward him, and Stokkart instinctively wanted to retreat, but behind him the darkness took on the consistency of steel ceramics, trapping him.

The pungent smell grew more intense as the bulge in the silver curtain grew and touched him. Again he felt the pull, and it was so strong that it pulled him into the shimmering, glowing substance. Something stretched his body to infinity, taking every cell of his body and twisting it back and forth before putting it back in place, and then the two ends of Stokkart's physical existence sped toward each other like a rubber band that someone had pulled wide and then let go.

The autocrat collided with himself, fell, and hit a hard, dusty floor. He opened his eyes - and immediately closed them as the bright light blinded him. The coolness in the world of darkness had turned to heat; with every breath he took, he sucked uncomfortably hot air into his lungs.

He opened his eyes a crack, waiting impatiently for them to adjust to the brightness after the long, lightless blackness.

Stokkart was used to the tropical heat of Chiron, but here the air itself seemed to burn, and every breath cost him precious moisture. Cautiously he stood up, shading his eyes with one hand and trying to make out the details of his surroundings. Clay-brown, hot rock, with the air shimmering above it, dropped a little before him and disappeared into a sea of the same substance that had made up the glowing curtain. The silvery ocean ended at a remarkably near horizon, where it met a sky as black as the place Stokkart had just left. He looked up at the dark firmament - at its zenith, something was shining, the glaring light coming from it. It was not a sun, he knew. Why the rest of the sky remained black was one of the many mysteries of the artifact. And that he was still inside the artifact, the autocrat was convinced.

He stepped over the rock, and the closer he got to the shore, the hotter it got. A foot in front of the mercury-like mass, Stokkart stopped. The air seemed to be boiling, threatening to burn his lungs. He raised his hands, and his imagination conjured up the first blisters.

// Restoration has begun. Completion necessary. Replace missing parts. \\

His survival instinct kicked in and made his legs move. He backed away and the burning subsided a bit.

"Who are you?" asked Stokkart into the void. "Where are you?"

He turned around.

He was standing on a small island of brown rock, and in its center loomed a strange structure. Stokkart thought it was probably a building, though certain features seemed to have grown organically: a black cone tapering upward, more than fifty feet wide at the bottom. Here and there, strange things stuck to the otherwise smooth outer walls, formations that would have been warts or ulcers on human skin. Was it a living creature? And was it sick?

Stokkart began to move, for the cone promised shade, protection from the heat and glare.

// To the center sounded the voice again, transmitted neither by vibrations in the air nor by telepathy. Only its mental tone distinguished it from Stokkart's own thoughts. It was almost like a mental conversation with himself, a pseudo-dialogue in which he spoke part of it in a disguised voice. Am I schizophrenic, he thought.

// To the center. Complete restoration. \\

The center ... That seemed to mean the cone. "What does restoration mean?" asked Stokkart as he walked.

He got no answer, but he heard again the whisper that had become a screech just before he was transferred here. It sounded strangely urgent, like a wordless plea.

The light came directly from the zenith, which meant that when it tapered off, there were only shadows under particularly large wart-like formations on the outer walls. Stokkart stepped into the area and touched the black material that made up the structure, if it was one. Immediately a change occurred. A gray veil moved through the black substance, which now gave the impression of becoming transparent, and Stokkart's eyes opened in amazement as familiar faces appeared in the wall before him. He saw Ulgar, who opened his mouth several times with a horrified expression, seeming to shout something, but which only reached the autocrat as a vague murmur. The professor raised his hands and pressed them against the wall from the inside as if trying to open a window. He clenched his fists and pounded them against the transparent barrier. Then he suddenly stopped, looked to one side in horror, and turned hastily to the other, as if to flee. But something grabbed him and pulled him apart, inflating his face until it covered the entire wall of the cone, from the base to the top. Scurrying movements followed, too fast for Stokkart to make out details, and in the gray veil that rippled as much as the silver curtain had before, the faces of the others appeared, just as trapped inside the cone as the Professor: Hopkins, Frilor, Dankert, Markins, Telirei, and Gurhan.

Stokkart had seen them die, rapidly aging as a result of contact with the floating spheres. Perhaps this was an illusion, a mirage, created on purpose, or the result of a mental disorder that made him believe in things that did not exist. But if what he saw here was real, then the professor and the others were still alive, in a disembodied sphere, their souls trapped inside that cone for some reason.

Directly in front of him, an opening as large as a door appeared in the wall of the cone.

// Restoration complete\\ said the alien thoughts in the midst of his own. Behind Stokkart it suddenly got hotter, and out of reflex he stepped through the opening to escape the heat.

The door closed immediately.

He stood in a small room that neither frightened him with total darkness nor blinded him with glaring light. And the temperature was lower than outside; Stokkart estimated it at a little over twenty degrees.

"Who are you?" he asked.

"My name is Olkin," a voice came from behind Stokkart.

He turned abruptly. A second door had opened in the cone, and inside it stood ... not a man, but a humanoid creature, perhaps five feet tall and incredibly thin. Arms and legs seemed to be nothing more than bone and dark brown leathery skin. The hands were small and slender, the fingers surprisingly long. A thin neck supported the hairless oval head, and the wrinkled face featured a pointed nose jutting forward and large green-brown eyes, their glow contrasting with the aura of age that surrounded the humanoid. He stood stooped and his back was hunched. The creature wore hardly any clothing: sandals on his feet, the toes of which seemed as long as his fingers, a loincloth of some sort, and a thin, ragged shirt.

"You're the player," the little old man said. "Or rather, one of them."

"My name is Constantine Alexander Stokkart, and I am the autocrat of Kerberos." He tried to sound authoritative.

"A name, a rank..." The humanoid - the old, thin, hunchbacked dwarf - shrugged like a human. "Here, such things lose their meaning. You are the player, the first, and that is more important than anything else. Come, I'll show you the center."

The "you" bothered Stokkart, for it expressed a familiarity that was repugnant to him. But he remained silent, following Olkin down a narrow hallway, past doors with round knobs as silver as the glittering sea of metal outside. Once he stopped, grabbed a knob and tried to turn it. The door stayed closed.

Olkin laughed and scolded. "There's no need for that. The doors won't open until all the players are here."

"Players? I don't understand."

"The game is important. The game is everything. I'm the master of the game. Come, come." The small humanoid waved Stokkart on and moved on with shuffling steps.

The autocrat stopped. "I'm not going any further until I know what this is all about."

Olkin turned his head, and there was a flash in his big eyes as he said, "Come!"

And Stokkart put one foot in front of the other, even though he didn't want to. He was so surprised that he barely noticed his surroundings as he continued on his way, following Olkin as he led him through corridors and up several flights of stairs. There was a certain sharpness in the little humanoid's commanding word, but it did not explain why he had obeyed immediately. What is going on here? he thought. He had obeyed the request because there had been no alternative. It had been absolutely impossible to refuse the order. Did the little stranger have psionic abilities?

"Who are you?" asked Stokkart quietly when he finally regained his voice. They were walking up another flight of stairs, and at the top, a door swung open in front of Olkin.

"I am the Game Master," the humanoid's nasal voice rang out. "I have been waiting a long time." He tilted his head to the side and seemed to be listening to an inner voice. "A long time. Now we can begin the restoration."

"Are you part of the artifact?" asked Stokkart. "Are you perhaps a symbol of one of its functions?"

Again the bleating laughter sounded. "Me - a symbol?" The little old man stepped up to Stokkart, reached out and pinched his arm. "Can a symbol pinch you?"

Maybe I'm dreaming, the autocrat thought. Maybe I have accidentally come into contact with some newly discovered drug and am experiencing a dream that is becoming more and more like a nightmare.

"No," Olkin said, and his voice sounded different, almost as if he were saying a commanding word. "No, you're not dreaming. Come on, we've reached the game room."

Beyond the door at the top of the stairs was a round room. Chairs lined the unadorned gray walls, and in the center of the room stood a table, also round, with a complex structure glowing above it. At first, Stokkart thought it was some sort of pseudo-realistic representation, but as he got closer, he realized it was more than just a projection. The things depicted - figures and objects on intricate, winding pathways, bridges and tunnels - had substance. And as he looked closer... some of them even seemed to be alive.

"Sit down," said Olkin, who was already seated and looking impatient. "Let's play."

"But I don't even know the rules of the game," Stokkart said helplessly. "I don't know what the point is."

"Sit down!"

And the autocrat sat down.

Olkin smiled, but it was a strange smile, somehow distorted. He held out his hands, and his fingers traced back and forth, touching a previously invisible energy membrane just in front of the complex representations, sending spark-like pulses of light into the tangled mess. "You are the player. You'll know what's important."

Stokkart raised his hands, and as he touched the membrane, something alien in his consciousness pushed thoughts aside and took their place. Pulses of light flashed, and the first figures moved...

The darkness began to awaken from a coma-like sleep that had lasted for millions of years, as the blocked mechanisms of restoration began to move again. Immediately, the defense center of the fragmented self, the Defensive, went into action, sensing her presence, close and still asleep, as well as that of a spur whose energy matrix, however, was not complete - a component was missing.

Far out in space, the structure of space and time was changing.

Mother Krsa

16 APRIL 421 SN

Hades system

Mother Krsah stood in the pilot's dome of her ship, stunned, looking up at the projection screens on the walls that showed a scene of destruction: a Kantaki ship breaking apart, destroyed by energy lances and missiles.

"Oh no," groaned the pilot - a human named Lion - as he rose from his chair. "Oh no..."

"The Sacred Code has been violated," Mother Krsah clicked. "A Kantaki has died, her ship destroyed..." She walked across the room and turned to the Akuhashi at the controls. "Communications..."

The view changed on three screens on the walls. The owners of the other Kantaki ships appeared: Father Arhr, Father Preh and Mother Mrri.

Mother Krsah felt the same horror in them as she did herself. It was not only the death of Mother Yurrl, but also the fact that a part of the spur had been destroyed along with the ship. She lifted one of her front limbs and bowed her head, sending and receiving grief. Yurrl's knowledge, accumulated over many great cycles, had been lost with her death, for she had been unable to become part of the spirit in trans-space that had once become matter. All that Mother Yurrl had seen, heard and experienced was lost to the spirit. Her death was senseless and therefore the most terrible thing that could happen to a Kantaki.

Mother Krsah's multiple eyes took it all in. She saw her pilot, Lion, sink back into his chair and put his hands in the sensor wells as a tremor came from inside the ship - responding to the Kantaki's pain. She saw the fleet of humans, Yurrl's murderers, continue their flight into the inner reaches of the nearby solar system. And she saw and spoke to the three other Kantaki who had set out with her to prevent the Temporals from returning.

"The humans have violated the Sacred Code. They must be punished."

A fourth screen showed another Kantaki, Mother Larl.

"They were humans of the so-called Alliance," said Mother Larl, who was younger than the other Kantaki. Her emanations conveyed respect and reverence, especially for Mother Krsah, who was one of the Big Five. "I transported them."

"The Alliance will be punished," Mother Krsah said, feeling her ship's turmoil subside. Lion was a good pilot; she could rely on him. "The Sacred Code has been violated more than once here. This fleet of humans killed a Kantaki and destroyed her ship. They are preparing to help the Temporals..."

The Abissale!

It was a collective thought of the Kantaki, for they all felt the change in the fabric of what existed around them. A shadow has slipped before the light of creation...

The Abissale is here, and the Council is not ready!

Mother Krsah straightened and stretched her limbs toward the projection screens on the walls of the pilot's dome. The glowing debris of the shattered Kantaki ship drifted through space, and beyond it, something dark glided in front of the distant stars. The light of the nearby system's sun dimmed and... disappeared.

"Data," Mother Krsah clicked, and the Akuhashi operated the controls. Streams of data flowed toward them, appearing simultaneously on the screens: a bubble-like distortion of space-time, emanating from the third planet the humans called Kerberos.

Kantaki's voices clicked.

"There is a seed of the Abissale on the third planet!"

"We must inform the Council!"

"There has been no contact with the Council for countless great cycles."

"When the seed awakens and hears the call of the Temporals, it will neutralize the Void, and then the Time Fleet will leave its dungeon in the past."

Mother Krsah took in the data streams and realized: the solar system with the planet called Kerberos was separated from the rest of the universe. The seed of the Abissale had drawn a fine but insurmountable dividing line, a line that no Kantaki ship could cross. Even through trans-space, the solar system could no longer be reached; the seed had absorbed a portion of its reality, severing it from the threads that connected all that existed. An intercosmic event horizon had been created, and only the Council could pass through it. Here, the Kantaki's abilities had reached their limits.

Mother Krsah sank back, her movements accompanied by a particularly strong fluorescence. "I request Father Arhr, Father Preh and Mother Mrri to immediately fly to Munghar with my component of the spur and inform them of the events here. I also ask them to return here with a new complete weapon. Mother Larl, are you prepared to fly to the nearest communication node and send a priority message to all Kantaki from there? Clicking sounds described the content of the message, which would reach all Kantaki ships from the node, wherever they were: Punishment for those who had violated the Sacred Code; warning of the awakening seed of the Abissale; the urgent need to contact the Council.

Mother Larl confirmed the order and her image disappeared from the screen. The other screens showed her ship accelerating and disappearing into trans-space, the transport bubble still only partially repaired.

"And what are you going to do, Mother Krsah?" asked Father Arhr.

"I will stay here," Mother Krsah decided. "I will watch. I will be the eyes and ears of our people, gathering as much information as I can."

A short, significant silence followed these words. Mother Krsah was one of the Big Five; her decisions were not questioned when they concerned herself.

"If the Time Fleet returns from the past and there is no operational spur, your fate will be the same as Mother Yurrl's."

"Someone has to watch."

The Kantaki on the screens lifted their forelimbs and disappeared from the displays. An energy exchange occurred as the spur component left Mother Krsah's ship and was picked up by another. Then the black giants leapt through space and disappeared into trans-space.

Mother Krsah turned to her pilot. "Take us as close to the dark bubble as you can, Lion."

The human nodded and guided Mother Krsah's colossus to where an entire solar system had been cut off from the rest of the universe.

Confrontations

17 APRIL 421 SN, 08:50

Kerberos

Raimon - or rather the being Raimon had transformed into - must have flown a very long way during the night, for below him the continental forest stretched as far as Eklund could see: a green sea of treetops that seemed endless.

Rarely in his more than ninety years of life had he found himself in such an extraordinary situation, he thought. The claws of a dragon-like creature held him gently so that the wind could not carry him away. Broad, leathery wings stretched above him, left and right, flapping occasionally, trembling and creaking like the sails of a ship. The body between them was as streamlined as a fish's, ending in a long, arrow-shaped head. There had never been a creature like it on Kerberos, Eklund was sure of it. And he meant not only the raven creature but also, and especially the boy who had transformed into the winged creature. What a powerful being, endowed with the ability to take on an entirely new form. But Eklund also felt helplessness and pain, a deep longing for something he did not yet understand. Something was preventing Raimon - whoever and whatever he was - from being himself. A hundred voices did not make a choir, and a hundred musical instruments did not make an orchestra.

But when the many voices and sounds came together, when the acoustic chaos was given structure, it could become a magnificent symphony. In this case, the symphony meant understanding, a clear picture from the many scattered mosaic stones, each one a fragment of meaning.

Brother Eklund believed more than he knew: the mandala in the citadel could answer all their questions. It offered another way into Elysium, perhaps into another part of Elysium, into the barren land where the faceless woman waited for them. And she was genuinely waiting - Raimon had insisted on it when he had returned to the tree hut. Only the mandala allowed direct contact with the woman, but to reach it they had to return to Chiron, and there the police were looking for them....

I will not fail you, World Soul, thought Eklund. I will fulfill the mission you have given me. For this mission, he felt, gave meaning to his existence, to all that he had experienced, felt and touched. Like in the vision, many decades ago... Strange that he remembered it now, of all times. Or maybe it wasn't so strange. The vision had driven him, not always consciously, mostly on a subliminal level, like an oar steering a ship in a certain direction. The question is: What awaits me? A safe harbor? Or rocks against which I could be dashed?

The claws that held Eklund trembled suddenly, and he instinctively closed his hands around them. "Raimon?" he called to the creature. "Are you all right?"

The leathery wings vibrated more strongly than before, and the winged creature lost altitude. Eklund got the impression that it was weakening.

"Are you getting tired, Raimon?" he called, remembering the boy's long sleep after his transformation back. How much energy did such a transformation take?

And how did Raimon regain his strength? Maybe they should have spent another day or two in the tree hut and not left so quickly.

Eklund looked down and noticed...a kind of line running straight through the continental forest on the right side. He recognized it as one of the paths that stretched deep into the jungle, reaching Chiron at the mouth of the Acheron river, where its channel sparkled in the sun and curved through the woods on his left.

The creature croaked, and to Eklund's ears, it sounded ... tired, yes, and also in pain. Raimon was still suffering.

"If you want to land and rest, Raimon ..." Eklund called up. "Avoid the road. There are always trucks on the road, and practically all of them have communication servos on board. Someone might see us and call the police."

The creature's flight now seemed uncertain rather than confident; it seemed to be struggling to stay aloft. The long ribbon of road came closer, too close, and then the creature turned left, flapped its wings once more, and flew toward the river, about thirty feet above the tops of the tallest trees.

"That's a good idea," Eklund praised. "Perhaps you can find an open area on the banks of the Acheron to land."

His concern grew, for the creature was no longer flying - it was falling. The treetops were closing in fast, and some particularly tall branches brushed against its lower claws. Eklund pulled his legs up, but there wasn't much room to move.

And then they were over the river, leaving the right bank farther and farther behind.

"Go back!" yelled Eklund. "Go back to the shore!" If they crashed here ... He didn't think he could swim that far. He didn't even want to think about the ravenous creatures in the Acheron.

The creature tilted to the side, raised its wings, and flew in a wide arc toward the green wall on the right bank of the wide stream. A few seconds later, it trembled more violently than before, and its claws closed around Eklund as if in spasm.

"Raimon ..." the old man managed, alarmed. "Raimon, you're hurting me!"

The lowest claw touched the water and a strange hiss sounded. The shore was still quite far away, but the Raimon creature managed to flap its wings again and gained some height. Then it fell forever, unable to rise again.

Eklund saw the brown water coming closer, and he suddenly feared that the claws that had held him all this time would not open, that they would form an underwater cage in which he would drown. He held his breath as the creature plunged into the river, and suddenly there was a confusion of movement and foaming water, a chaos in which up, down, left and right were indistinguishable. Eklund felt the claws retreat, but he didn't know which way to turn. The words of an opal diver he had healed years ago came to mind, and he forced his squinted eyes open, oriented himself by the rising bubbles, and followed them. A few seconds later, his head broke the surface and he gasped for air. His right hand grabbed hold of something, a branch hanging just above the water, and he pulled himself along until he felt muddy ground beneath his feet. Panting, he waded to the shore.

Raimon lay there, half dragon creature, half human, and Eklund watched the haunting metamorphosis. The long claws had already reverted to human legs, but the rest - the arrow-shaped head, the broad leathery wings, the scaly body - was turning into a gray-brown, waxy mass that moved as if kneaded by invisible hands. It trembled and shook, forming dips and humps, taking on clear structures within seconds. The torso of a slender boy emerged. Arms joined it, then a head with closed eyes and a blank face. There was nothing left of the creature that had brought Eklund here from the tree hut deep inside the continental forest. A boy rested on the muddy bank, his feet in the slow-moving water, naked and exhausted. Maybe he was asleep, maybe he was unconscious.

Eklund carefully pulled him out onto dry land, and as he did so, the sharp pain in his back returned. Ignoring it, he looked around. On one side, the Acheron flowed lazily toward the distant Reef Sea, and on the other, the dense vegetation of the continental forest stretched out. This was a kind of no-man's-land, a narrow zone that belonged neither entirely to the river nor entirely to the forest, a transitional zone sometimes occupied by jungle fauna, sometimes flooded by the current.

Eklund did not notice the boat until he took a closer look. It was not made of wood but of light synthomass, covered with a camouflaging crust of dirt and mud. It was also half buried in the undergrowth, and to the casual observer it looked like a particularly thick branch or the remains of a tree trunk. Eklund stepped closer, saw the weathered stakes of a dock, and a narrow, half-overgrown path leading from the brush into the woods. No one seemed to have been out here in a long time.

Eklund wondered if this was a sign from the World Soul. Did the presence of the ownerless boat mean that they should continue on their way to Chiron and the citadel across the Acheron? The thought reminded him of Elizabeth, who claimed to have seen too much to believe in a god. Her atheistic worldview left no room for such things as providence and divinity, but even she had to admit that there were things that could not be easily explained.

Eklund frowned as something occurred to him. He reached into his pocket and pulled out the communication servo Elisabeth had given him. The small, cylindrical device was wet, but when he turned it on, a short beep indicated that it was still working properly.

Eklund lifted the cylinder to his mouth. "I wish to contact Elisabeth Demetrio," he said a little uncertainly, wondering when he had last used such a device. Twenty or thirty years ago?

"Unable to connect," sounded the synthetic voice of the communication servo.

Disappointed, Eklund put the small cylinder back in his pocket - perhaps the distance was too great. He stripped off his wet clothes and spread them out on the nearby rocks to dry. Then he set about pulling the boat out of the undergrowth and cleaning it.

Lutor looked at the symbols on the pseudo-realistic display of the data servo: a dragon, a golem, an elf, and a small, delicate, winged fairy. The AI scouts were still ready to search Kerberos' data networks for clues to the metamorph.

"All right," he said quietly, flipping a switch. "Get back out there and search." But he doubted he could expect any useful information any time soon. The metamorph and the old man of the Enlightened Community had been warned by the sekuritos mistake.

Lutor walked slowly through the large living room of the suite NHD Kerberos had provided for him at the Hotel Caravel. Beyond the large windows a new day had begun, but he paid no attention to the sunlight streaming in, which automatic optical filters kept within pre-programmed limits. Lutor thought about the conversation he had had with Edwald Emmerson, about the temporal anomaly he had experienced during the levitator flight. As important as that matter might be, he was focused on the metamorph. It was his job to find it and render it harmless. He saw no connection between the anomaly and a hypothetical attempt by the Temporals to return to the present from their time dungeon, so he pushed those thoughts aside and concentrated on the question of why he had encountered the metamorph several times as Kordun. What caused parts of the Alternate World to merge with reality?

An idea crept into the center of his consciousness.

Lutor stopped abruptly and stood motionless for a few seconds. Then he turned and walked into the Alternate World room of the suite. The AW data servo was still loaded with the programs and data from his private memory module, and the sensitive cable was ready for connection to the bio-servo in Lutor's neck. He took a seat in the chair and leaned back.

"Data servo."

"Ready."

"Modify program," Lutor said, instructing the biometric monitor, "maximum security. Add ability to interrupt program."

"Modifications being implemented," the data servo replied. "Interrupt sequence?"

"Verbal. Begin. 'End program immediately.' End. Note: This command not only ends the program but also disconnects the physical connections."

"Acknowledged."

Lutor tilted his head back, and contact was made between the bio-servo in his neck and the sensitive cable. "Last memory point acti..."

That's as far as Lutor got because the world was already changing. He got the impression of power, wonderful power, that resided in the body of the warrior Kordun. His right hand held a long sword, a two-handed sword, a flamberge. It was so easy for him to lift the weapon, to swing it skillfully.

But this was not the world in which he sought Echna. This was Kerberos, the city of Chiron, or the city of Chiron as it would one day be: old and dead, the once towering buildings now ruins. A light wind blew over them, its whisper like a voice from the past.

A black figure stood before Lutor/Kordun on the dusty street, smaller than he, his face hidden behind a silver mask. In this encounter, too, the stranger carried no weapon. He stood empty-handed.

"This time I am prepared," said Lutor. "You will not surprise me again. I know who you are."

"Who am I?" the stranger replied.

"You are the metamorph," Lutor said, stopping in front of the masked man as Kordun. "And I have come to hunt you down."

"You want to kill me?"

"Yes," Lutor said, putting all his determination into that one word.

"I have killed. I didn't want to, but I killed. The many voices inside me... they forced me to do it. I am we. We are I. I am a thousand. I am countless. And they shall all kill..."

Lutor struck. Using Kordun's magnificent agility, he moved the sword like an extension of his arm, slicing through the air right where the metamorph stood.

But he was no longer standing there...

Lutor threw himself to the side, rolled, and was back on his feet a half-second later, his two-handed sword at the ready. The masked man stood at the side of the road, but only Lutor's footprints were visible in the dust.

"Aren't you going to help me?" the man in black asked.

"With what?"

"To find her. I've looked everywhere for her, but I can't find her. Do you know where she is?"

"What are you talking about?" asked Lutor. The stranger across from him... He felt different from previous encounters. He seemed confused, seemed weaker... I can defeat him, Lutor thought, and this certainty gave him additional strength.

The figure before him raised an empty hand and removed the mask. The face underneath was not one, but hundreds, thousands. They alternated, merged, flowed apart again.

"Who am I?" the metamorph asked in a tortured voice.

Lutor/Kordun growled and charged.

Eklund looked down at the boy with concern. He was lying on a soft bed of twigs and leaves at the front of the boat, which was drifting slowly past the nearby shore, carried by the current of the Acheron. Raimon's deep, blackout-like sleep continued, but there seemed to be no rest for him in it, and he groaned repeatedly. Occasionally his arms and legs twitched, and his eyes were constantly moving under closed lids. Eklund sat further back in the boat, trying to steer it with a long stick.

"Sleep, Raimon, sleep," he said softly, ducking to avoid hitting a low branch that jutted far out over the water. "Rest. Gather new strength." He considered trying to contact the boy's self in Elysium, but that would have meant returning to shore, and he could see no suitable spot at the moment. The vegetation was dense everywhere, consisting of thorny bushes, thick shrubs, and trees with low branches. As Eklund searched for an open area, he noticed strange activity. Branches were moving where there was no wind. Open calyxes tipped back and forth as if searching for something. Cobalt flies rose to form dense, cloud-like swarms. The river began to churn, and hundreds of netters jumped up, grabbed at the cobalt flies in vain, and fell back. The boat suddenly rocked on waves caused by the violent movement of the water.

Eklund held on with both hands. "What's happening now? Raimon..."

He looked at the boy again and watched as a bleeding gash appeared on Raimon's left arm.

The man with many faces dodged, but not fast enough. Lutor's sword struck him in the arm, and blood gushed from the deep cut.

The metamorph looked down. "I don't want to kill," he said.

Lutor saw an opportunity and didn't hesitate. He struck again, swinging the long, heavy sword like a light rapier, but this time the blade struck empty air. His opponent had dodged again, making no apparent movement, and continued to stare at the cut on his arm. Finally, Lutor paused, trying not to overexert himself. Blood dripped from the metamorph's wound, but the drops did not stay on the ground, instead, they became thin red worms that crawled to the man's feet and disappeared under his clothes - if they were clothes at all. A fingertip touched the wound on his arm, which then closed.

Faces still changed, but not as quickly as before. The first features stabilized. "I don't want to kill," the metamorph said, and another voice added, "Kill!"

Lutor leaped forward, lunged again, and struck, but again his opponent was suddenly standing somewhere else, though he had not moved. He realized he was getting nowhere.

The wind picked up, hissing over the ruins and kicking up dust.

"I don't want to kill," the metamorph repeated, and again another voice sounded, softer than before, "Kill!

This is not the real world, Lutor reminded himself. I'm hooked up to an AW data servo. He brushed aside the question of how the metamorph could be part of an Alternate World whose program did not include it. It meant that there might be other options here.

"Practice mode," he said, jumping and raising the sword...

This time the metamorph froze, and something like surprise flashed across one of its many faces. It tilted its upper body to the side, avoiding the blow, and struck out with its fist, hitting the two-handed sword with such force that the weapon was ripped from Lutor's hand. Lutor reacted with the fighting skill of Kordun, lunging forward and slamming into the metamorph, knocking him to the ground.

Lutor found himself kneeling on top of his opponent. He raised his hand, fingers suddenly closed around the handle of a knife, and thrust, plunging the blade into the metamorph's heart.

The cut in the boy's arm had closed, but his limbs twitched more violently as the strange activity in the river and forest continued. The Acheron seemed to be boiling, and the trees along the banks swayed, though the wind did not blow nearly as hard. Whole swarms of glittering three-eyes rose, though these flying beetle-like creatures were nocturnal and usually never showed themselves during the day. Mudskippers emerged from their holes on the shore, rolling back and forth.

From the green depths of the continental forest came a concert of screeching and squealing. The whole world seemed to have gone mad.

Raimon groaned and blood gushed from a deep wound in his chest, right out of his heart.

Eklund simply dropped the long stick he had been using to steer, crawled forward across the violently rocking boat, and forgot everything else. Only the boy mattered. He touched him and reached for the power, as he had done so many times before...

...and found himself in the ochre wasteland. He saw the familiar white towers that seemed to be trying to bore into the dark sky and stop the drifting clouds. Raimon stood nearby, as naked as he was in the boat and this time he looked not at the distant platform with the still-empty bench, but at the hole in the sky created by the light of the towers. Eklund had the impression that it had become smaller and that fewer alien eyes were staring down at the world from there.

Raimon's face ... It had changed and no longer seemed so childlike.

"I don't want to kill," he said quietly. "I'm almost there. The voices don't hurt so much anymore, and soon they will become one voice, mine, just as all the faces will become my face. I must go to her. She has been waiting for me for so long. But he ... is holding me."

"Who is holding you, Raimon?"

"I don't want to kill, but..."

The boy lowered his head. Blood poured from a deep wound in his chest.

"By the World Soul!" it escaped Eklund. "Raimon, I can't help you, but you are a self-healer! Whatever is happening to you - remember the power in Elysium."

The boy's eyes were wet. "I don't want to kill. If I kill, the voices get louder, and then it hurts again."

"Whatever is threatening you, fight back!"

Lutor/Kordun twisted the knife in the wound and roared in the world of dust and decay, savoring his triumph.

The metamorph beneath him did not struggle, did not try to grab the knife and pull it out. Instead, he said calmly, "I do not want to kill, but if I must..."

And then he stood up, and Lutor flew several feet before falling heavily to the ground, the bloody knife still in his right hand. He immediately rose to his feet and threw the knife at his opponent, who easily dodged it. Lutor tried to reach for his sword, but before he could, the metamorph's fist caught him, sending him flying back into the dust on the street.

"Practice mode," he groaned, bracing himself again.

The man in black came at him, and nothing slowed him down. A lightning punch, far too fast for the still dazed Lutor to dodge. This time, the metamorph's fist caught him between the neck and left shoulder, and once again he was knocked off his feet. He slammed into the remains of a steel-ceramic wall with such force that he lost consciousness for a second or two. When he could see again, his opponent was standing in front of him, and this time he was no longer unarmed. The metamorph's right hand held a sword, not as large as the flamberge, but undoubtedly capable of inflicting serious injury and killing. The metamorph raised it, and...

Lutor made no attempt to get up. "End program immediately," he said.

The black figure with the slower changing face did not disappear, nor did its sword, whose silver blade seemed to glow. It came closer ...

"Program ... immediately ... end ..." Lutor said. Something stretched his voice and his words, drawing them both out. Worlds overlapped: here gray ruins and dust, there the Alternate World room in a hotel suite, a space that promised safety. But it was far away, a membrane of pseudo-reality separating him from it as the sword drew closer. Lutor jerked his eyes open, stared at the tip and watched as it touched his chest, boring into it as if in slow motion, accompanied by a dull pain that quickly grew hotter and burned into his flesh.

I don't want to kill, the metamorph's voice whispered from some strange world between here and there. But if I must...

Program...immediately...END! Lutor thought/cried out and opened his mouth to gasp and scream one last time...

Eklund blinked several times as he returned from Elysium to the world below. Raimon lay before him, the terrible wound in his chest no longer there. Smooth skin was visible where blood had flowed directly from his heart. His limbs no longer twitched. Quietly, the boy lay there, his face changed and looking older, motionless and as if dead. Eklund reached out and touched him, relieved to feel the warmth of life, and saw that Raimon was breathing.

The river was still bubbling and the boat bobbed on the waves, but the current had picked up and the right bank was several dozen feet away. Eklund searched in vain for the long stick; when he let go, it must have fallen overboard.

Farther ahead, and more toward the middle of the river, pointed rocks rose from the brown waters of the Acheron, a whole swath of them.

"The Needle Rocks," Eklund said quietly, realizing the danger they faced. Not far beyond the Needle Rocks, the waters of the Acheron plunged over a cliff nearly three hundred feet high - the Great Cataract, they called it. Looking further downstream, he thought he could see a cloud of mist hanging over the waterfall in the distance.

"Raimon?"

The boy did not move. Whatever he had been through, he was obviously exhausted. Even if he woke up, he probably would not have the strength to transform into the dragon-like creature and fly again.

Eklund reached into his pocket and pulled out the communication servo. It wasn't far from the Great Cataract to Chiron; maybe the range of the device would be enough now. When he switched on the servo, the beep again indicated that it was working properly after completing its auto-diagnostics.

"I want to connect to Elisabeth Demetrio," Eklund said.

Nothing happened for a few seconds, and he feared that his attempt to communicate would be unsuccessful again. But then a pseudo-real display formed above the cylinder, and Elisabeth's face appeared in it. She seemed to have been sleeping. Her hair was disheveled, and there were dark rings of exhaustion under her eyes.

"Is that really you, Eklund?"

"Yes, and I need your help," he said quickly. "I'll explain later. Is it possible to use the navigation servo on your levitator car to lock on to the signals from this communications servo?"

Elisabeth nodded slowly. "That should be possible. But what..."

"Please come and pick us up as quickly as possible."

"Is Raimon with you?"

"Yes. And we only have a few minutes left. Please, it's really urgent."

"I'm on my way."

Lutor's thoughts left a dark world of pain, and for a time he simply enjoyed the absence of agony. Then the realization dawned that he was still alive, and with it came wonder and profound relief.

He opened his eyes and saw the walls and ceiling of the Alternate World room of his suite in the Hotel Caravel. "Program...immediately...end," he said, as if echoing someone else's voice.

"Program ended," the AW data servo replied.

"Am I...injured?" asked Lutor, noticing that the sensitive cable was no longer connected to the bio-servo in his neck.

"Biometric monitoring has detected extreme mental stress. A period of rest is highly recommended."

"So I'm... not injured?" Lutor looked down at himself, and even these brief movements of his head made him tired.

"Confirmed. There is no physical injury."

What saved me? Lutor thought, but the question quickly faded as sleepiness spread through him. He gave in to it and fell asleep.

KiTamarani

DREAMS

Reduction...

Back to the essence, to the core, to the starting point. Reflection on what ultimately had meaning. And from that essence, new growth, a new shell for the I/We, for the primary and secondary self, a shell that absorbed all that had gone before, all the memories and experiences.

Normally this would have been the case.

But in this instance, the I/We was missing the collective existence of the Council. KiTamarani's primary self had been wounded, torn and tattered, and was not able to pass on all the memories to the secondary self and into the reduction. There was also the proximity of the Omnivore seed, numb and apathetic, but present.

KiTamarani slept, and her renewal remained fragmentary. Millions of years passed, and as the world changed, as sediments formed and enclosed both the capsule and the seed, the sleep continued. It lasted longer than any previous renewal sleep, and it remained incomplete. The secondary self in the coma of reduction knew this, and the rudiments of the I/We also understood that the danger was far from over. KiTamarani blocked the seed and the seed blocked her. Both dreamed, and the dreams became weapons.

In her dreams, KiTamarani expanded, beyond the confines of the capsule, keeping company with the life that was evolving all over the planet. She heard the creation melody of the cosmic strings created by the Prelates, she vaguely remembered and allowed their harmonies to stimulate her into a vibration that affected the life around her. It was not a plan in that sense, but rather an instinctive reaction, a primal program in her incomplete I/We. KiTamarani needed something to tip the balance between the seed and her capsule in her favor so that she could awaken first and neutralize the danger once and for all.

And so she made life on the planet her life. In the dreams that touched the subtle fabric of reality, she sang the song of creation, changing without affecting the essence of planetary life. She created a special kind of symbiosis, helping and being helped. KiTamarani discovered that when the capsule fell, parts of it had come loose, and she was able to connect with them, transforming them into seconds, into waiting components of the I/We.

Many organisms on the planet received the melody of creation, and a slow global structural change occurred among them. Evolution, influenced by the dreams of the counselor, gave birth to special entero- and exteroreceptors, equipped with a high degree of flexibility. A large part of life strove toward one goal: communication.

As KiTamarani dreamed and changed, palingenesis began in her capsule. The reduction also affected the basic systems and higher layers of the cognitive domains, along with all their many individual areas of function. Solar energy was not available to renew KiTamarani's capsule, but geothermal energy was, and as millions of years passed, this process progressed faster than the restoration of the I/We.

Eventually, the renewal of the shell had progressed to the point where...

Agent: Condition...improved. Gathering energy.

Epochs passed.

Agent: Condition...stabilizing. Integrity...nearly restored. Collectors continue to absorb power.

Time dripped and trickled.

Agent: Danger. Seed is nearby and beginning to awaken.

Time streaming.

Agent: Response required.

But KiTamarani continued to sleep, waiting for someone to wake her.

Games

17 APRIL 421 SN, 09:00

Kerberos

When Stokkart awoke and opened his eyes, he saw a strange twilight, a dull glow coming from no particular direction, like light scattered in mist. And this haze, which seemed to fill the small room, dissipated within two or three seconds, disappearing like the memory of a dream.

The autocrat blinked, wondering if he had really seen it.

He stood up and looked at the "bed" he had slept in: a cot that seemed to have grown out of the gray-white wall, about three feet wide and soft. Stokkart's eyes glanced around the room. A chair, a table, several shelves against the far wall, and irregularly shaped objects inside. No window, nothing that offered a view outside.

A door, surprisingly narrow, like all the doors in the ... cone. If this was still the cone Stokkart had seen on the scorching rock island. No bathroom. No toilet. No place to prepare or eat food.

To his amazement, he was neither hungry nor thirsty. Not only that, but he had no bowel or bladder needs. He felt none of the bodily needs that demanded attention at more or less regular intervals. How long had he slept? It had to be several hours, which meant that some bladder pressure would have been normal.

For a terrible second, he wasn't even sure if he was still breathing. Very deliberately, he took a deep breath and let it escape. It could be an illusion. Maybe I only think I'm breathing...

Panic gripped Stokkart as he considered the possibility of being dead.

"I'm alive," he said aloud as if to convince himself. "I'm alive."

Voices whispered, seeming to contradict him, voices that came from no particular direction and remained silent. Stokkart walked to the door, opened it, and stepped into a hallway that, for a split second, had the same strange twilight glow he had seen immediately upon waking. Nine feet separated him from a spiral staircase he didn't remember.

The whispering seemed to get a little louder, and this time Stokkart thought he could hear where it was coming from: below.

He turned to the stairs and went down, slowly putting one step after the other behind him, stopping from time to time to listen. Yes, the whispering was getting louder, but he still couldn't make out any words.

One floor below was a window, and Stokkart looked out. He did not see the island with the silvery sea, but a huge semi-dark cave with giant thorns growing out of the darkness from the top, the bottom and the sides. From the tops of these thorns, very delicate-looking webs sprouted, joining here and there to form complex tangles. Sometimes they flickered: a short flash that continued here and there, darting over the webs and disappearing into the thorns.

Stokkart continued down, pausing briefly at a second window. It showed him the barren island he remembered and a sea that seemed to be made of mercury.

"Help!" it whispered somewhere. "Help!" It was the first intelligible word.

Stokkart walked faster, reaching the end of the stairs and a circular room from which several corridors branched off. Some led absurdly steeply upwards, others almost vertically to a depth that must be far below the island - or rather deep down in the cave. A section of wall between two tunnel entrances...

Beneath a layer of solid rock that had become transparent, a face stood out: spongy, as if bloated, the left half rigid, the right full of horror.

"Professor Ulgar..." Stokkart said.

"I escaped," he whispered from the wall. "For how long, I don't know. The others are trying to stop him. They're here too, the others. Hopkins, Frilor, all of them." The face swelled, and the professor's hands became visible, pressing against the transparent wall that separated Ulgar from the autocrat. "Please, get us out of here. I beg you! Help us!" With a jerk, Ulgar turned his head to the side, his eyes widening. "No, please, don't punish me, no, I..."

Something hit the professor, something that had no shape or substance to Stokkart, but made the professor scream. Ulgar's face disappeared, and from his left came a shadow, like a vague shadow under a cloudy sky. A silhouette paused, small, bent forward, its back hunched.

A new face appeared, wrinkled, with a long, pointed nose and surprisingly large green-brown eyes. "Would you like to play?" asked Olkin, and the last three words sounded normal, for the small humanoid had stepped out of the wall and was standing directly in front of Stokkart.

Stokkart ran, motivated only by the desire to put as much distance as possible between himself, Olkin, and the horrible image of the professor in the wall.

He hurried through an impossibly long corridor, accompanied by the sound of his footsteps and his panting, which grew louder and louder. He ran up and down stairs, lost his balance in steep tunnels, fell and slid, sometimes dozens of feet. He felt like he was covering miles in a cone-shaped structure that was only one hundred and sixty feet wide at the base and tapered toward the top. It seemed to resemble the interior of the sacred pagodas built by the Kantaki on many worlds, which were said to contain more space inside than the exterior dimensions indicated. In a distant corner of his mind, the autocrat wondered if there was a connection between the cone inside the artifact and the Kantaki.

At some point he stopped, exhausted, gasping for breath, convinced of the futility of escaping like this. He had to think, assess and understand his situation, look for a way out....

Silence surrounded him. Neither the whispers in the walls nor the nasal voice of the dwarfish humanoid reached him here.

At the end of the long corridor he was standing in was a door, narrow like all the others in the cone, and black as night. Stokkart suddenly knew that behind this door he would find answers to his questions, and so he began to move again, walking with purposeful, hopeful steps. When he reached the door, which had no markings and was completely smooth, he reached for the knob, turned it...

The door remained closed, just like the one he had tried to open when he arrived at the cone. Stokkart remembered Olkin's words on that occasion. The doors cannot be opened until all the players are here.

Stokkart turned away from the black door - and looked into a hallway that seemed to stretch endlessly before him, many miles wide, and to the left and right the walls had neither doors nor windows.

And then the light faded from the hallway. It seeped away, like liquid through a drain, and darkness crept in, swallowing up contours and details, turning everything into a uniform blackness. Stokkart stood motionless, not knowing how much time had passed when he heard a soft rustling behind him. Instinctively he turned around...

A diffuse glow came from the walls to the left and right of the black door and was reflected in Olkin's green-brown eyes. "It's that time again," the scrawny, half-naked humanoid said. "We must play the game."

He stepped past Stokkart, and where an endless corridor had stretched before the darkness, there was now a door that opened all by itself for Olkin, leading into the circular game room.

This time the Autocrat did not even try to resist. He followed Olkin into the room, took a seat across from him at the round table, and looked at the complex display above him. The many objects contained and intertwined within it - some of them alive - seemed to have changed since Stokkart had last seen them. He sensed a different texture, and this impression intensified as he followed Olkin's example and raised his hand to touch the energetic membrane surrounding the display.

My God, I'm becoming a part of whatever this is, he thought in horror. The longer I stay here and submit to Olkin's wishes, the more I will be absorbed into it. What will happen to me in the end? Complete absorption?

Olkin gave him a sharp look. "The player must not be distracted," he said, and it sounded like a warning.

Stokkart touched the membrane and again felt something alien expand in the midst of his thoughts and push them away...

Orbital station MeteoTech-1

17 APRIL 421 SN, 09:00

Orbit of Kerberos

Since the incident with the anomaly, Anton Filip could not rest. For hours he walked around the orbital station MeteoTech-14, checking gauges and recyclers, sensors and scanners, all the data servers and processing cores that received and processed data. He checked the piping systems and the reactor that powered the station, looked at the maintenance and repair logs. Nowhere could he find a malfunction; all systems were working properly. Near the small hangar with the escape pods, he finally stopped at a small window and realized that he was trying to escape himself - or rather, his fear. Looking outside, he felt this realization confirmed as he suddenly feared seeing a Kantaki ship, its transport bubble disintegrating, the passenger pods and habitat modules bursting...

Kerberos rotated beneath the orbital station, quietly, with a certain languid elegance. Filip sighed heavily. MeteoTech-14 was not only his workplace, it was his world, a manageable, always perfectly controllable little world. But the events surrounding the anomaly proved that the chaos of the rest of the universe could reach him even here, in this place that served as his refuge.

Anton Filip, chief meteorologist of the orbital station, closed his eyes for a moment, and when he opened them again, something had changed. Kerberos was still spinning beneath MeteoTech-14 - the light of the Sun Hades glittering on the Emerald Sea - and it took him a few seconds to realize what had changed.

The stars were gone.

There was a buzz, and a voice came from one of the communications servers built into the ceiling. "Anton?"

"Yes, Boris?"

"You'd better come down to the control center and take a look at this."

"I'm on my way." Filip hurried through the empty corridors of the station, accompanied by the sound of his hurried footsteps. A few minutes later he entered the control center. Only one of the four horseshoe-shaped control consoles was manned. "Where are Helen and Girdo?"

"Still in their cabin." The young, lanky Boris stretched out an arm as if tired and gestured to the large viewing window.

"The stars are gone." Filip sat down at his station. "Eurelia?"

"How may I be of service?" sounded the synthesized voice of the central data servo.

"What's going on?" asked Anton Filip. "Why have the stars disappeared?"

"The Hades system is isolated," Boris preempted the data servo. He fiddled with the controls on his console. "All interstellar Translinks are down."

"Boris is correct," Eurelia confirmed. "The data transmitted by the probes and stations on the periphery of the solar system indicate that the rest of the universe no longer exists."

"That's absurd!" snapped Filip.

"Earlier, a Kantaki ship was destroyed in the area of the Kuiper belt," Boris said, looking at the displays.

"What is going on here?" asked Filip, stunned.

"There's not enough information yet to give a definitive answer." Boris didn't sound worried, more interested. Whatever was happening seemed to fascinate him. "I also find it absurd that the rest of the universe would suddenly cease to exist. Some kind of barrier separates us from it, and it seems to be shrinking. The eighth planet just disappeared."

Filip stared at the panorama window.

"We have to keep in mind that we are not experiencing the changes in real-time," Boris continued. "The speed of light limits our field of observation. I'm trying to find out more using the remaining interplanetary Translinks." His pale fingers darted over the controls.

Filip had a terrible suspicion. He didn't want to disturb Boris, so he asked, "Eurelia, is there a connection to the anomaly? Are the Temporals returning? Have they isolated the Hades system?"

"I'm sorry, but I can't answer those questions."

"Someone has arrived," Boris said. He touched a control, and the veil of a pseudo-real display settled in front of the panoramic window. Dozens of flashing dots appeared, so many that Filip lost count after a few seconds. They formed a wedge-shaped formation, the apex of which pointed to Kerberos. "Ninety Tiger-class ships, one hundred and fifty Panther-class ships, and three hundred and fifty Wolf-class ships."

Anton Filip suddenly remembered that there was a war going on out there between the Consortium and the Alliance, a war that should have been decided in favor of the Alliance by now. "What about the automatic ID signals of the ships?"

"They don't have any," Boris said.

"An attack?"

"Something cuts off an entire solar system - this one - from the rest of the universe, and then a fairly large fleet of interplanetary battleships shows up. Not to mention the Kantaki ship that was destroyed in the Kuiper Belt region. It doesn't indicate peaceful intentions, in my opinion."

"Eurelia?"

"How may I be of service?"

"Notify the ground stations on Kerberos. Send all data received so far. It seems an invasion is imminent."

"Yes, Anton."

The pseudo-real display disappeared from the panoramic window, and Filip looked out into space, which seemed darker than ever without stars. An hour later he saw the first ships. They glided in like shadows, then surprisingly quickly took on contours and substance as they swung into orbit around the planet. Some of them passed very close to MeteoTech-14, so close that he could see windows in their hulls and the light behind them.

The vague fear in Anton Filip was gone. It was replaced by grief and sadness, for he knew that his quiet, peaceful little world was shattering at that moment.

From the Depths

17 APRIL 421 SN, 09:05

Kerberos

Voices accompanied his return from the oblivion of unconsciousness.

"So, how is he?" a woman asked. "You just checked on him, didn't you?"

"Yes. He's still sleeping." A man's voice.

"Is he sleeping or unconscious?"

"I don't know. I'm not a doctor."

There was silence for a while. Edwald Emmerson listened, trying to get his bearings. He could see that he was in a small room - a cabin, rhythmic rocking and an occasional splash indicated - plainly furnished, with walls of synthomass. A simple boat, perhaps not even equipped with a levitator. I'm alive, he thought in amazement, remembering the events under the sea, Raphael's suicide, and the terrible, overwhelming darkness.

"We did the right thing, you know," came the woman's voice from above.

"No, I don't. We have no idea who he is. He could be a surveillance diver hired by the autocrat."

"No one can prove that we were looking for opals. We didn't find any today anyway." A short pause, then, "I don't know what's wrong with me today. The headaches are getting worse..."

The headache, Emmerson thought and sat up. He couldn't feel anything, but maybe the woman was more sensitive than he was, like Raphael.

"We should have left him in the damn submarine," the man grumbled. "Who knows what kind of trouble we've gotten ourselves into now."

"We couldn't just leave him to the sea, Korran!"

"If he turns out to be a surveillance diver for the autocrat, and he suspects that we've been diving for opals out here, we're as good as finished."

Emmerson stood up, relieved to find that his dreaded weakness was absent. In fact, he felt surprisingly good, considering the recent events. Sleep - or unconsciousness, as the case may be - seemed to have restored some of his strength, for he did not feel quite as tired as he had the previous night.

He opened the cabin door, climbed the stairs, and stepped out onto the deck. "Don't worry," he said. "I'm not a surveillance diver."

A man and a woman turned to him, startled. They were standing midships at the controls of the boat, confirming the impression he had gotten down below. It was a cheap model, equipped with only the bare necessities, no levitator.

The man, Korran, was middle-aged and stocky, with tousled black hair and a full dark beard. Emmerson guessed the woman to be in her early thirties, and under other circumstances, her striking beauty would have intrigued him.

"I take it you pulled me out of the submersible." Emmerson squinted in the light of the sun high in the sky. "Several hours ago, it seems."

"You heard everything, huh?" muttered Korran.

"Don't worry," Emmerson repeated, stepping closer and holding out his hand. "I am not a surveillance diver for the autocrat, but the Planetary Director of NHD Kerberos, Edwald Emmerson. Thank you for rescuing me."

Korran hesitated for a moment, then took the offered hand and shook it. "This is my wife, Sandrina."

Emmerson extended his hand to her as well.

"There you go," Sandrina turned to her husband. "We did the right thing."

"You're lucky we found your vessel. It was in pretty bad shape."

"Where is it?"

"We're towing it." Korran gestured to the stern with his thumb.

Emmerson walked aft across the swaying deck. The forward section of the sub looked normal, but the aft section looked like it had been in acid for several weeks. There was nothing left of the paint, and the steel ceramics looked corroded.

"Strange," Korran said, stepping to his side. "It's as if the front of a new submarine had been joined to the rear section of an antique one."

The temporal anomaly, Emmerson thought. He was not familiar with such things, but he realized that he had been extremely lucky. The effect of the anomaly seemed to have grazed the rear of the submersible, causing the affected area to age by decades or centuries. He remembered touching the sub's controls just before he lost consciousness, releasing him from the excruciating pain. The data servo must have concluded that there was an emergency and started the appropriate program to bring the sub back to the surface.

He lifted his eyes and gazed at the distant coastline, a thin line on the horizon.

"Your boat is not equipped with a levitator, is it?"

"No," Korran replied.

Emmerson searched his pockets in vain. Apparently, he had lost his communication servo.

"Do you have a communications servo on board?" he asked.

"Yes, of course." The stocky man gestured to the console in the center of the boat. Sandrina stood there, clutching it with one hand and pressing the other to her head.

"If I could use it... I need to talk to my security chief right away."

Korran nodded. "Of course."

Once again, Edwald Emmerson hurried across the swaying deck, stumbling far more awkwardly than Korran, who followed him effortlessly. "I would advise you to leave this place as soon as possible," Emmerson said. "I have been down to the ocean floor in the submersible. There is a temporal anomaly down there."

"A temporal anomaly?"

Emmerson didn't waste time explaining. "A phenomenon that could be extremely dangerous. I escaped it by the skin of my teeth." He pointed at Sandrina. "I'm afraid your wife's headaches are related to the anomaly. Return to Chiron."

Emmerson took the cylindrical communication servo and walked to the bow of the ship. An engine fired up behind him and the voices of Korran and Sandrina were lost in the hum. He activated the controls of the servo, and a pseudo-realistic display formed, showing the sleepy face of Elroy Tobias.

"Chief!" he snapped. "I've been trying to reach you for hours. I..."

Emmerson didn't let him finish. "Listen carefully, Elroy. Get a fix on these communication signals and have someone pick me up. I've been down to the autocrat's station at the bottom of the ocean, and I'm lucky to still be alive. Something monstrous is down there, and I'm afraid it's spreading."

"Something monstrous is happening in the Hades system as well," replied Elroy Tobias. "The interstellar trans connections are gone. And the stars have disappeared too."

"Excuse me?"

"Something has isolated this solar system from the rest of the universe. I'm on my way to you, Chief."

Emmerson lowered the communication servo thoughtfully and looked up at the sky that stretched blue and pristine above him. Was there a connection? The darkness coming from the shaft below the autocrat's station, the "disappearance" of the stars...

He lowered his gaze again and found that the bow of the boat was pointing toward the distant shore. Waves pounded against the hull with a regularity that might have been reassuring under other circumstances.

Emmerson returned to the helm and slid the communications servo into its designated bracket.

"A temporal anomaly?" Sandrina turned to him. "What does that mean?"

"It means this place is very, very dangerous." Emmerson had no desire to talk, stepped aside, held on to the railing and looked out over the sea. Everything seemed so calm and peaceful, but deep down, off the continental shelf, something was lurking that posed an enormous danger, something that made the metamorph's importance pale in comparison. Confirming the sabotage of Project Double-M had simply been a distraction by the autocrat - he'd found something far more significant.

Emmerson wondered what had become of Stokkart and the scientists. Had the darkness consumed and killed them, perhaps in a similar way to Raphael? But where were their bodies?

A few minutes later he heard a familiar humming sound and turned around. A levitator car with the NHD emblem was approaching the boat - stopping a few feet above it. The passenger door opened and Elroy Tobias, who was at the controls, dropped a levitator belt down onto the deck. Emmerson caught it and put it on.

"Thanks again!" he called to Korran and Sandrina.

"What are you going to do with the submersible?" asked Korran.

Emmerson thought for a moment. "I'll leave it in your hands. I don't think its original owner has any use for it now." He switched on the belt, put it on, and a few seconds later was sitting next to Tobias in the levitator car, speeding away from the boat, leaving the two opal divers behind.

"What's happened?" asked Emmerson.

"Events are picking up speed," Elroy replied to Tobias, flipping switches. The levitator car gained altitude and accelerated. "A fleet of nearly six hundred Tiger, Panther, and Wolf class ships are approaching Kerberos. Apparently, this fleet destroyed a Kantaki ship near the Kuiper Belt."

"A Kantaki ship?" repeated Emmerson, stunned.

"Yes. A short time later, the Hades system was isolated - the stars have disappeared."

Emmerson voiced the first thought that occurred to him. "A move by the Kantaki?"

"Maybe. Maybe not. As far as I know, nothing like this ever happened during the Time War."

"There may be a connection with the temporal anomaly in the ocean floor," Emmerson speculated. Briefly, he reported his observations and experiences. "The autocrat found two so-called artifacts, and there is a ... negative force emanating from one of them. If it spreads, everyone on Kerberos could be in danger." He suddenly remembered the strange hallucinations of the night before, just before the city was thrown into chaos by the failure of the levitators and other systems. Were they caused by a period of activity in the anomaly and this dark energy? Was it perhaps a preview of what was to come?

"The fleet..." he said quietly.

"The ships are not sending ID signals. But I think we can assume it's an Alliance fleet."

"Nearly six hundred ships? To take over the Hades system, which has absolutely no strategic importance? And if it really is an Alliance fleet, and if they destroyed the Kantaki ship..."

Elroy Tobias exchanged a brief look with Emmerson. "The Sacred Code."

"Yes," Emmerson confirmed. "It could lead to the Kantaki isolating the Alliance worlds."

"A catastrophe for hundreds of planets."

"Virtually the end of the Alliance."

A shadow fell over the levitator car that had just passed the autocrat's artificial island. Emmerson lifted his eyes to the sky and saw the nearly three-hundred-foot oval of a Tiger-class battleship, accompanied by five delta-shaped, two-hundred-foot Panther-class fighters. Higher in the sky, other ships appeared, little more than dots in the blue.

"We'll know soon enough who came with such a large fleet," Emmerson said. "But whoever it is, maybe we can put all these battleships to good use when that thing on the ocean floor fully awakens." He pointed ahead. "To the spaceport, Elroy."

The Chiron Spaceport stretched across a large man-made island west of the Acheron Delta. Edwald Emmerson looked in vain for the black hulks of Kantaki ships as they approached the island. Instead, he saw several onion-shaped Horgh Jumpers - he wondered if they were also stuck in the Hades system due to the isolation, or if their Jumpers could pass through whatever was separating this solar system from the rest of the universe. Interplanetary battleships had landed here and there: several Tiger-class units, numerous Panther fighters, and several battle shuttles as well. Levitator platforms with mounted Hefok cannons moved among them. Soldiers moved into position, others advanced.

Elroy Tobias trained the visual scanners on one of them and activated the zoom, whereupon the distant figure filled the entire pseudo-real projection. A tall man, about thirty years old, who looked human but was not, at least not a normal human. Emmerson saw the gray skin of a genetically engineered hominid, the black eyes a combination of organic matter and micro-servos that provided visual perception far beyond the norm of the average human. The soldier wore a light battledress, gray like his skin, and no insignia were visible.

"These are not normal humans," Emmerson said. "Do you know of any project to breed fighters, Elroy?"

"I was just a lowly member of the NHD's security department until recently, Chief. I certainly wouldn't have been told about it. And the NHD is not limited to Kerberos."

A battle shuttle appeared right next to the levitator car, pointing its weapons at them. The pilot in the transparent cockpit pointed downward, and Tobias nodded, pointed to the nearby spaceport, and engaged the communications servo. "We are unarmed and will be landing in front of the terminal. Aboard this vehicle is the Planetary Director of NHD Kerberos."

"Acknowledged," an emotionless voice replied. "Land."

A short time later, the car landed directly in front of the central terminal, and the hum of the levitator stopped. The two men got out, and a strange silence greeted them. Emmerson had expected excitement, shouts and angry voices, the hum and hiss of the engines. This silence seemed even more unsettling. He remembered the station on the ocean floor, the facilities below. It had been quiet there, too, at first, and then...

Even on normal days, there was little traffic at the Chiron spaceport, and there had been no interstellar communications for hours. By comparison, very few travelers had been in the halls and rooms, and upon hearing the news of an approaching invasion fleet, most had hurried back to the city. Only a handful of men, women, and children sat in the park-like waiting areas, half-hidden among the towering vegetation. In the background, Emmerson noticed two three-legged Horgh, and he even heard their chirping voices, though they were more than fifty feet away. He did not have a linguator with him, so he could not understand the words, but he guessed that the Horgh were trying to get outside to their ship. Several soldiers stopped them.

A tall, powerful man with dark, curly hair approached with long strides.

"Grand Commissioner ..."

"Planetary Director ..." Petrokos replied with a wry smile. "We seem to be meeting under rather unfortunate circumstances lately."

Two of the gray soldiers had followed Petrokos, and he turned to them. "This is the Planetary Director of NHD Kerberos, Edwald Emmerson, and..."

"And my Head of Security, Elroy Tobias," Emmerson said. "I would like to speak to the commander of the fleet."

"I have tried again to reach the autocrat," Petrokos said. "To no avail. And Raphael seems to have disappeared as well."

"Forever," Emmerson muttered. Noticing the Grand Commissioner's questioning look, he added, "I'll explain later. When I get a chance."

One of the two soldiers had a brief conversation on his communications servo. "Please come with us," he said.

About a minute later, they entered a conference room.

"I have to protest again," someone said just then amidst the crowd of people in front of the large table in the room. "You can't just come in here and..."

A soldier approached the newcomers.

"I really need to talk to the commander of the fleet that just arrived," Emmerson preempted the question.

"You are..."

"Edwald Emmerson, Planetary Director of NDH Kerberos. I have discovered something that poses a great danger, not only to Kerberos and the Hades system, but perhaps to much of the galaxy."

The soldier turned and left.

Petrokos shot a curious glance at Emmerson. "Aren't you laying it on a little thick?"

Emmerson looked at him seriously. "I'm not exaggerating, Grand Commissioner. I've been to a station built by the autocrat on the ocean floor off the continental shelf. I saw two so-called artifacts there. One of them killed the adlats in the station and drove Raphael mad - he committed suicide by running and smashing his head into a wall. Maybe we can put the firepower of all these ships to good use.

The soldier returned. "Please come," he said, raising his voice. "Everyone else, leave the room." The uniformed men, more than twenty of them, began ushering the rest of the people out of the room, including Petrokos, Elroy Tobias, and a few representatives of the Kerberos Urban Symposium. Most of them left the conference room in silence, some muttering angrily.

The soldiers remained, taking up positions on either side of the room. Three men sat at the head of the table, and Emmerson recognized one of them immediately: Lukert Turannen, Global Director of NHD and Coordinator of the Consortium. The man next to him seemed vaguely familiar, but he couldn't put a name to him. He could not identify the third man at all. He wore civilian clothes, seemed perfectly average, and somehow seemed to... disappear, fading into the background when not focused on.

"Emmerson?" exclaimed Turannen in amazement. "Where is Ruben's Lorgard?"

"Lorgard is dead," said Emmerson. He didn't know how much he was allowed to say in the presence of the soldiers and the man at Turannen's side, so he only added, "Before he died, he appointed me director and resumed his work as chief creator."

Turannen seemed to sense something. "How did he die?"

"I don't think that matters here," the second man said, indicating who was in charge. "You've discovered something that supposedly poses a great danger?"

"Who are you?" asked Emmerson.

"Oh, I apologize for not introducing myself," the man said coolly. "I am Rungard Avar Valdorian."

"What?"

Emmerson studied the man: fortyish, few wrinkles on his face, his ash-blond hair thick, a vital gleam in his large gray eyes. Valdorian he had last seen in pseudo-realistic images had been more than a hundred years older.

"It really is him," Turannen finally said, as Emmerson's bewildered smile continued. "The Primus inter Pares of the Consortium."

Those words, too, offered a clue to the balance of power.

"The war," Emmerson said softly. "And the war against the Alliance? That fleet..."

"That's not important right now either," Valdorian said with the same coolness as before. "I want to hear more from you about the threat."

Emmerson met Valdorian's gaze and noticed something in his eyes that startled him. They showed a similar grayness to Lutor's eyes, and a similar self-confidence: a conviction that he was better than everyone else. But there was something else there, a distant glow, like a fire that could burn anything. And Emmerson noticed something strange: sometimes the gray eyes would cloud over for a split second as if their gaze slipped briefly into another world that remained hidden from him.

He told of the station at the bottom of the sea and the facilities below, of the dead adlats, the two artifacts and Raphael's death, of the darkness in the shaft, the terrible pain and the return to the surface of the sea. All the while, Valdorian listened quietly, never once taking his eyes off him, which to Emmerson began to look more and more like special dissecting instruments.

"There are two artifacts down there?" asked Valdorian finally.

Again, the observant Emmerson noticed the brief haze in his eyes, probably imperceptible to anyone else. In addition, Valdorian seemed to tilt his head to the side, as if listening to a voice.

"Were you expecting only one?" asked Emmerson. "And how do you know about it?"

A look of anguish flashed across Lukert Turannen's face, which immediately returned to an expressionless mask. The soldiers stood on either side of the table, motionless as statues, their gray faces blank. The third, nondescript man sighed softly. And Valdorian...

He rose slowly, approaching with soft steps and smiling in a way that made Emmerson cringe inwardly.

"What I know or don't know is entirely up to me, Director," he said. "But I am very interested in what you know."

It took all of Emmerson's strength not to flinch when Valdorian stopped right in front of him. Something about this man touched a raw nerve inside him, waiting to cause pain. Compared to Valdorian, Lutor was nothing, a harmless, completely insignificant nobody.

He took a deep breath. "Last night, emissions were measured from a temporal anomaly. They emanated from the location of the two artifacts that the autocrat of Kerberos apparently discovered many months ago. There must be a connection between the anomaly and what I sensed down there. Perhaps this is an attempt by the Temporals to return to our time. If that's true, we must act now. We may be facing a threat that affects not only this planet but many other worlds. In that case, your ships would be very useful."

"You think a return of the Temporals is possible?" asked Valdorian, his voice as cold as glacial ice. For two or three seconds, his gaze pierced Emmerson, then he turned abruptly and began pacing the conference room.

"Primus..." the unassuming man at the table began.

"It's okay, Jonathan." Valdorian walked along the row of soldiers. "Tell me about the other artifact."

"There wasn't much of it. It was a golden-domed surface sticking out of the sedimentary rock below the station on the ocean floor."

"Did you notice anything about it?"

Emmerson didn't take his eyes off Valdorian, and again he noticed the brief haze in his eyes.

"I touched the surface and it felt warm."

Immediately, Valdorian turned his gaze to him. "Warm? And did you feel anything else similar to the other emanations that caused horror and drove this ... Raphael to suicide?"

"No."

For some reason, that answer seemed to relieve Valdorian. After a moment's hesitation, he resumed his pacing, looking very pensive.

"What isolated the Hades system from the rest of the universe?" asked Emmerson as the silence continued. "Did you cause it?"

Valdorian approached him again. "You are very curious," he said. "And since you are so curious, I will give you the opportunity to get the answers to some of your questions." He turned his head. "Coordinator Turannen, you and Jonathan take care of everything here. Secure Kerberos and the rest of the solar system inside the bubble. I don't want any surprises. Part of the fleet will remain on high alert."

Valdorian turned back to Emmerson, "You and I are going on a little trip."

Kerberos' new NHD director understood immediately. "You're going to the station at the bottom of the ocean," he said, not quite able to keep the horror out of his voice.

Again Valdorian smiled that horrible smile and put an arm around Edwald Emmerson's shoulders. "You are a bright one. I'm sure we'll get along just fine."

Father Brrin

AN END

Munghar, Urirr System

Father Brrin would have liked to have chosen a different time to die, but he realized that he could no longer delay the end of his physical existence. The little sweepers on top of him sensed this as well, paused briefly for a last pat, and scrambled away. Tired, the old Kantaki raised his head, peered through a haze in front of his multiple eyes across the great cavern, and found that the remaining Timekeepers, most of them young, were all sitting on the humps at the end of the black spikes that protruded from the cavern walls, facing the channel that glowed in the center. And there was more. Hundreds of other Kantaki had gathered on ledges and in the openings of large tunnels. Father Brrin understood the reason immediately: they wanted to be with him as he began his final journey, to accompany him with their emanations. He bowed his head, aware of the great honor that was being bestowed upon him.

And then came an unexpected pain, so intense that it burned a part of Father Brrin's self, almost condemning him to nothingness, without the possibility of uniting in trans-space with the spirit that had once become matter, to learn and gather knowledge. It was a familiar pain, familiar at least in its quality, but not in this enormous intensity beyond any previous experience.

The Temporals cried out from their dungeon in the past, not with a voice, not with the careful whisper of a suggestor. It was the cry of all the corrupted, and it was for the awakening seed of the Abissale on the planet the humans called Kerberos.

The haze before Father Brrin's eyes thickened. Clicking voices wafted through the cave, voices of excitement, concern, even horror.

"He awakens! The dark one is awakening!"

"The Temporals are preparing to leave the Void!"

"We must warn the Feyn."

A Kantaki ship has been destroyed!

That voice came not from Munghar, but from Kantaki ships near and far. It was a collective voice, concentrated and directed by Father Arhr, who flew his ship through trans-space, accompanied by two other ships. The fifth no longer existed, nor did its owner, Mother Yurrl - she had died without being able to unite with the spirit. A senseless death, the worst fate for a Kantaki.

The Abissale seed has become active and has separated the solar system that humans call Hades. Mother Krsah has stayed behind to monitor things for us.

The pain subsided and Father Brrin was able to restructure and reorganize his wounded self. Turning his attention back outward, he noticed two significant changes. First, the channel in the center of the cave, the pillar of hyperdimensional energy, was glowing brighter than usual - he could see that even through the haze; and the cone at the top, the link to trans-space, had grown larger. Second, Father Xsi, who like Mother Krsah was one of the Big Five, had drilled his forelimbs into the mushroom on which Father Brrin sat, and to which he was fused. This stimulated the mushroom and caused it to secrete a special substance that relieved him of physical pain.

"No pain will accompany you on your last step," Father Xsi clicked.

"That I should die now, at a time of crisis..."

"Each of us must answer the call when it sounds and when we hear it. Are you ready, Father Brrin?"

Once again, Father Brrin looked around the cave where he had spent so many cycles. Through the haze before his eyes, he could no longer see details, but he could sense the emanations of the many other Kantaki, marked by respect, gratitude, reverence, and love. No one could ask for a better farewell.

"Thank you, Father Xsi," Father Brrin clicked, "thank you all."

Then the old Time Keeper closed his multiple eyes forever, and his self severed its connection to the physical, floating toward the channel, accompanied by the singing of the Kantaki. The pillar picked up Father Brrin's self, carried it to the cone, and from there....

Munghar slipped away beneath him, and the comforting darkness of trans-space welcomed him. Weakness fell from Father Brrin, and calm spread through him as he flew toward the shadows that glided through this sphere between dimensions. He heard whispers, like a greeting welcoming him, the whispers and murmurs of the many other Kantaki who had died over countless great cycles. Their memories resided here as part of the spirit that had once become matter.

Father Brrin merged happily with them.

PART III

Three: Totality

Mergers

17 APRIL 421 SN, 09:26

Kerberos

Brother Eklund had spent most of his long life on Kerberos, but this was the first time he had seen anything like it. Numerous spaceships streaked across the sky, but they were not Kantaki or Horgh. Nor were they interplanetary passenger or cargo ships. Eklund observed elongated gray ovals, smaller delta- and wedge-shaped ships.

"Elisabeth?" he asked, the communications servo in front of his mouth.

"I just took off," the doctor replied. This time it was just her voice; there was no pseudo-realistic display.

"I see dozens of spaceships in the sky, and many of them are heading for Chiron."

"What?"

There was a hiss and a crackle, and Eklund was about to repeat his words when Elizabeth said, "I see them, too. My God!" A brief pause. "There's a battle shuttle approaching, and I'm picking up a transmission on another frequency. I'll get back to you, Eklund."

"Don't take too long," Eklund replied anxiously. "We need your help urgently."

He lowered the cylinder of the communication servo, watched the ships glide across the sky for a while, then lowered his gaze. Raimon lay in the front of the boat, and Eklund could clearly see his eyes moving under his closed lids. Sometimes the boy's arms and legs twitched. "Raimon?" Eklund bent down and touched the boy, but his eyes remained closed.

The current in the river's immediate vicinity still seemed to be boiling, but the trees along the banks no longer swayed, and the rest of the Acheron seemed calmer. With deceptive sluggishness, the water flowed toward the needle rocks that formed a stony forest in the middle of the river. The current, Eklund realized now, was carrying them to the edge of this "forest," beyond which hung the mist of the Great Cataract. How much time was left? Two, three minutes?

"Elisabeth?"

The doctor did not answer.

How fast could a levitator car go?" wondered Eklund. And how would they get on board if she arrived in time?

"Raimon," he said helplessly, "you would be doing us both a great favor if you would just wake up now."

Eklund listened into the ether of the power he healed with, and his mind's eye saw Raimon distorting it the way gravity distorts space-time. He was like a depression in its structure - everything bent toward him. The Elysium, Eklund understood, was becoming more and more Raimon's universe. This evolution had begun some time ago, but only now were the effects on the structure becoming tangible. Elysium was changing, and it seemed to respond to changes in Raimon. The connection between the boy and the world above was growing stronger.

The bubbling of the river near the boat subsided, but the current picked up speed as the left bank turned into a green wall, as did the right. The Acheron tapered off before the needle rocks and cataract, flowing faster as a result, only to become a sluggish giant again after the waterfall, several hundred feet below.

Eklund struggled to steer the boat, keeping his hand in the water on the left side. He did not try to return to the right bank, which was now too far away, but tried to reach the rocks. The boat, made of light but solid synthomass, was not fast enough to risk being smashed if it collided with one of the rocks. Eklund hoped to be able to grab hold of something and gain valuable time. He kept looking downstream, toward the haze that marked the cataract, looking for a levitator car. But the sky in that direction remained empty.

With his free hand, Eklund lifted the communications servo. The indicator light showed that the small device was still transmitting its identification signal, which served as a guide to the navigation servo in Elisabeth's levitator car. "Elisabeth, can you hear me?"

"Yes," her voice rang out. "Yes, I..."

The boat suddenly swayed as it hit a rock just below the surface, and Eklund tipped to the side. His left hand hung in the water as an improvised rudder, and reflexively he tried to hold on with his right.

The communications servo fell into the Acheron.

Eklund almost followed the device, trying to hold on to it. The boat swayed even more than before, but fortunately it did not capsize.

"I hope you can find me now, Elisabeth," Eklund said.

With a soft hiss, the water of the Acheron flowed past the first needle rocks, and that sound joined the distant thunder of the cataract. Again Eklund put his left hand into the water and tried to steer the boat, but it had little effect as it drifted with the current and had virtually no momentum of its own independent of the water.

World Soul, Eklund thought, please don't forsake me now. You have given me a mission, and I want to see it through.

From this thought came a realization: yes, he had a mission, he no longer doubted it, and there was a goal for him: he had to take the boy to the mandala. There his destiny awaited him, whatever it might be.

Between two of the peripheral rocks, the boat got caught in a whirlpool, slowly spinning and coming closer to one of the two stone needles. It was extremely slippery and offered no grip for the old man's hands, but Eklund took the opportunity to push off, causing the boat to slide toward the other rock, which looked as if it had been broken - at some point some heavy flotsam must have collided with it. The boat left the whirlpool, hit the right side of the rock, and was caught in the current again, but Eklund was able to grab onto a ledge. He grabbed it with both hands and at the same time spread his legs, pressing them against the inside of the narrow boat, which had come to a stop beside the rock.

The pull on his arms was only a little uncomfortable at first, but soon Eklund found it harder and harder to hold on to the rock as the current patiently pulled at the boat. Added to this was his twisted posture, which brought a forgotten adversary into the mix: The initial twinge in Eklund's back turned to searing pain within seconds.

He grimaced and had to admit that he would not be able to hold on for more than half a minute, a minute at most. After that, the journey to the cataract would continue, another minute, maybe a little more. And then...

Don't let me fail, Eklund thought.

He looked again at the cloud of spray near the huge waterfall, whose thunder sounded like the rumble of a distant thunderstorm, and this time he thought he saw a dark dot in the billowing white. A new hope arose in him. No, he was not mistaken: it was indeed a levitator car, flying at an altitude of several dozen feet above the Acheron and rapidly approaching.

Eklund was suddenly certain that Elizabeth was at the controls. "Thank you, World Soul," he said softly. "I thank you for bringing her to me."

With a hum, the car hovered over the rock and the door swung open. Elizabeth looked down. "How in the world did you get yourself into such a mess?"

"I'll tell you as soon as you get us on board," Eklund replied, and that was the problem: How were they going to get on board? He didn't feel strong enough to lift Raimon, and if he let go of the rock, the boat would be carried away by the current.

Elizabeth's head disappeared for a moment and then returned. "I'm afraid I only have one," she said, holding a levitator belt in her outstretched hand. "Catch."

"I have to let go to do that."

"I know. But I don't see any other way."

"Neither do I." Eklund took a deep breath. "All right, then. Drop the belt when I let go. Now!"

He turned away from the rock and caught the levitator belt as the boat slipped away from the rock. With that, he knew, the countdown had begun. Trying not to pay attention to the intense pain in his back, he crawled forward, put the belt on Raimon, activated it, and selected one of the lowest settings.

Slowly, the boy rose from his bed of twigs and leaves. Above, Elizabeth waited in the open door of the levitator car, whose navigation servo had apparently been instructed to follow the boat. Strapped to a flexible safety harness, she bent down, grabbed the naked boy's arm, and pulled him into the car.

Eklund looked at the growing cloud of spray, heard the thunder of the cataract grow louder. How much time was left? Thirty seconds? Less?

"Your turn," Elizabeth called from above. She had unbuckled Raimon's levitator belt and was holding it in her hand.

Eklund prepared to grab the belt. The current grew faster, the water more turbulent. The waves wore white crests, and the boat began a fast, lively dance.

Elizabeth dropped the belt.

The boat tipped to the side as it again crunched over a rock just below the surface. Eklund's left hand reached for the edge of the boat to hold on to, and his right hand reached for the levitator belt...

His fingers touched it, but could not grasp it. The levitator belt fell into the water.

The thunder of the cataract was suddenly like a voice taunting Eklund.

Twenty more seconds?

The levitator car sank lower and Elizabeth reappeared in the open doorway. "Grab the edge and pull yourself up!"

Eklund tried to pull himself up, but now the boat was dancing so much on the waves that he was in danger of losing his balance if he stood. Then there was the pain in his back that threatened to paralyze him if he made the wrong move. The wind carried the first spray from the cataract toward him, its thunder growing louder by the second. Was this the end?

Had almost a hundred years of life led to this moment, to a death caused by unfortunate circumstances? And his mission? Was the World Soul abandoning him here and now? What was the point of it all?

He saw the edge of the waterfall, heard the voice of the Acheron, whose waters plunged into the depths to form a stream three hundred feet below, widening to form a vast delta at Chiron. Only ninety feet separated him from the cataract. Sixty...

Two arms stretched out from the open door of the levitator car, growing impossibly long as they reached for Eklund. They were not Elizabeth's arms. The doctor's eyes widened in amazement, and she stepped aside to make way for Raimon, who leaned forward and reached for Eklund with arms that had grown to nearly ten feet in length, lifting him gently and effortlessly out of the boat, which at that moment reached the edge, toppled and fell, disappearing into the seething waters of the cataract.

A few seconds later, Eklund found himself in the levitator car, looking into Raimon's face, which had changed. It was no longer the face of a twelve-year-old boy, a child. This face seemed much more mature and had a strange... depth.

"I am me," Raimon said, and this time the shadows of other faces did not flit through his expression. "I am we. I am a thousand. I am one. She is waiting for me."

"Who is he?" asked Elizabeth as the levitator car glided just above the treetops of the continental forest.

Eklund, tired and relieved, did not answer immediately, but pondered. How could a staunch atheist handle references to a sacred mission? Besides, he didn't even know who or what Raimon was.

"I don't know," he finally said. "But I know I have to protect him and take him to the mandala. I... saw it in Elysium," he added, which was only part of the truth.

Elizabeth turned her head and looked back for a moment. Raimon, the other, new Raimon, sat in the back, looking out the window. Since his words immediately after Eklund's rescue, he had been silent and did not seem to be paying attention to their conversation.

"And why?" she asked, "Why should you take him to the mandala? What will happen when he gets there?"

"The mandala offers him special access to Elysium. I believe it will give him the opportunity to connect with the woman without a face."

"The woman without a face?"

"I don't know how to explain it to someone who has never seen the world above the world. There is someone waiting there for Raimon, has been for a long, long time, a person we have both seen as the woman without a face. The mandala can lead him to her."

"And if he reaches her?" asked Elizabeth, and Eklund heard the skepticism in her voice. "What then?"

"I don't know what happens then," he said honestly. "I just know it's very important. Not only for Raimon, but for all of us."

"And how do you know that?" Elizabeth looked to the side for a moment. "From your World Soul?"

"Please, trust me, Elisabeth," Eklund said softly and earnestly. "Please, trust me and take us to the citadel."

Elisabeth looked at the controls, then looked outside. "The strange events of last night. Now the alien ships ... And Raimon." She said it as if there was a connection that could be seen if one looked at everything from the right perspective. "His arms ... I've only seen such rapid structural changes in tissue and bone in adlats."

"His repertoire is much larger than that." Eklund recounted what happened in the continental forest, Raimon's two transformations into a flying creature. "In the boat, he couldn't help me because he was exhausted. And he mentioned something was holding him back.

Further ahead, the Belt of Acheron, glittering in the light of the setting sun, stretched out to form a delta. The first foothills of Chiron came into view. Battle shuttles and delta-shaped ships patrolled above the city; from a distance, they looked like metallic insects. And out of the glow of the sun, which seemed to merge with the silver of the Reef Sea, a shuttle approached.

"Not again," Elisabeth groaned.

Eklund looked at her questioningly. "A shuttle like that stopped me when I was on my way to you. It tried to force me to land - almost all air traffic over Chiron is forbidden. I always have a medic indenter aboard the levitator car, and with the help of the signals I received from you, I was able to convince the pilot that it was a medical emergency. I was allowed to continue the flight."

"Fortunately for us."

"To unidentified levitator vehicle," came the voice from the communication servo. "All private flights are prohibited in the Chiron area. State your authorization."

The battle shuttle approached quickly, matching the speed of Elizabeth's car and hovering beside it. Eklund looked past the doctor and through the window to see the silhouette of the pilot in the cockpit.

Elisabeth touched one of the controls. "One of your shuttles checked on me recently when I flew to the Continental Forest," she said. "I am a doctor, and this is a medical emergency. I have two patients aboard." She hesitated for a moment and added, "I'm taking them to the healers in the citadel. My medic identer is activated and transmitting my identification signals." Elizabeth's fingers touched another control.

A short pause.

"Signals received and acknowledged," came the voice from the communications servo. "I will escort you to the citadel."

Elizabeth looked out the window and nodded to the pilot. "Very well. Thank you."

The battle shuttle climbed higher, flying in front of and above the levitator car.

"What's with the alien ships?" asked Eklund.

"There's a war going on out there in space, in case you forgot," Elizabeth said seriously. "I think it's reached us now." She looked back for a moment at Raimon, who was still silent, staring out the window. "Was it him?" she asked softly. "You know, the two deaths in the citadel."

"I'm not sure," Eklund said, and that was a lie. He was certain now that Raimon had killed both Xalon and the shepherd, for whatever reason. His ability to change the structure of the body at will, the strange circumstances under which the two members of the Enlightened Community had perished... There was no other explanation other than that Raimon was the killer. But deep down, Eklund also knew that Raimon had not killed of his own free will. He had been a tool, of something inside himself. Something he seems to have overcome now.

"Why do I get the feeling that you are not being completely honest with me?" asked Elisabeth.

"Have faith," Eklund said again. "I only know this: answers await us in the mandala. How about coming with us?"

Elisabeth shook her head. "Impossible. I'm expected at the hospital in an hour. With all the accidents last night, we have far more patients than usual."

The last remnant of Hades' sun, its thin upper edge, disappeared behind the horizon. On the brown-gray rock walls of the Pillion Mountains, the first chemo lamps began to glow.

At an altitude of about one thousand six hundred feet, the levitator car landed on a particularly large and wide ledge. The battle shuttle stopped at the edge of the cliff and waited.

Eklund and Raimon got out.

"Take care of yourself, Eklund," the doctor said. "And him."

"I promise." Eklund waved as the levitator car rose again and flew toward the city, followed by the shuttle. A strange feeling stirred within him - an inner voice, a soft whisper at the edge of his consciousness, seemed to tell him that he had just said goodbye to Elizabeth forever.

He turned to see two rather young members of the Enlightened Community standing in front of a tunnel opening in the rock. They stared at him wide-eyed, recognizing both him and Raimon, then turned without greeting and disappeared into the interior of the citadel.

"They will announce us," Eklund said, taking the boy's hand. "Come, Raimon. The mandala awaits us."

They entered a tunnel of the citadel, and it wasn't long before whispering voices wafted toward them in the dim light.

"The murderer," it murmured and whispered, "the murderer is back.

Lights Going Out

17 APRIL 421 SN, 09:27

Kerberos

The building was made of synthomass and steel ceramics, but with its many columns and decorations, it spoke of a distant past. Lukert Turannen had always considered this type of structure to be of a dynastic style. Before the Time War, the planetary dynasts of the First and Second Dynasties had sought to display their power by building such magnificent structures. But Chiron's Urban Symposium building was not nearly two thousand years old, but rather only about seventy years old. Turannen thought it suggested pretension and arrogance. It repulsed him as much as certain rooms in Valdorian's villa, but that wasn't the issue right now. Together with Jonathan, he entered the presidential office and closed the door before the swarm of servants and city dignitaries could follow them.

At the desk, a data servo buzzed on standby, reminding Turannen of an important message he had to deliver.

"He's crazy," he said.

"Who do you mean?"

"Who do you think? Valdorian. He destroyed a Kantaki ship. The Kantaki! Can you believe it? And what about this separation of the Hades system? Do you know anything about it?"

Jonathan shook his head. The unassuming man seemed somehow depressed.

"That reminds me ... Where are Enbert Dokkar and Benjamin Valdorian?"

"Aboard the flagship. In quarters that have been converted into a holding area, heavily guarded."

At least that was a relief for Turannen. "How did Valdorian manage to become a hundred years younger? What's wrong with him?"

"I don't know myself. The Temporals..."

"Did he really get mixed up with the Temporals?"

"I'm afraid so."

"That doesn't sound very good."

"No. He made the wrong decisions. The war against the Alliance - and now the Temporals." There was sadness in his words.

Turannen hesitated for a moment before asking an important question. "Is there anything we can do to stop him?"

"I am indebted to him," Jonathan said.

"Please weigh the importance of your personal loyalty against that of a possible Second Time War."

"Do you think I haven't thought about it? The thought of it has literally eaten away at me."

"Did you see his eyes and hear him when he spoke to Emmerson? Valdorian is insane."

"The soldiers are under his command," said Jonathan. "There's no way we can use them against him."

Which brings us to my point, Turannen thought, stepping behind the desk. "The soldiers won't, but someone else might. Jonathan, please instruct the members of the Symposium to assemble. I will address them shortly and explain this new situation."

"You will yield?"

Turannen wondered how far he should go. Jonathan felt indebted to Valdorian, for whatever reason, and trying to break that tenuous bond of loyalty could result in Jonathan not distancing himself from Valdorian, but siding with him once again.

"When it comes to the Temporals, we have a responsibility to all of humanity. No, I will not yield. I will look for ways to thwart Valdorian's plans. And I expect you to help me. The Time Fleet must not be allowed to return to our time."

"Yes," Jonathan said quietly. "Yes, I know." With that, he left the presidential office. A servant looked in from the door, but Turannen sent him away with a curt gesture. When he was alone, he took a deep breath, then let it out slowly.

Not once had Valdorian mentioned the metamorph. Turannen saw that as a great advantage.

"Data servo."

"Standing by."

"A message for Lutor, Special Representative of the NHD Global Director." Turannen hesitated. From here, he had no way of encrypting the message with an NHD key, and time was of the essence. "Plain text: locate target and await further instructions. Do not neutralize target. Awaiting report. End of message."

"Acknowledged."

Turannen left the presidential office to address the Urban Symposium as Valdorian coordinator, explaining the new balance of power on Kerberos.

In his suite at the Hotel Caravel, Lutor stared at the pseudo-realistic display and read Lukert Turannen's message for the second time. Surprisingly, it didn't affect him at all, even though the Kordun Treaty and the Code of Honor required him to follow the Global Director's every order.

He knew that he had barely escaped with his life. If he had stayed in the Alternate World for a moment longer, he would be dead now, defeated by an opponent who first had no face and then had a thousand. How was it even possible to be in mortal danger in an Alternate World? And how could the metamorph become part of a world that only existed in the form of a complex program?

But those ruins... There was no such scene in the Alternate World program Lutor used. The remains of the city did not belong to the realm of the Lord of the Shadow World.

In all of his previous missions and confrontations, Lutor had always been victorious, and this was true for all of his excursions into the Alternate World. Here Lutor, there Kordun, and together Lutor Kordun, a born fighter. Defeat was simply not an option for him.

Where was the metamorph?

Last night, he had killed two sekuritos and flown to the continental forest with Brother Eklund.

Brother Eklund...

Lutor smiled as he remembered. He didn't need his AI scouts to find traces of the metamorph. The necessary preparations took no more than ten minutes, after which Lutor headed out.

Elisabeth wondered, not for the first time, why she was still living and working on Kerberos. The medical facilities were abysmal compared to those on other, older worlds. The Urban Symposium was corrupt, the autocrat more interested in his drug business than the development of the planetary community. Immigration was still virtually uncontrolled, creating additional problems by stretching already scarce resources even further. How strange, Elisabeth thought. Had it not yet gotten around that the many drugs on Kerberos brought false happiness, that their apparent paradise quickly turned into hell? Over the past few years, things had gotten worse, not better, and this bitter realization caused Elisabeth to lose even more hope. The only ray of hope were the healers, people like Eklund, who eased the pain and helped where they could.

But now the war had come to Kerberos.

Elisabeth thought of this as she walked through the living room of her apartment on the fifteenth floor, stepped up to the window and looked out over the city. The sun was setting, and soon another night would begin, which was sure to be another busy one. The injured still being treated in hospitals and clinics after the numerous accidents of the previous night would be joined by patients suffering from the syndrome that had begun to spread earlier than expected and with far greater virulence than last time. How many reports had she sent to the Symposium warning them, how many times had she suggested preventive measures?

Elisabeth had slept before boarding the levitator car, but fatigue still weighed heavily on her. "You're burned out," she said softly. She had hoped to make a difference, but that notion was proving as illusory as the drug-induced bliss that lured so many to Kerberos. In a way, she envied Eklund. He believed in something, a defining force in his life, and Raimon's presence seemed to strengthen that belief. Raimon ... Thin lines formed on her forehead as she thought of the boy who was neither a boy nor a man, at least not an ordinary one. Eklund hadn't been able to fool her. Today he no longer doubted that Raimon had killed Xalon and Conrad. But he had helped him anyway, protected him and let himself be protected by him, as the events in the Continental Forest showed. What strange relationship had developed between the old man and the boy? What were the reasons for them to travel together now, despite everything that has happened?

It was quickly getting dark outside, and the lights in the city came on, giving Chiron a deceptively normal appearance. One could imagine that the lights in the sky were not from patrolling battleships but from levitator cars flying along high-altitude corridors.

The lights in the sky...

Elisabeth blinked. The sun had already set, and darkness was fast approaching. One of Kerberos' two moons glowed in the sky, but there were no stars.

Elisabeth blinked again, but that didn't bring the stars back. They had disappeared, and that was simply ... absurd. They weren't hiding behind clouds, as the moonlight made clear. They were just not there anymore.

Something crackled behind her and Elisabeth turned her head automatically. She had forgotten to activate the security system when she entered her apartment: The darkness of the night had crept into the rooms without the lamps reacting to Elisabeth's presence and providing the pre-programmed brightness.

The doctor could not tap into the power available to the healers of the Enlightened Community, and she was also unable to access Elysium, but she knew with absolute certainty that she was no longer alone in her apartment.

"Who is it?" she asked, hearing the tremor in her voice. Suddenly, she felt very vulnerable. The communication servo was in the other room, disabled, just like the security system.

A shadow emerged from the shadows, gaining substance and shape. A man with ash blond hair, a straight nose and a thin-lipped mouth. He wore a leather jacket; Elisabeth had heard the soft creak of it. As he came closer, she saw the piercing, penetrating eyes and realized who she was dealing with.

Lutor.

"How did you get in?" she asked, trying to keep her voice sharp. "What are you doing here?"

The man stopped close in front of her and Elisabeth had to force herself not to wince. The light from the moon seemed to gather in his eyes, giving the impression that they were on fire.

"Where are they?" asked Lutor. His voice made Elisabeth shiver despite the warmth.

"Please leave my apartment."

Lutor didn't move a muscle. "I want to know where they are."

Anger pushed aside some of Elisabeth's fear. "If you don't leave immediately, I'll call security."

"You're friends with Eklund," Lutor said. "You talk to each other often. I'd like you to tell me where he and Raimon are."

"I don't know what you're talking about," Elisabeth replied, walking past Lutor to the communications servo in the next room to call security.

"You will give me the information."

A strange undertone in his voice made Elisabeth stop and turn. Outside the window, Lutor was a little less human and a little more than a shadow, a menacing silhouette.

"Do you know what this is?" He unbuckled what looked like a bundle from his belt.

Elisabeth shook her head in silence.

"You'll find out in a moment." Lutor threw the bundle, and it turned into a cloud that emitted an insect-like buzzing sound. Before Elisabeth could react, the cloud approached her, enveloped her, and then seemed to dissipate. She felt a brief burning sensation, then a tingling sensation that quickly subsided.

"How do you feel?" Lutor began to move again, approaching slowly, holding a device in his right hand that resembled a mobile communications servo. "It burned for a moment, didn't it? And then there was a tingling sensation. Now, how do you like this?"

He pointed the small cylinder at Elisabeth.

Her stomach suddenly seemed to be filled with glowing metal. The pain was so intense that she didn't have enough energy left to scream. She gasped for air, sinking to her knees and wrapping her arms around her stomach.

The pain subsided as quickly as it had come. Breathing heavily, Elisabeth felt the dampness of sweat all over her body and looked up at Lutor.

He was standing about four feet away, his steady gaze fixed on her. The cylinder in his right hand still pointed at her.

"There are a hundred million micronauts in your body, programmed to stimulate certain nerves depending on the signals they receive." Lutor lifted the small cylinder briefly. "It's amazing what pain can do, isn't it? As a doctor, I'm sure you have a good idea."

Elisabeth realized that she was completely at this man's mercy. For a second or two, she thought she was choking on her own helplessness.

"Where are they? Where are Eklund and Raimon?"

"Please..."

Lutor raised and lowered the device he used to send command signals to the micronauts. "Believe me: what you felt earlier was nothing compared to the agony I could inflict on you. Sooner or later you'll tell me what I want to know anyway."

"In the citadel," Elisabeth said quietly. One part of her hated the other, the cowardly part, but they both agreed that Lutor was right. There was no point in resisting. "I took them to the citadel myself, about half an hour ago."

Lutor walked up to her, took her arm and pulled her up. Elisabeth stood on trembling knees, looking into eyes that now seemed like pitch-black pits, two shafts into a dark soul filled with icy cold.

A switch clicked on the cylinder and the tingling and burning repeated as the swarm of micronauts left Elisabeth's body and became a bundle that Lutor attached to his belt.

"I assume you told me the truth. If not, I'll see you soon." He walked to the door and opened it, though Elisabeth clearly remembered securing it. In the hallway, Lutor paused for a moment and gave Elisabeth one last penetrating look. "But I may come back anyway," he said before closing the door.

Desideratum

17 APRIL 421 SN, 09:40

Kerberos

This submersible was a type of maritime shuttle, designed primarily to carry supplies from the autocrat's artificial island to the station ten thousand feet below the ocean floor. Special data and auto pilots allowed for fully automated journeys through the Reef Sea without the need for a pilot. Valdorian had taken a seat at the controls but kept his hands away from them. Next to him sat Edwald Emmerson in the co-pilot's seat, and behind them stood three soldiers on one side of the first cargo compartment. Opposite them, on a seat folded out of the wall, sat a medium-sized man who belonged to the autocrat's staff and who had provided them with the vessel.

Valdorian gazed out into the dark sea as the sub glided first over the reef and then into the depths. He felt ... strange. Sometimes there was a perfect transparency in his mind, a mental clarity that made him believe in genius and in which even complex things seemed clear and simple. Such times were free of doubt, and often he heard Agoron's voice - a voice that meanwhile had gained many echoes - guiding his movements and showing him the way. But sometimes this clarity clouded over, and he found it difficult to string thoughts together and form the structures of reasoning from them. Even emotional fragments were trapped as if in a viscous mental morass.

He vaguely remembered another encounter, before the one with the Temporal. Cordoban. Yes, the living Cordoban, just before the catastrophe at Kabaea. A trip into the past with the help of the time key he had received in the anomaly on Kabaea. It had been an important visit, he remembered. At least he had thought it was very important at the time. What had it been about?

Valdorian stared into the darkness of the sea, unaware, and finally it came to him. The Double-M Project. Human power. The metamorph. Breaking the transportation monopoly of the Kantaki by taking over their pilots... How trivial it seemed to him now! The metamorph meant nothing compared to what awaited him now. Don't get distracted, it whispered. The seed. You must get to the seed. Nothing else matters. Was it his own thoughts or Agoron's? He could hardly tell one from the other. Everything blurred, everything merged. How could the metamorph be unimportant? With the successful completion of Project Double-M, the Consortium would finally become the primary power in the human-populated part of the Milky Way, and the takeover of Kantaki space travel by metamorph pilots would guarantee them control over the entire galaxy.

These thoughts passed through Valdorian's mind without causing a reaction, without touching anything. They remained... cool and neutral, as insignificant as individual drops in an ocean. The seed is much, much more important, he thought. It's waiting for me, that's why I came here, I can't be distracted by how glorious this new life is, the fleet is on alert in case the other artifact becomes active, it's good that the fleet is here, that's why we were transferred to the Arsenal planetoid, yes, I need the fleet to destroy the other artifact if it threatens the seed...

"What about the golden artifact?" asked Valdorian, looking to the side. "Describe it to me again."

Edwald Emmerson had a terrible feeling that a nightmare was about to repeat itself.

He knew what awaited him at the bottom of the sea - or rather beneath it - the memories were far too clear. As the fingers of light from the submersible's headlights scanned the darkness, he thought he could see part of the darkness thickening. A vague pain crept from his neck through his skull, a harbinger of the agony that had driven Raphael to suicide? Or was he imagining the pain?

Not a single sea creature appeared in the light of the searchlights, Emmerson noticed. The Reef Sea seemed dead as the submersible sank toward the station at the bottom of the sea.

Valdorian's question snapped him out of his thoughts. He complied, describing once more the first artifact Raphael had shown him, the golden surface protruding from the sedimentary rock into a room.

"And it was warm?"

"Yes," Emmerson said. He took a deep breath and tried again. "I appeal to your reason, magnate. Let us return to Chiron. Whatever it is about the two artifacts: The temporal anomaly whose effects we felt is undoubtedly related. I don't know what the autocrat hoped to accomplish with the artifacts, but I do know that such anomalies don't just happen. If this is indeed an attempt by the Temporals to return to our time, we should do something about it immediately. Use the firepower of your ships. Destroy those two artifacts before it's too late."

Valdorian didn't seem to hear the last words. He tilted his head to the side and turned his gaze inward, once again giving the impression that he was listening to a voice that only he could hear.

"Magnate Valdorian?"

The man in front of the control panel did not answer, seemingly trapped in a stupor. Emmerson looked behind him, at the three soldiers sitting there with stoic calm. They could have been mistaken for apathetic if not for the alert glint in their eyes. Across from them in the fold-down seat, Dido looked like someone who felt he was in the wrong place at the wrong time. Emmerson knew the man was one of the autocrat's closest associates and had been sensible enough to abstain from drugs so far. The current situation puzzled him deeply, and as Emmerson's eyes swept over him, Dido's expression showed a silent plea: Help me.

I can't even help myself, Emmerson thought.

"Destroy the artifacts?" Valdorian said suddenly. He spoke as if he hadn't been silent for ten seconds or more. "Maybe one of them. But certainly not the other."

Emmerson eyed him intently. "What do you know about the artifacts?"

Valdorian's gaze slipped away again, somewhere. "Oh, I know enough. Yes, enough."

Emmerson shivered inwardly and looked at the instruments to distract himself from the man at his side. The readings indicated that they were approaching the ocean floor. Everything around them remained pitch black, and he tried to remember if Raphael and he had turned on the station's external lights. The thought brought back the fear. Take all the phobias a psychiatrist's sick imagination could dream up, squeeze them until their content, their essence, was concentrated into the psychic-emotional equivalent of an extract, and you have what Emmerson had felt when he escaped from the station at the bottom of the sea. The word horror was not enough to describe it. And it was that something that lurked in the depths they were now approaching. Only cold reason and a great deal of discipline prevented Emmerson from jumping up and trying to overpower Valdorian. That would have brought the three soldiers into the fight, and there was nothing he could do against them and their weapons.

Not for the first time he thought about his situation, and not for the first time he came to the conclusion that he would have to wait, even if waiting meant that they would get closer to the terrifying thing. He had to be patient and hope that an opportunity to escape would present itself.

"Why did you bring me?" he asked.

Valdorian looked at him and through him. "We will be there soon. I can feel it."

Emmerson looked outside. The only place the sea was not black was where the light of the searchlights pierced the darkness. In his mind's eye, another kind of darkness appeared, in a shaft: a lighting servo fell into it, but something sucked up its light, shimmered, came up...

"Why did you bring me?" he asked again. "You don't need me."

Valdorian's gaze returned from the distance. "You were curious," he said. "And you still are. I want you to see everything. And I may need you, who knows?"

"What do you want me to see?"

The displays changed and the seabed appeared in the light of the searchlights. Strangely, the submarine remained just above it.

"The target is not at the specified coordinates," sounded the synthetic voice of the data servo.

Emmerson looked at the displays in astonishment. Valdorian didn't seem surprised at all, deactivating the automatic mode of the navigation servo and taking over the controls himself. The hum of the engines grew louder as the sub began to move again. Emmerson waited in vain for the sonar to pick up the three different sized domes, but the autocrat's station seemed to no longer exist. The sensors were apparently unable to identify what was in its place, as the displays showed conflicting data. Emmerson looked up from the displays, glanced outside, and tried to make out something in the darkness. Deep inside him, a knot of tension formed where all the negative sensations condensed into a lump of fear.

Confusing patterns ran through the pseudo-realistic displays, accompanied by columns of data that kept changing. Whatever had replaced the three domes was not static, but constantly changing.

Finally, something appeared in the light of the floodlights, something even darker than the darkness of the sea, like a shadow within a shadow, if that made any sense. Edwald Emmerson stared out into the ocean and saw something that reminded him of the fractal patterns of the LaKimesh. The structure of the darkness within the dark repeated itself on small and large scales, merging, reproducing itself. And it grew, swelling out of the ocean floor, spreading upward and outward.

Emmerson believed he was being touched by a coldness that was similar to the absolute vacuum of space. "The temporal anomaly," he said quietly.

"No," Valdorian contradicted. "The artifact."

Thoughts like voices, whispering and murmuring incessantly, overlapping. Old intentions and new, merging, replacing, expanding. It's so far, finally, it's so far, what's so far, why am I here, what about the metamorph, didn't it bring me to Kerberos, the metamorph doesn't matter, it's all about the artifact, it's all about it, the seed, nothing else matters, don't get distracted, steer the sub closer, yes, I'm steering it closer, that's why I'm here, nothing else matters...

Deep inside Valdorian's self, in the deepest vaults of his ego, something primal was stirring, impulses of stubbornness, ambition and arrogance that had driven him for more than a hundred and forty years and had only once in his life faded into the background, without disappearing completely, during the months with Lidia, who had failed him. How stupid she had been to choose a life as a Kantaki pilot, she must have regretted it for a long time, she must have realized that she had made a mistake back then, the biggest mistake of her life, no, no, she didn't regret it, no, she had even refused to help him on Mirror, remorse be damned, He hated her, he hated her and the damned Kantaki who had taken her away from him, he hated the Kantaki and their unbelievable arrogance, their Sacred Code that they imposed on everyone, he hated them, and the hatred turned into energy for the last remaining undamaged fragment of old Valdorian. He remembered the agreement he had made with Agoron that had given him back his life and his youth, remembered his intention to respect it as long as it suited his own plans. He suddenly realized that he was once again standing at a decisive threshold, as if at the doorway between life and death, before rejuvenation. The question was whether he would remain a tool or whether he could once again become someone who used tools.

Valdorian blinked and looked down at his hands, which were operating the submersible's controls. They were trembling, but not from any emotional reaction to what was happening inside and outside of him. It was due to the increasing vibrations emanating from the artifact, spreading through the seabed and the water above.

"Come to your senses, Magnate Valdorian!" Emmerson shouted. "You will kill us all!"

Valdorian looked to the side and eyed the man in astonishment. Why had he brought him with him?

He looked ahead again, at the black mass spreading through the sediments of the ocean floor. Valdorian knew that the repristinating process had been set in motion, but the awakening process was still ongoing, and even the defensivee system had not yet reached its full potential. How do you know?" whispered one of the voices inside him. I know, whispered another. I have always known. And I know even more. That is why I am here.

An opening formed in the artifact, in the restructuring core. Again Valdorian saw his hands move as if they belonged to someone else, gliding over the navigational controls, steering the sub to the opening.

That's why I brought him along, thought the last fragment of Valdorian's self that was still outside the mental web of manipulation. He turned his head, looked at Emmerson and said, "Do something!"

Mandala

17 APRIL 421 SN, 10:05

Citadel of Kerberos

It seemed darker than usual in the citadel, but Brother Eklund suspected that this was due to the unique circumstances of the situation. Chemo lamps glowed on the walls of the tunnels and caves, but there were vast areas of shadow between them. The other members of the Enlightened Community kept out of his and Raimon's way, keeping their heads down when they couldn't avoid meeting them. At one point he stopped someone he knew.

"Are the police still here?" he asked.

The young man nervously shook his head. "No. The last of them left the citadel a few hours ago." He gave Raimon a terrified look, then hurried off, disappearing down a side corridor.

A strange, almost accusatory silence spread around Eklund and Raimon.

"They fear me," the boy said. "They fear me because I killed." He wore tattered pants and a sleeveless, stained shirt, looking like a beggar boy. The clothes had come from one of the caves where the brothers and sisters kept things given to them by those they had healed.

"Yes."

"I had no choice," Raimon continued calmly as they continued on their way through a wide main tunnel. "I didn't want to kill, but something inside me forced me to."

"And now?" asked Eklund gently. Having lost his cane, he no longer had it to lean on, which strained his back and caused him new pain. Add to that the exertions of the past few hours, and age weighed heavily on him.

"Now I am one. The voice that tells me to kill still exists within me, but I no longer have to obey it. And the other voices... they no longer hurt."

Eklund entered a small side cave with a stone basin several feet wide that caught water dripping from the ceiling. He staggered over to it, leaned heavily against its edge, scooped up water with both hands, and drank. When he straightened up, the pain in his back exploded. Eklund groaned, staggered, and would have fallen if Raimon hadn't been there to support him.

"You're suffering," the boy with the changed, more mature face said. "Let me help you."

Raimon's fingers stroked his back, and Eklund felt the power in a way he had never felt it before: as refreshingly cool as the water in the bowl that had quenched his thirst, as gentle as a caressing hand, as warm as an embrace. Throughout his long life, he had used the power to heal others countless times, but now, for the first time, he felt it working on him. If he had lit a small light in others to dispel the dark stains of disease, Raimon had allowed a sun to rise within him. No other healer before him had ever been able to handle the power to this extent, to use it with such intensity. Raimon seemed to be... a part of the power.

The pain left Eklund and for the first time in many years he could move without having to worry about his back.

"Who are you, Raimon?" Eklund asked. A hope stirred in him, so fantastic that he was tempted to dismiss it as absurd. Could it be that there was more to the mission than Eklund had assumed? Was he supposed to protect Raimon and lead him to his destiny because the World Soul had sent him? If the power of Elysium, the world above the world, was of a sacred nature, part of the existence of the World Soul, and if Raimon belonged to that power, that made him part of the sacred presence. Raimon ... son of the World Soul? Could Eklund have wished for anything more in his life? He thought of his bundle of colored stones and regretted that he didn't have them with him. He would have liked to throw them here and now, to search for answers in their patterns. He looked down at the boy with something like awe. "Who are you really?"

"I am me," Raimon said quietly. "I am one. And I am a part of her."

"Of her? You mean the faceless woman we saw in Elysium?"

"She is waiting for me. She has been waiting for me for so long. She has tried to speak again and again, with the help of the life of this world, with the help of organic structures that influence and change..."

Eklund gasped as he thought he understood. He didn't know exactly where the insight came from. Perhaps his soul was connected to the boy's self, to the knowledge he seemed to receive from Elysium. "The drugs. The many hallucinogens of Kerberos. Are they... attempts at communication? But who is trying to communicate with us?"

"She. The sleeping one. I must go through the portal and awaken her."

"The portal?"

Raimon raised his hands and moved them in a circle in the air. Eklund thought he saw three rings merging into each other. He understood. "The mandala."

"It is a part of her, just as I am a part of her. There are other parts that separated from her when she entered this world, when she fell, just before she fell asleep."

Eklund nodded slowly. "The brothers and sisters found some strange objects in the citadel. To this day, no one knows what they are."

"The portal is intended for me."

"You were the first to touch the mandala. Perhaps that's why Xalon was so jealous."

"I am very sorry that I killed him, him and the others. At that time I couldn't resist the voice. But I've grown since then. I know my inner structures and can change them. The many other voices... They are as much a part of me as I am a part of her." Raimon made a sound that sounded like a soft sigh and seemed to be millions of years old. "I am life. I will never kill again."

"You don't have to. Come, I'll take you to the mandala."

They left the room with the dripping water bowl and walked back through the wide main tunnel, deeper into the citadel. Despite his earlier exertions, Eklund walked with an ease he hadn't felt in years. It wasn't just because his back was pain-free. He suddenly saw his life as a road that had led him here, to this place in space and time. He remembered the fifteen-year-old Eklund who had first heard the voice of the World Soul in a vision.

The circle is complete, old Eklund thought. The circle of life and purpose. Was there anything more beautiful and fulfilling than to know the meaning of one's own existence? And what could be more satisfying than reaching your destination after such a long journey?

Something touched him, and as Eklund lowered his eyes, he saw that Raimon had raised his hand. He took it, and they walked hand in hand through the citadel, an old man without pain and a boy full of strength, accompanied by shadows and whispering voices. There was still suspicion and fear, but here and there Eklund heard wonder and amazement. The brothers and sisters sensed that Raimon's presence had changed something in Elysium.

They passed a large cavern from which bright light shone into the semi-dark corridor. Eklund looked through the entrance and saw ten or more people standing in front of a long table, looking in his direction. None of them spoke a word, and their faces showed ... wonder? Awe? They all sensed that something was happening: the power was moving, like the waves of an ocean in a storm.

"Who were you before you became Raimon?" asked Eklund, believing that the being at his side had not always been the boy he seemed to be.

"Before I was... a dream?" Raimon replied, giving the impression that he was searching for the right word. "A possibility? I was one of their thoughts until I was given the opportunity to take form."

Eklund gave in to the temptation to ask more questions. "What about the woman without a face? And why do you have to wake her up? Why is she asleep?"

Raimon raised his eyes, and in his eyes Eklund saw ... abysses of space and time, things without names, broken, fragmented reality and ... eternity. He shuddered like someone who had looked into a special mirror and seen his own insignificance.

"In a way, she is the mother of this world," Raimon said. He walked faster now, no longer being led, but leading. He obviously knew where the mandala was. "She has been asleep since she crashed here with the Dark One. He's becoming active and if she doesn't wake up in time, he can leave unhindered. That's why I have to wake her up. And I don't have much time. He's here."

"Who do you mean?"

"The man who has restrained me several times. He doesn't know it, but he also receives the power. And with it he can hold me. It can't happen again."

Eklund remembered that Elisabeth had mentioned a man who was investigating, a certain Lutor. Was Raimon talking about him?

A few minutes later they reached the grotto with the mandala. As they approached, Eklund hesitated, turned his head, and realized that dozens of members of the Enlightened Community had followed them. He knew most of them quite well. They kept their distance and none of them made a sound.

Raimon turned to them briefly. "I will never kill again," he said.

He entered the cave, and Eklund followed him, past the ledges and alcoves where hundreds of candles burned. They all flickered, even those in the farthest corners of the cave, as Raimon and Eklund descended one of the staircases that led past rock pillars to the stone circle with the devotional pillars and the three circles of light. Several brothers and sisters awoke from their deep meditation and joined the others who had followed the odd couple.

Raimon stopped beside one of the twenty devotional pillars and watched the three golden-yellow circles that were in constant motion, sometimes seeming to interpenetrate. Eklund got the impression that their light was getting a little brighter - were they reacting to the boy's presence?

Raimon smiled and reached out to touch the mandala - the portal.

"At last we meet," someone said, and a figure emerged from the shadows of an alcove. "If I may introduce myself... I am Lutor."

Since entering the citadel, Lutor had felt more and more like the Alternate World warrior Kordun. He remained himself, at least physically, but something was happening inside of him that he found very pleasant. He felt the power that filled Kordun when he faced his enemies. More than ever before, he believed he could handle any opponent. Even the metamorph.

Slowly he approached him, the boy who was not a boy, and in his eyes he saw something he had already seen in the eyes of the stranger with the many faces.

"It is time," he said. "The decision is made here." The words felt right, too. There was no room for doubt in this place.

"What decision?" asked the old man next to Raimon.

"I presume you are brother Eklund. This is none of your business."

The old man stepped in front of the boy as if to protect him. "You are mistaken. What concerns Raimon is my business too."

Didn't the fool know who the supposed boy was?

"Step aside." And to the boy: "Do you want to hide behind him?"

"What do you want?" asked the old man.

"I want him. Get out of my way."

The boy stepped out from behind the old man and looked up at him for a moment. "I must deal with him alone. You can't do anything against him."

"Raimon..."

"You heard him. He seems to be more reasonable than you." Lutor took another step closer...

... and found himself in another world, or sphere. He was standing on a circular platform about sixty-five feet in diameter. The sky was as black as night, though five suns shone in it. But were they really suns? Lutor looked closer and thought he saw eyes staring down at him. He began to move, slowly walked to the edge of the platform and looked down into the depths. Far below, the white clouds of a nameless world floated like a fluffy carpet, and below them, he knew, jagged rocks waited to shred the body of a falling man. There was no parapet, and whatever supported the platform remained hidden from Lutor's view; the hum of levitators was absent. He heard only the hiss of the wind as it swept past the platform without touching it.

"I am life," a voice sounded behind Lutor. "I will never kill again."

He turned to see the boy in the middle of the platform. He approached him with calm steps, once again accompanied by the feeling of glorious strength. "Then I have nothing to fear," he said sarcastically and attacked. He jumped forward, raised his right hand - which suddenly held a sword - and struck a powerful blow that only Kordun had been able to do before.

Raimon jumped back and Lutor noticed that his opponent's hands remained empty.

"Why do you want to kill me?"

"Because I won't let anyone - anyone - defeat me."

"What is victory or defeat? What is the meaning of such a thing?"

"Are you trying to confuse me with stupid questions?" Lutor jumped again, farther and higher than he would have been able to without the miraculous power, and before he landed, he struck again. This time the blade hit more than just empty air.

Raimon felt with his left hand for the cut in his right upper arm, which closed almost immediately. The blood on his fingers vanished.

"Let me go, please. I have to get to her. She's waiting for me."

"I'm not holding you." Lutor approached again, sword at the ready.

"Yes, you are, you're holding me. In the Power. You're absorbing some of her energy and binding me with it."

"I have no idea what you're talking about." Lutor thrust, ramming the blade so deep into the metamorph's body that it completely penetrated it and exited through its back.

Pain flashed across Raimon's face like a shadow and he sank to his knees with a soft groan. But a second later he stood up and took a step back, letting the blade slip from his body. Blood poured from the wound, pooling on the floor and crawling up both legs. Defying gravity, it ran up the boy's tattered pants without being absorbed by the fabric, flowing into the wound from which it came.

"You can't kill me," Raimon said. "You can only hold me."

"You think so? What if I dismember you and throw your parts into the depths before they reassemble?" Lutor raised his sword and turned into a whirlwind.

Eklund watched as Raimon and Lutor faced each other, their eyes locked as if frozen in time.

Suddenly, all the candles went out, as if blown out by a gust of wind. However, it was not completely dark. A little light filtered through the entrance to the cave above, where dozens of brothers and sisters were huddled together. There was also the golden glow of the three mandala rings as they continued their dance, intertwining and interpenetrating again and again. This light wandered over the walls as if searching for something.

"Raimon?" Eklund asked softly.

The boy did not answer, just as statuesque and motionless as Lutor, who stood before him. About six feet separated them, but the void between them was not empty. Something connected them, something stretched between them, a bond in Elysium.

"What's going on here?" someone asked from above. A figure came down the stairs, and as it approached the mandala, Eklund saw its face. Terod. How strange that he of all people should appear here at this moment, Eklund thought. But perhaps this was part of the circle that was closing.

"I have been looking for you, Eklund," said Terod, who had been like a brother to him for many decades. "No one could tell me where you were." Almost apologetically, he added, "I'm the new shepherd."

"That makes me happy for you, and even happier for the Enlightened Community."

Terod pointed sadly at Raimon. "I promised to inform Arkan when the boy returns to the citadel."

"Arkan?"

"The leader of the police who were looking for him. Raimon is suspected of having killed Xalon and Conrad.

"He did indeed," Eklund said quietly. Seeing the horror on his old friend's face, he quickly added: "But he didn't want to. He was forced to."

"Who forced him?"

"It's a long story." Eklund glanced at the other brothers and sisters standing higher up. Voices whispered and no one made a move to relight the candles. "Terod, with our long friendship... Please, trust me when I tell you: Raimon is our greatest hope."

"Why?"

"Don't you feel it? Elysium revolves around him. He has become its center."

Skepticism appeared on Terod's wrinkled face. "I feel the power has begun to move. The boy didn't use it to heal, he used it to kill. And such a person is supposed to be our greatest hope?"

Raimon remained motionless, but something moved in his face. In the shifting light of the three mandala rings, Eklund looked closer - two tears fell from the boy's eyes and ran down his cheeks. Help me, they seemed to whisper.

"If only I could help you, Raimon," he murmured, reaching out to the boy and...

... bumped into an invisible barrier that separated him from both Raimon and Lutor.

The wind picked up and now made itself felt on the platform. It wasn't nearly as strong as outside, but it was strong enough to affect Lutor's movement patterns. The sword in his right hand sang through the air, jerking back and forth as he danced a deadly dance, leaping, lunging, and striking again and again. But the boy, the metamorph, matched his dance, jumping as well, moving in a rhythm that exactly matched that of his attacker. Lutor finally stopped when he realized that he wasn't getting anywhere, that he was just exhausting himself. Perhaps that was exactly what his opponent wanted.

The boy paused near the edge of the platform, the wind clearly tugging at his tattered pants and sleeveless shirt.

Lutor breathed heavily, feeling new strength replace his weakness.

"I am life," the metamorph said. "I will never kill again."

"You've said that before. Why the sudden change of heart? In our other encounters, you had no qualms about using violence against me. You almost killed me."

"On those occasions, I was only partially myself. Now I am all of me."

Lutor shook his head at these words. "You want to be life? Artificial life at best. You are the work of a creator, a pathetic artificial creature, do you know that? You were created to kill, as a weapon, and now you want to be life?"

"And you?" the metamorph replied. "Do you think you are more than I am?"

"I am Lutor Kordun of the Kordun Clan of Aburrka," Lutor said with scornful pride. "My family's roots go back through the Time War to the Second Dynasty. I..."

"No," the metamorph interrupted, and suddenly his voice sounded very different. It was no longer that of a child, but that of a wise adult. "This is what you are." He raised his hand.

The air shimmered in front of Lutor and a mirror without substance appeared. But he did not see himself in it, but a shapeless mass of tissue, one of many in a laboratory. And as it grew and took shape, as the face took on features...

"No!" Lutor cried, striking with his sword, but the blade passed through the mirror without touching it. No!" his thoughts howled, for the images in the mirror before him showed the core of his being: a complex program developed by NHD creators with an auto-suggestive memory matrix. What he had thought of as childhood and youth was just... data, never experienced and never known, cold, lifeless information.

Anger flashed through him. "It's a trick!" Lutor howled. "Something is preventing you from fighting me, and that's why you're trying to defeat me this way!"

In an instant, he charged across the windswept platform toward the metamorph, who did not dodge, but opened his arms as if to welcome him. Lutor was about to strike, to sever the head from the torso, but suddenly the sword was gone, and a split second later he crashed into the boy.

They tumbled off the platform, into the storm, and into the depths.

"He's holding him," Eklund whispered. "Lutor is holding him. And as long as he holds him, Raimon can't go through the portal."

"What are you talking about?" asked Terod.

Help me, whispered the boy's tears. Please, help me.

Eklund looked around, glanced at the three rings of the mandala, and estimated the distance. Yes, if he gathered all his strength ...

He stepped behind Lutor and the boy, stepped back a few feet and took a deep breath.

"What is all this?" Terod asked. "What are you up to?"

"I think it's the only way," Eklund replied. "He can't reach the portal on his own." He took another deep breath and then ran as fast as he could - looking like an old man about to pounce on a boy. He certainly wouldn't have been able to do it with his aching back.

About two feet in front of Raimon, Eklund crashed into the invisible barrier so hard that he feared he had broken several bones. As if trapped in a massive sphere that was difficult to move, Raimon leaned stiffly toward the mandala, and Lutor with him. Eklund tried to break free of the invisible barrier, but he was stuck. The light of the mandala came closer, became brighter, shone as if with joy...

A crash like a thousand shattering panes of glass, a howling like a hundred hurricanes, a pulling like the gravity of a black hole...

Raimon, Lutor and Eklund touched the mandala and disappeared into it.

Mother Krsa

17 APRIL 421 SN, 10:10 KERBEROS TIME

Hades System

The detrital shell of the Hades system - a cloud of ice and rock that surrounded nearly every solar system and dated back to its formation - broke apart as the separation created by the seed cut it off from the gravity of the central star. Each of the countless objects, from dust motes to planetoids, simply followed its own momentum, and collisions occurred as the cloud expanded into interstellar space. It would have been interesting to watch this particular dance and try to discern a choreographic pattern, but Mother Krsah's mind was on other, more important matters. As she rested in the pilot's dome, sitting on her bent hind limbs, she listened to the voices of her ship, seeing with its eyes and hearing with its ears.

She relayed all the data via a permanent Translink, and it was received not only on Munghar, but also aboard the many Kantaki ships traveling in the galaxy and beyond. A new spur was being assembled in the Urirr system, but the Kantaki knew it would probably not reach the Hades system in time.

Kantaki voices whispered from afar. Take good care of her, Mother Krsah. If the seed bursts, she will be in great danger. And: It has been decided. The Alliance is responsible for Mother Yurrl's death and the destruction of her ship, and they will be punished with isolation. There are no more Kantaki ships flying between their worlds, and all trans connections have been severed. It will remain that way for one great cycle.

"The separation bubble is shrinking," said one of the Akuhashi at the consoles in front of the curved walls.

Mother Krsah felt it at the same moment. The boundary line created by the seed had contracted.

Not far away, energy brutally ripped the fabric of space-time, tearing a hole through which two spaceships passed. Behind them, the opening closed again, but something remained that the Kantaki senses could detect: a tiny scar in the fabric of space-time, a place that could hardly be touched by the threads that bound all that existed. When Kantaki ships encountered such a scarred space-time during their journeys through trans-space, unpleasant vibrations would sometimes occur, interfering with meditation in the Sacrium.

Two Horgh ships had completed their jump. Mother Krsah felt the shockwaves like a dull ache in the cosmos.

"A request is being sent to us," said the Akuhashi. "The Horgh want to know what happened. They are bringing cargo for the human world of Kerberos."

"Explain the situation to them," Mother Krsah clicked. "And tell them to stay. Ask them to."

Even the Horgh sometimes needed the services of the Kantaki and would not simply refuse such a request. Mother Krsah left her resting position and stretched her limbs. She longed for peace and quiet, for the transcendence of the sacred, but of course that was out of the question under the present circumstances.

"The Horgh want to know why they should stay and expose themselves to danger."

"The reason should become clear to them in a moment," Mother Krsah's pilot Lion said, sitting in his chair on the dais, his hands in the sensor wells.

The displays on the walls showed the outer planets of the Hades system appearing on this side of the separation bubble, which now appeared to be porous on the inside. This meant that they too had escaped the gravitational pull of the central star and were drifting out of their orbits. The gas giants were uninhabited, but there were small colonies, research stations and factories on their moons. Humans and other intelligent creatures lived there and needed to be transported to safety.

That was why Mother Krsah had asked the two Horgh ships not to leave yet.

"My ship will split into its components," the Kantaki clicked and turned to the podium. "This will present you with special challenges, as you will have to coordinate their flight. Do you think you can handle that, Lion?"

"I think so," the human replied. He leaned back in the pilot's chair, closed his eyes, and concentrated.

"Ask the Horgh to join the rescue mission," Mother Krsah said to the Akuhashi she had spoken to earlier. "But they are not to make any jumps while there are humans and other non-Horgh aboard their ships." She hesitated for a moment before adding, "And they are not to charge their passengers for transportation. This is not about making money, it's about saving lives. Emphasize that as much as you can."

The Akuhashi gestured in agreement and communicated with the two Horgh ships.

With a focused thought command, Mother Krsah altered the hyperdimensional structure of her ship and then neutralized the binding forces of existential harmony between the individual components - the black colossus broke apart in a controlled manner. Lion directed the individual parts to the outer planets of the Hades system, which had become wanderers, and the two Horgh ships accompanied them. Each component would fly to its own destination to collect and preserve life.

Meanwhile, the separation bubble continued to shrink - the boundary line pushing toward the inner regions of the Hades system.

Wayfinder

17 APRIL 421 SN, 10:20

Kerberos

On the thin line between life and death, Edwald Emmerson made the only decision he thought possible. The submersible was still gliding toward the opening that had formed in the black mass rising from the seafloor when he leaned forward and sideways from the co-pilot's seat, his fingers flicking across the controls in front of Valdorian. The magnate stared at him, horror in one eye and relief in the other, remaining passive and unresponsive.

Unlike the three soldiers.

A hand grabbed Emmerson's shoulder and yanked him back before he could switch the shuttle's engines to reverse thrust. He ducked, pulled his legs up, and pushed himself away from the console. The soldier hadn't expected that - he staggered to the side and let go of Emmerson, who rolled on the ground, got back to his feet and looked into the muzzle of a Hefok.

"If you fire that thing in here, the beam will burn through the hull," Emmerson said as he jumped forward again to face the controls. "Then we all die."

A second soldier tried to block his path, but with the agility of desperation, Emmerson dodged him, reached the pilot's console, leaned past the still-frozen Valdorian...

The window-like pseudo-realistic display in the bow showed something moving in the opening. Some kind of finger grew out of it, groped for the submersible, touched it...

Two hands yanked him back from the controls before he could change course, but Edwald Emmerson barely noticed as the focus of his attention shifted. He was still involved in the events, but now he was primarily an observer, seemingly outside the action. Dido had also jumped up, but one of the three soldiers easily held him down. Valdorian was still in the pilot's seat, blocked by something else. He had the face of a man facing the bitter realization that he had been betrayed. The dark finger of the black mass...

... reached into the submersible without being stopped by the hull. Something shrieked, not in his ears but in a mental ether, a shriek that seemed to be trying to tear apart parts of Emmerson's consciousness. He watched as Dido tried to press his hands to his ears, but the soldier stopped him, though he suffered as well - his gray face turning into a grimace.

The mental tugging was joined by a physical one. As Edwald Emmerson's body shook and twitched in the grip of the two soldiers, his mind continued to register the events despite the pain. Something deformed the submersible, denting one wall and bulging the other outward. Lights appeared, small silver points, one in each body, especially bright in Valdorian, Emmerson noticed. The magnate stood up in slow motion, growing longer and thinner, as if an invisible hand had closed around him, squeezing harder and harder, slowly crushing him. Dido became a narrow cylinder, its ends bending back and forth like the bodies of snakes, and the alien force also stretched the soldiers. They no longer held Emmerson, but he had no conscious control over his body and watched as he himself stretched. Blackness groped over the walls, a silent voraciousness that devoured its substance without water bursting in and crushing everything with its mighty pressure. Edwald Emmerson sank into a sea of darkness and pain. His self ripped apart.

Rungard Avar Valdorian lifted his eyelids and saw familiar surroundings. He was sitting at his desk in the study of his villa on Tintiran in the Mirlur system. Bright light streamed through the large windows overlooking the city of Bellavista and the Scarlet Sea. For a few absurd seconds he feared he had fallen asleep and was dreaming. The search for Lidia, the war against the Alliance, the Temporals, Agoron, the flight to Kerberos... Was it all part of a dream? Were they images created by hope and despair?

He stood abruptly, approached a small mirror nearby, looked at his face, and scanned his smooth cheeks with relief. No, it wasn't a dream, he was young again, full of strength and life. The old, sick, dying Valdorian existed only in his memory, a hideous distortion of the man he was now.

He turned and looked around the large room he knew so well, at the artwork, the real and pseudo-real plants, the portraits of his eighteen predecessors. How did he get here? He remembered a painful tug, the dark thing that had risen from the seabed and groped for the submersible with one finger. He remembered triumph and terror, the feeling of having reached his goal, accompanied by the realization that it was not his goal at all, the reality that a tool that could not become the hand that held it remained an instrument forever.

The question of how he had gotten here was accompanied by a second question: why was he here? There was a reason, he was sure of it.

Dizziness spread through him and once again he doubted the authenticity of his own thoughts. He could no longer hear the voices of Agoron and the other Temporals - or so he thought - but could he trust that the thoughts running through his head were his own?

Silence surrounded him, a silence that was not due to the absence of distracting sounds. Rather, it was the absence of all sound. Valdorian walked slowly through the study and the other rooms of his villa, hearing nothing, not even his own breathing or footsteps.

He paused outside in the sunshine, looked down at the town of Bellavista in the bay, and searched in vain for movement. Nothing stirred there, and the silence, the strange, absurd silence, continued. Even the whisper of the wind was absent. Nothing moved here, nothing lived here, except him. Everything was frozen in a timeless moment.

Valdorian lifted his head and saw several Tintiran seagulls. They hung motionless in the air, their four wings outstretched. He watched the grass and leaves but saw no movement there either.

He returned to the villa as if fleeing the stasis outside. He took long strides through the many rooms of the villa, searching for something he could not name, for an explanation, perhaps an answer. The numbness inside him spread like mental molasses, and the thoughts in it resembled little worms that could no longer crawl unhindered back and forth, having to deal with an ever-increasing resistance.

Valdorian finally stopped at the desk in his large study, listened to the silence, which was becoming increasingly eerie, and said aloud to dispel it: "What is going on here? Why am I here?"

He immediately regretted speaking. His voice sounded strange, like someone else's, and it didn't seem to come from him, but from somewhere else. He also got the impression that something was going on behind the scenes. He imagined the words lowering one pan of a scale that had been in perfect balance; the other pan went up a little. Things were out of balance.

Valdorian's surroundings deformed. Objects began to move, expanding and contracting, flowing apart and coming together. At the same time, the colors receded from the world until a uniform gray swallowed all details, a gray Valdorian had seen before, sometime, somewhere.

Out of this gray stepped a figure, not human, but humanoid, about four feet tall and incredibly thin - the creature seemed to consist only of dark brown, leathery skin and the bones beneath. It wore a threadbare shirt, a loincloth, and sandals on its feet, nothing more. The small man stood stooped, and Valdorian noticed a hunchback. The large green-brown eyes in the wrinkled face were strange, for the lively sparkle in them did not match the aura of old age.

"Are you ready?" the dwarfish humanoid asked.

Valdorian was immediately disturbed by the "you" - only his parents and a few other people had ever addressed him as "you".

But his annoyance was quickly lost in the daze that numbed his emotions and made his mind sluggish.

"Ready for what?"

"For the game. That's why you're here."

// Repristination completed \\, it sounded in Valdorian, and this time he knew for sure that it wasn't his thoughts. They had a different ... flavor, dominating his mental cosmos.

"Did you hear that?" the little man asked. "It's time. Come."

He took a few steps toward the furniture, which was disappearing further into the gray.

Valdorian stopped. "Who are you? And where am I supposed to go?"

The small humanoid stopped. "I am Olkin. And I told you to follow me." There was a distinct edge to his voice at the last words, and Valdorian's body obeyed while his consciousness was still confused. He looked down at his legs, which seemed to move all by themselves, and when he lifted his eyes he saw a long corridor, narrow doors with silver knobs in the walls to the right and left.

Valdorian tried to stop, but his body obeyed Olkin, not him. "Where are we? What is this place?"

"This is the center," Olkin replied, walking up a flight of stairs and opening the door at the top. "It's where the game is played."

// Full potential for defense must be reached as quickly as possible \\, it sounded again between Valdorian's thoughts, a strange voice that Olkin obviously heard as well. He listened briefly, his head tilted to one side.

"We should hurry," he said seriously and waved. "Come, Dorian, come."

Dorian ... Only two people had ever called him that. His personal physician Reginald Connor, who had died on Orinja in the Takhal system. And Lidia, who flew Kantaki ships under the pilot name Diamond and who had betrayed him. Strangely, his hatred and anger towards her was no longer a blazing fire, but a small flame in the depths of his self. The numbness was everywhere.

Valdorian followed Olkin up the stairs and entered a round room with walls as gray as the colorless, deformed study in his mansion. A table, also round, stood in the center, and on it rested a strange... contraption or device. At first it looked like a pseudo-realistic display, but Valdorian clearly sensed that the figures and objects depicted on the intricate paths, bridges and tunnels were not without real substance. What's more, something told him that they were alive.

But they were motionless, as motionless as everything inside and outside the villa on Tintiran.

As motionless as the man sitting at the table. A relatively young man with shoulder-length white hair, blue eyes, and a lean face.

"Who is that?" asked Valdorian.

"The player," Olkin replied. "One of them." He approached the table and extended a slender hand with long fingers. In front of the complex structure on the table, they encountered a barrier, a kind of membrane. Bright lines emanated from the point of contact, like slow, sluggish flashes that crept into other areas of the membrane and seemed to reach the complex structures below. "But before I get the others..."

Olkin gave Valdorian a hypnotic stare. "Talk to the commander of your troops, Dorian. This is very important. Have them stand by in case the counselor becomes active prematurely."

"The... counselor?"

An image formed in Valdorian's mind's eye: a golden star with seventeen thorns pointing outward - the second artifact at the bottom of the sea.

Valdorian lowered his eyelids to blink, and when they came back up a fraction of a second later, he was standing in the control room of the flagship of the fleet that had brought him to the Hades system and Kerberos. Several of the soldiers at the controls reacted instinctively, spinning around and drawing their weapons, only to lower them when they recognized him.

This is my chance! something whispered inside Valdorian. Here I am free. Here... I... can... The rest was lost in an unintelligible murmur without intention or will. Parts of the still awake self beneath the thick layer of numbness sensed something unimaginably alien present amid the vaguely drifting thoughts and feelings. This stranger, whose voice Valdorian had heard twice, received the whispers of the temporals in their time dungeon. He responded with a declaration of intent that dispensed with words.

"I have new instructions for you," Valdorian addressed the fleet commander. His face was gray like the other soldiers, and a small shield on his chest bore a name that meant nothing to Valdorian: Jorrlen 4. The fourth version, Valdorian noted indifferently.

The fleet commander waited silently.

Valdorian's eyes slid over the displays on the consoles and then to the pseudo-real ones. He wondered briefly if he was really here, but the question immediately lost its significance, becoming as unimportant as the name of the soldier standing before him.

The Hades system, he realized, was still isolated from the rest of the universe. In fact, it was in a small cosmos of its own, which not even the ships of the Kantaki could reach. A thin bridge of reality connected it to the other, much larger universe, a bridge that allowed the transfer of certain information - for example, from a certain era in the past. The small cosmos had begun to shrink, and internal porosity allowed matter to pass to the other side. Valdorian knew it was a defensive measure, collecting and focusing its potential now that the spur brought by the Kantaki was no longer a threat. He knew many things, but they did not affect him, even though they resided within him.

The chance..., something stirred in him, but only quietly and weakly. Seize it. Order the commander to take the fleet into interstellar space, to steer it through one of the porous spots in the separation bubble.

And then," it whispered in another corner of his mind. Do you think the Kantaki will offer you passage?

And if they do, it doesn't matter, the only thing that matters is getting out of this solar system and escaping the fragment!

Valdorian looked at Jorrlen, opened his mouth and... "There are two artifacts on Kerberos," he said, though he had intended to say something else entirely. "One looks like a golden star. Destroy it when it lifts off. Use all the firepower in the fleet to destroy it."

The fourth version of Fleet Commander Jorrlen nodded, returned to the consoles, and relayed the order to the other ships. Valdorian turned away to a door that existed only for him, that no one else saw, a door that would take him back to the round room with the round table, to Olkin, the motionless man with the white hair and the strange structure. He tried to control his legs and to stop, but he could not. A blink...

... and he was standing in front of Olkin again, who was looking at him with his big, green-brown eyes. Valdorian suddenly had the feeling that the door was right there, in that gaze, in the eyes of the little humanoid.

And he felt something else as well. A small, familiar weight in his pocket. His fingers felt for it: a crystal wedge, about an inch and a half long and an inch in diameter at its thickest point - the time key he had received from Agoron.

The part of his consciousness that was still free rejoiced.

"Now I can get the other players," Olkin's nasal voice rang out.

The man with the shoulder-length hair - the autocrat of Kerberos, Valdorian suddenly realized - was still trapped in a state of motionlessness, but a second man appeared in the chair next to him, his eyes widening in astonishment: Edwald Emmerson.

"Magnate..." he said and then froze like the autocrat.

Olkin eyed him skeptically, a long index finger raised to his lips. "No," he said finally. "No, he's not a suitable player. You brought the wrong one, Dorian."

The small humanoid lowered his hand, and Emmerson disappeared.

// Urgency \\, alien thoughts proclaimed. // She awakens. \\

"We're not done yet," Olkin said, his voice almost shrill. "Who would be a possible player? Show me your memories, Dorian. Who is there? Who should I get?"

Again something expanded in Valdorian's mind that was not his own, scratching and scratching, searching and finding.

Jonathan and Lukert Turannen appeared beside the autocrat, and they had just enough time to catch their breath before time froze and turned them into statues. Two more people materialized across from them: Enbert Dokkar and Benjamin.

Olkin clapped his slender hands. "That's enough. Five players are enough."

Thin lines formed on Valdorian's forehead. "There are six of us."

"Six, yes. But only five players. You're meant for something else, Dorian."

Now!" urged the free fragment of Valdorian's self. He reached into his pocket and pulled out the wedge, the temporal key.

"I want to go back!" he said sharply, and this time his mouth obeyed. "Take me back."

"Oh yes, that." Olkin held out his hand, and the wedge floated to his long fingers. "How kind of you to bring it." The dwarfish creature leaned over the table, held the crystal wedge over the complex structure, and dropped it.

It glowed briefly as it penetrated the separating membrane, then joined the intricate structures as if it had always been an integral part of them.

"That puts the actuator in place, too," Olkin said. "Now all that's missing is..."

The humanoid raised his hand again and pointed at him with his index finger. Valdorian wanted to flinch, but he couldn't. A quick tug, another quick blink...

And he was standing in the formation on the table, a figure among the others. Olkin's face floated like a huge moon in the sky marked by the membrane, and the faces of the frozen ones at the table were like planets a little farther away.

"You are the wayfinder, Dorian," Olkin said. "Get us out of here."

Another quick wave, and the autocrat and the others awoke from their frozen state.

"It's time," Olkin turned to them, "Play the game."

Valdorian shouted, but no one heard him.

Awakening

17 APRIL 421 SN, 10:25

Kerberos

Brother Eklund had thought of this place as a forest when he first came here, but now he saw that it was more like a grove of white, spindly towers rising into the slate-gray and clay-brown clouds.

"There are seventeen of them," Raimon said. "Like the seventeen points of the capsule."

"Capsule?" Eklund repeated, looking around. There was no sign of Lutor for miles around.

"Her capsule. This is her place, her capsule."

The boy, with the face of a mature adult, began to move, and Eklund followed, feeling no pain in his back. The presence of the power of Elysium was much stronger in this place, and it was spinning with Raimon at its center. As Eklund concentrated for a moment, he thought he felt seventeen spokes of a wheel slowly turning, with the boy at its center... and another self, small yet formidable. Strangely, there was no trace of Lutor, though Eklund was sure that he had passed through the mandala - the portal to this world above the world - along with Raimon and himself.

The white towers began to glow as they passed, and lights came out of the small openings in them, round lights, like glittering orbs that glided upward, tearing the clouds apart. Far above the seventeen towers, the sky ripped open. A hole appeared in the firmament, and through that hole gazed eyes, strange eyes, as if detached from the beings they had once belonged to.

Raimon paused for a moment and pointed upward. "Count them."

Eklund counted, and the result did not surprise him. There were seventeen.

The clouds grew darker, moving faster across the sky as if driven by the winds of a storm, but not one of them entered the round area, the hole in the sky reserved for the eyes alone.

"These are the eyes of the capsule," Raimon said. "The eyes of the one who steers and controls it."

"How do you know all this?"

"I'm part of it. And of her, too. I'm the link she needed."

Raimon approached one of the towers, and as he touched it, more openings formed in it. Eklund heard a soft whirring sound, and white, palm-sized, insect-like creatures emerged, not seventeen, but hundreds, thousands, and many more. Their bodies had different structures, resembling cobalt flies and other insectoids from Kerberos, and Eklund suspected that the resemblance was no accident. If he had understood Raimon correctly, there had been a manipulative influence behind the evolution of life on Kerberos. It had been designed for a specific purpose. Countless white insectoids also came out of the other towers, rose up, and began to spin a delicate web from spire to spire and beyond. Their life's mission now comes to an end. And so does mine. Two circles closed, not just one. But one of those two circles was much, much bigger than the other.

"The towers are the agent," Raimon said, pointing up at the web that was rapidly growing in size and complexity. There must be millions of the insect-like creatures spinning it, giving it a precise structure. "It was deaf and dumb, and it slept like they did, but in a moment we should hear its voice."

The web glowed like the towers before it, and its light widened the hole in the sky, pushing back the clouds; a soft glow fell on the barren world, which suddenly seemed less forbidding.

Further ahead, in the middle of the small forest of towers, Eklund noticed the pedestal, and on it a waiting figure, the woman without a face.

Agent: Integrity fully restored. Collectors continue to absorb energy.

Eklund looked around in amazement, searching for the source of the voice.

"The voice is coming from the control center of the capsule," Raimon explained.

There was a whirring and chirping above them as the thousands of net-weavers left their shimmering construct and returned to the towers through the openings.

Movement on the platform caught Eklund's attention. The figure who had been sitting on a bench there rose to her feet.

"She's expecting us," Raimon said. "Come." He reached for Eklund's hand, and the boy and the old man approached the open area in the center of the tower grove.

Agent: The seed is awake. Defensives are active.

"What does that mean?" asked Eklund.

"It means we're out of time." Raimon walked faster, through the light of the web that condensed around him. The platform was his destination.

Agent: The seed's defensives have separated the local solar system. Restriction in effect. Intention: Increase potential.

Raimon was running now, so fast that Eklund couldn't keep up. There was no pain in his back, but he still carried the burden of age.

Agent: Repristination of seed complete. Completion of missing components. Commencing transfer.

Agent: Critical situation. Urgency.

Urgency, echoed Eklund as he tried to walk, watching the distance to Raimon grow. This was how he had always imagined the voice of the World Soul: a voice that drowned out everything else, even if it only whispered, that immediately dominated every thought and feeling when it sounded. He looked up at the white towers that supported the web spun by the insectoids like a shining roof, raised his eyes to the hole in the sky where seventeen eyes stared down... And suddenly, while he was still putting one foot in front of the other as fast as he could, Eklund realized that he had spent his whole life forming a false image of the World Soul. He knew this now, but this realization was not accompanied by disappointment, for he knew that he would soon be able to replace the wrong image with the right one.

Agent: Urgency. Reaction required.

The wind from outside reached the white spindles, then the platform with the figure. Eklund panted as he walked with difficulty - at least this time he didn't feel any increasing resistance as he followed Raimon.

And then he saw another figure.

It staggered out from behind the platform, a deformed creature walking on two crooked legs, its brown body bloated, its arms long and scrawny. One half of its face looked half-burned, the other a jumble of fiery red scars. Scraps of leathery clothing clung to the creature as it staggered toward Raimon, a claw-like hand outstretched.

The mouth, which looked like a wound on its face, opened. "Help me," the creature cried. "Please... help me..."

About fifty feet separated Eklund from Raimon when the boy stopped in front of the pedestal and turned to face the creature.

Agent: Urgency. Change of seed location.

"Look out!" cried Eklund, who knew again, though the source of the knowledge remained hidden from him. "Look out, Raimon. It's Lutor!"

The creature glanced in his direction and hissed something Eklund did not understand. Then it took another step towards Raimon, raised its hand again...

And jumped.

Muscles bulged in its previously thin legs as the creature launched itself and flew towards Raimon, arms outstretched.

Eklund stopped, startled. He was aware in an intense, almost painful way: the next few seconds would decide everything, not only his life but also things beyond his current range of experience and imagination. The wind grew stronger, and Eklund suddenly remembered having experienced it during his first visit to this place in Elysium, just before returning to the citadel. The glowing net, spun over the Agent's seventeen towers - wasn't it supposed to shield this area? Or did it serve some other purpose altogether? Did the wind also indicate that their visit to the world above the world was coming to an end?

"Raimon...," Eklund managed to say.

The boy, standing in front of the pedestal, watched the approaching creature, which slowed down, slower and slower, until it stopped so close to Raimon that only a few inches separated its clawed hands from the boy's face.

Agent: The seed's offensive activity is evolving. Defensives must be activated and controlled.

The woman at the top of the platform stood at the railing, her vacant face turned toward the events below as if she could see them.

"Now you see yourself as you are," Raimon said. "What you really are."

I am Kordun. Eklund heard the voice in the power of Elysium. And I will defeat you, Echna. I am... I am...

The creature sank to the ground and morphed into an amorphous, pulsating mass of tissue.

I am Kordun... I am Lutor... I... help me!

Raimon stepped into the pile of trembling, quivering organic mass and... grew. He assimilated the tissue, absorbed what had been Lutor, integrated it into his own body, transformed the boy into a young man. His clothes tore and fell from him, but such things no longer mattered. Both circles closed, the great and the small, here and now.

A wail went through Elysium, followed by relief - Lutor's last individual sensations before he was completely absorbed into Raimon.

The young man turned to Eklund and held out a hand, just as he had done to the creature before, and for a terrible moment the old man feared that he, too, would become a part of Raimon, just as Lutor had.

"Come," he heard then. "She wants to see you."

Raimon walked up the stairs to the platform, and Eklund followed. The faceless woman turned to them.

She didn't look quite as old as when they first met, but she was wearing the same blue-black, stained robe. She silently raised her arms and Raimon approached her, letting himself be embraced like a son who had returned to his mother. Then he stepped back a little, felt with his hand for the empty face and touched it. And where his fingertips glided over the skin, wrinkles disappeared, eyes, a nose and a mouth formed. A human face emerged, but Eklund knew it was not that of a human woman. In her big brown eyes he saw more wisdom than a man could gather in a thousand years - those eyes had seen things he could not imagine.

"You brought him to me, Eklund," the woman said in a voice as soft as velvet. "I am very grateful to you."

She approached him, no longer old, but young, enveloped in an aura of mature, eternal youth. And she embraced him as she had embraced Raimon before, like a son who had returned home after a long time.

Eklund realized that he had come to the end of the path he had been on for nearly a hundred years. He was not at the end of his life, but at the end of the path that had been set for him from the moment he first touched the power of Elysium. Her power.

"Who are you?"

Hand in hand they stood, the woman and the young man Raimon had become, like mother and son. Which, in a way, they were.

"I am KiTamarani," the woman answered. "Raimon awakened me and gave me back what I was missing." She raised a hand to her face. "I can see and hear again."

Agent: Seed offensive activity development continues. Change of location. Highest priority.

"Yes," KiTamarani said. "I know." She stretched both hands toward the web above the agent's white spindles, and its glow grew brighter, a shimmer and glow that dissolved everything, that absorbed everything...

White light surrounded Eklund and he realized that he was part of the power that filled Elysium and that it came from her, from Counselor KiTamarani. Something like music vibrated through him, and as soon as his thoughts formed a question, the answer drifted toward him. He heard the cosmic strings still vibrating with the sound of creation, singing the song of life, the song of purpose. He had experienced the meaning of his own existence, fulfilled his mission, and this realization filled him with deep, transcendental satisfaction. It had been clear to him from the beginning that there was a super-soul, which he had imagined as the "World Soul," and now he knew the name of that entity: KiTamarani. For millions of years she had been shaping the life on Kerberos, acting as its messenger and helper, a development that culminated in the manifestation of Raimon.

Eklund realized this was a new beginning. Another path lay before him, much longer than the first, lined with miracles, and Eklund had just taken the first step.

Time lapse

17 APRIL 421 SN, 10:29

Kerberos

Valdorian knew that he had been used, and perhaps it was the anger that grew from this realization that allowed him to save a part of himself from slavery. This last free mental fragment had to hide because the "game" wanted all of him, like a hungry creature that wouldn't give up even the last morsel. It hid behind submissive thoughts and watched, waiting for its chance.

It begins, a voice whispered, and Valdorian guessed it belonged to Olkin. But here, in the game, it sounded different.

He had the impression of floating, surrounded by impenetrable darkness, and as he looked out, he noticed contours in the black, the outlines of objects: Poles, straight and crooked; triangles, squares and rectangles; polygons. Colors joined the shapes, the primary colors of the spectrum and numerous shades. The strangeness in Valdorian's consciousness expanded, and suddenly he knew what was important. He began to move and connect the geometric shapes. As he reached for them, certain places would light up, indicating points of connection with other shapes.

"This is easy," said the mentally bound Valdorian with a satisfaction that the free, hidden fragment did not share - he almost felt like a child playing with a pseudo-real construction set.

This is the beginning, it whispered.

More shapes appeared, more and more, and Valdorian connected them with a knowledge that was not his own: rods with triangles, where the bright connecting points shone; squares with octahedrons; rectangles with pyramids. Blue and green, red and yellow, orange and violet, and all the other colors in between - they all had to be placed in their proper places. In the darkness, a framework began to emerge, shrinking away from the colors, a geometric meta-form, like a labyrinth stretching out in three dimensions. Sometimes connected shapes broke apart, but when that happened, Valdorian returned and repaired them, reconnecting them.

His free self-fragment gathered sensory impressions and information and tried to understand them. It sensed that the colors of the shapes were more than just colorful markings - they provided information about the reality of paths that stretched through time and space. The first realization came: The shapes and colors served to chart a course that led not only through space and time but through countless space-time alternatives.

You are the wayfinder, Olkin had said, and Valdorian recognized the strange, twisted, mocking irony in those words. Lidia, who flew a Kantaki ship... Now he, too, had become a pilot, preparing to steer the seed of the Omnivore, to take it where it was needed: to the Void, to the dungeon of the Temporals...

Agorax/Agoron ... The Temporal had betrayed him. The rejuvenation, the time key... That had been the goal from the beginning: the integration of Valdorian into the game, the completion of the control mechanisms and the operational potential of the Omnivore seed. The tool had just been a tool all along, it had never been anything else.

Valdorian flew through the growing scaffold, which reminded him of a highly complex molecular model - or the double helix of DNA - expanding and repairing. He was showing the Omnivore the way to the Void, past the Kantaki's time traps, using the link between himself and Agoron. That was his task as a wayfinder, as the Omnivore's navigator.

His free self-fragment, crouched in the farthest corner of his enslaved consciousness, wondered what would become of him when his task was done... The unfree Valdorian did not dwell on such thoughts. All his mental potential was used to construct the framework of the path, to connect the right geometric shapes in the right places.

Sometimes he thought he could see the shadows and silhouettes of the other pieces in the growing structures. How many were there? Trapped, abused, instrumentalized, all part of a machine that interlocked mind and matter and in turn part of a larger, higher something that connected the mental world to the physical world. The observing self-fragment realized that what Olkin called "play" was more than just the control center of the Omnivore seed; it performed the functions of a brain. Valdorian was the wayfinder, and the other players took care of other necessary things: internal and external perception, energy, mobility, attack and defense. The pieces - the different parts of the brain, so to speak - were controlled by Olkin and the players, but their mental potential was also manipulated from outside. The active phase of the game, the interaction of the players' functions, created the semi-consciousness of the Omnivore, more than an instinct, but less than a self, lacking a clear sense of self. The entity that surrounded Valdorian was not intelligent; it borrowed intelligence from others.

Olkin ... The free fragment of Valdorian wondered who he was. The soul of the Omnivore seed? Its inner identity? Or was the dwarf just a tool? And by what criteria did he choose the players? Olkin had made Edwald Emmerson disappear on the grounds that he was not a suitable player. Did the game require a certain mental disposition?

While the enslaved Valdorian continued to work on the scaffolding, paying more and more attention to the color compositions that provided information about the density of reality, the self-fragment vaguely sensed a new, completely different external influence that had nothing to do with the game. A strong consciousness seemed to want to reach him - a chance?

Blue rods matched red rectangles and green squares, but not small yellow pyramids. Valdorian grabbed the shapes and put them together, orienting himself to the voice of the Temporal, still whispering from the distant time dungeon. He sensed that the Omnivore was also on the move. It began to move through the sediments, slipping through the depths of a sea as dark as itself, rising toward the light...

Again, the free remnant of Valdorian felt the external influence, and for a split second he thought he saw a golden star. He wondered if this was really the chance he had hoped for and if he dared to leave his hiding place.

The enslaved Valdorian also seemed to sense something and stayed in the colorful scaffolding that stretched endlessly in all directions. The self-fragment saw an opportune moment and jumped towards the alien influence.

Thoughts and feelings expanded and the other Valdorian, the wayfinder, was swept along.

He found himself on the rocky shore of a lake that looked like mercury, in the hot glow of something burning at the zenith of a black sky that was not a sun. Behind him loomed the dark cone of the center, and he saw an opening form at its base and someone step out: Olkin.

"Come back!" the dwarf shouted, and Valdorian felt his body wanting to obey. He leapt before his own body could betray him.

The silvery liquid was neither warm nor cold, wrapped around him like comfortable clothing. Valdorian swam and opened his narrowed eyes after a few seconds. A silvery world stretched around him in all directions, with no sign of up or down. He let out a small breath to let the bubbles show him the way up, but they just disappeared into the silver.

Valdorian managed to hold his breath for nearly a minute. Then his mouth opened by itself and filled with silvery liquid that also entered his lungs. Fear and terror exploded inside him, and once again he felt robbed of his freedom and his life.

He... died...

...and was reborn in a room without windows or doors, as gray as his soul. He immediately began to gag and vomit, emptying not only his stomach but also his lungs. And out of the vomit, brown and silver, grew a scrawny, hunchbacked figure.

"You tried to escape," Olkin said. A scrawny finger touched Valdorian, and pain flared inside him, an agony that spared no cell of his body and burned through his spine. "No one escapes the game."

A howl and shriek traveled through the gray room, coming from Valdorian and returning to him, a hurricane of his pain, and when he could see again, he was back in the scaffold, guiding and directing without a will of his own.

// Defensive and offensive need full orientation potential\\, a voice sounded inside him that seemed to belong to his thoughts, but had a different mental flavor // Temporal transfer required. \\

Faces hovered above the game, beyond the scaffolding, large as planets and suns, the players as enslaved as himself. Jonathan, his son, the others...

Valdorian still faintly felt the alien influence as he reached out and connected the shapes faster than before. At the same time, the alien presence in his mind grew stronger and stronger, now giving rise to thoughts that bore the flavor of his own. Something in his environment had changed, no longer allowing him direct contact with the external force. He tried to separate his still free fragment from the servility and realized that he had made a mistake. It would have been better to wait, to gather more information, to try to better understand the inner workings of the game. Now his free fragment was bound to the instrumentalized self and had to accompany him on his way to the Void.

At some point he saw with eyes that did not belong to him and heard with ears that did not belong to his body. He rose from the sea and quickly gained altitude, seeing the city of Chiron below him and hearing the thunder of the engines of interplanetary battleships, his ships, the fleet with which he had come to Kerberos.

// Transfer energy is being gathered. \\

Wisps of cloud swept past Valdorian, and deep below, in the blue of the Reef Sea, he saw a golden glow. Something else, the second artifact - the counselor, he knew - was also rising. The ocean began to churn, disturbed not by the mass of the golden star, but by the hyperdimensional eddies caused by the fragment.

Tall waves formed, rolling toward the megacity on the shore...

The black universe about to welcome something even blacker.

"Find the way," Olkin said beyond the membrane that separated the game from the round table of players. "Find the way to the Void."

Again Valdorian saw with eyes that were not his, and he saw patterns, not in space, but in time. Patterns repeated in the colors of the scaffolding, pointing to colored shafts that stretched through time, connected by temporal capillaries - each of them leading into a different sea of time, into a different continuum of eras, linear and non-linear.

Valdorian took a deep breath, absorbing a power that didn't belong to him any more than these eyes and ears. He reached for the transfer energy and it gave him a pleasant feeling.

He smiled - and was startled by the smile, for something inside him felt like a slave who had taken a liking to his chains.

The yellow star followed him through the planet's atmosphere, and a Power was still emanating from it, trying to make contact with him. It faded as dozens of Hefok cannons blasted destructive energy at the Counselor's capsule. The beams did not reach the star, nor did the swarms of missiles that raced through space like angry cosmic hornets - they fell into an entropy trench in front of the yellow star and disappeared.

The Counselor's capsule accelerated and approached, ignoring the Arsenal Fleet battleships that continued to fire. Something reached out toward the fragment, trying to stop it. Valdorian felt the external influence grow again, and at the same time the alien grew in his mind, expanding between his thoughts and taking full possession of them; the external force could no longer reach him. A part of it - a part of the seed - detached itself and leapt towards the yellow star without disappearing into the entropy pit. The shard passed over it and hit the capsule, one of the seventeen long spikes, which then changed color.

The yellow star remained behind the emergent Omnivore.

Valdorian rejoiced in the success of the offensive and wondered if it was really his own joy. He sensed the waiting of the other players, and Olkin's face appeared in the sky above his game arena.

"Find the way," the dwarf repeated. "Find the way to the Void."

The planet Kerberos and the bubble that separated the Hades system from the rest of the universe vanished. Fingers touched the membrane, the fingers of Jonathan, the autocrat, and the other players, and the contact caused the remaining pieces to come to life. Valdorian felt them become active in their own way, without him being able to see them. He also felt the seed's mobility increase. More shapes appeared directly in front of Valdorian, one green, the other blood red, and he pressed their glowing contact points together. Directly above him, a crimson shaft opened and the front part of the scaffold protruded into it, pointing the way to its destination. The separation bubble became an energy catapult, hurling the seed into the tunnel through time.

Triumph vibrated through the young Omnivore's inner cosmos, for it was on its way and had escaped the Counselor.

Through alien eyes and ears, Valdorian observed the walls of the tunnel through which he was plunging. It was composed of temporal capillaries leading to different epochs characterized by different probability patterns.

The geometric shapes Valdorian had put together pointed the way. A deep satisfaction filled him, and the free remnant within him tried to resist this feeling, for it bound him even more tightly to the inner mechanisms of the game.

A voice reached him, Agoron's voice, along with the whispers of the other Eterne in their time dungeon, and alien senses allowed Valdorian to locate the correct capillary.

The creature surrounding him - if it was truly a living being, and the free Valdorian remnant doubted it; it felt neither dead nor alive, more like a primal force - changed shape, growing longer and thinner so that the temporal capillary could contain it. The enslaved Valdorian expanded the navigational framework, and suddenly the alien perception showed him a... sea, an ocean of time, through which the young Omnivore swam as a black ray, past whirlpools of danger. The Kantaki had created them after the Time War to secure the Void and prevent the Eterne from escaping. Ahead, a gray sphere became visible, crisscrossed with thin cracks from which Agoron's voice emanated.

You betrayed me!" the free Valdorian remnant wanted to shout, but it became just a thought, deeply hidden under servility. He felt the ease with which the young Omnivore swam past the Kantaki's time traps, even though they exerted a strong pull. When it reached the gray sphere, part of it turned into a spike that dug into the shield surrounding the Void.

Strange impressions flooded Valdorian's mind, many of which he didn't know what to make of because there was nothing like them in his realm of experience. Others seemed at least vaguely familiar, like the feeling of tensing muscles...

The thin cracks grew longer, wider...

The shield shattered.

It burst apart, and gray debris drifted away through the Sea of Time, as if caught by the shockwave of an explosion, shredding the temporal vortices nearby.

It all happened in complete silence.

In the Void, now without barriers, Valdorian saw a city that gave him the impression of being made of numerous honeycombs, and he knew its name, though he had never heard it: Aeon. In front of and above the city hovered numerous ships, not only those of the Eterne but also the black colossi of the renegade Kantaki.

The Time Fleet.

It is done!" Agoron shouted to his people. It is done! We are free!

The time ships of the Eterne and the black giants of the renegade Kantaki began to move.

Valdorian's eyelids rose and fell, a blink...

Darkness surrounded him, and he stood on a walkway that gave way like rubber beneath him when he moved. His body, he was back in his rejuvenated body.

"You're not needed right now," Olkin said at his side. "You can rest."

The small, shriveled hominid pointed to a cocoon at the end of the walkway. Valdorian lifted his eyes and saw hundreds, thousands, even tens of thousands of other cocoons in a cavernous space that seemed to pulsate, grow, and then shrink again. There was a kind of loud silence, a screaming silence that spoke of despair. How many creatures were trapped here, resting as living tools on call?

"I... don't... want... to..." he managed to say, but his legs were already moving. His body did not obey him.

The cocoon absorbed him and its opening closed over him. The last thing he saw was Olkin's face, his long, pointed nose and large green-brown eyes. "It doesn't matter what you want," he said. "You will rest until I call you."

From then on, Valdorian's world consisted only of the inside of the cocoon. Darkness enveloped him, and something held... his... thoughts... on...

Departure

17 APRIL 421 SN, 11:04

Kerberos

Brother Eklund wandered through a forest he didn't believe existed, but that didn't stop him from savoring every step, every breath, and the transcendent peace he felt within.

The ground was soft beneath his feet, and the air smelled spicy, like resin, moss, and mushrooms. The trees around him were almost as tall as those in the continental forest of Kerberos, but Eklund knew one thing for certain: there was no danger here. Wherever here was.

He stopped in a small clearing, held out his hands to the sun, and pondered the nature of reality. If a false reality was indistinguishable from the real one, was there any point in trying to tell the difference? In the end, what mattered was how convincingly the senses reported experienced reality, and this forest seemed very, very real.

Eklund turned and followed a path that he knew would take him back to the pond and the house with the water-like walls. Occasionally small twigs snapped under his feet, and once he heard a chirping far above, as if from a bird. Otherwise it was silent, and Eklund absorbed the silence, adding it to his own peace. The circle of his life had come full circle, his task was complete, and this realization brought a satisfaction that gave meaning to every single second of his nearly one hundred years of life. There were many things he didn't understand, and perhaps never would, but that didn't bother him - he had never been so presumptuous as to hope that he would one day find the answers to all his questions. But now he knew the meaning of his life and was happy to have lived it properly. He was one of the privileged few who could look back at the end of their lives with satisfaction, without regrets or complaints, without missing anything. Everything was in its place.

Eklund walked slowly along the path, through the quiet forest, with no pain in his back, and after a quarter of an hour he reached a large clearing with a small waterfall that fed the pond. Raimon was standing on the rocky bank looking into the water. Eklund approached the boy, the young man's back to him.

"Are you all right?"

Raimon did not turn around. He had grown and no longer looked like a twelve-year-old boy, but like a twenty-year-old.

"I'm finally whole," he said.

Eklund stepped to his side and looked into a face that seemed very serious, but also somehow liberated. It was no longer Raimon's face, but that of another person.

One person.

But the reflection in the water showed a face that kept changing, showing dozens of men and women, including Lutor's grimace.

"They are all in me," Raimon said. "They are me. We are me, all together. And at the same time, I alone am me. Does that make sense?"

"I think it does. For you."

"The memories are false, as false as the order to kill."

"What do you remember?"

Raimon was still staring into the water, thinking. "I remember some of what KiTamarani remembers, and her memory isn't complete either. She lost it during the reduction and only got fragments of it back. She..."

He tilted his head to the side, as if listening.

"Here she comes."

Eklund turned and looked at the house with the walls of water he'd seen once before, in Elysium, shortly after Brother Darius' death fifty-two years ago. Small waves rippled through the semi-transparent substance that was neither stone nor metal and felt like jelly. An opening had formed in one wall of the low building, and KiTamarani stepped out, clad in a robe as silvery gray as the walls.

"The agent is repaired," she said.

One step...

... and Raimon and Eklund were standing right in front of the Counselor. Raimon raised his hand, as did KiTamarani, and they touched each other's cheeks, a gesture that seemed very intimate to Eklund, like the embrace of two people who had been searching for each other for a long time and had finally found each other after many years. He moved...

... and stood among the seventeen white towers, not far from the platform where the faceless woman had waited for Raimon. But the ochre-colored wasteland had become a green meadow, and there were no more clouds scurrying across the sky as if fleeing from something. Peace reigned, a peace comparable to the one Eklund felt inside himself.

One of the towers had been discolored, he knew, struck by darkness, but now it seemed pristine white again.

"A fragment of a fragment," said the KiTamarani, standing nearby. "The Omnivore fragment sacrificed a part of itself to escape and get away." Grief flitted across the face that looked so human, yet contained a very different being. "With all my memories, I probably could have held on to it. My I/we is anything but complete."

"But you are alive," Raimon said. He used another word, but something in Eklund replaced it with a familiar one. "You still exist and have awakened. And I am here."

"Yes," KiTamarani replied, smiling. "Yes, you are here."

Eklund looked at the woman and saw something in her brown eyes that touched him deeply, not just a long life, but a cosmic depth. He felt like a child who had only ever seen small pools and was suddenly confronted with an endless ocean. Eklund tried to see KiTamarani less as a person and more as a symbol of something directly related to creation, the beginning of the universe. He felt he was in the presence of a being that combined concepts such as infinity and eternity, an expression of a primal force that came from the fire that had ultimately created everything.

"Where are we?" Eklund asked quietly.

"In the Primordial Self of the Counselor," Raimon said. "With the Agent." He pointed to the white towers, and Eklund walked slowly toward one of them. When he got close enough, an opening formed, and he entered a room where there was bright darkness, a darkness in which he could still see. And while he saw things for which he had no names, he heard a voice telling a thousand stories and telling of creation. He raised his hands and watched as sparks leapt from his fingertips and danced through the webs of the Agent.

You have a decision to make, whispered through the tower.

"I know." Eklund stepped back - and stood beside the house with the walls of water, not far from the pond that had shown Raimon all the faces he held.

One circle had closed. But perhaps another was opening...

"Where does it go from here?" he asked. "Where does the path lead from here?"

KiTamarani stood before him, Raimon at her side.

"A long journey awaits us," the Counselor said, and her brown eyes seemed to open like gates to the universe. "Without completing my I/We, it is pointless to follow the Omnivore seed - I would not survive a confrontation with it. I must return to the Council to complete the reduction and absorb all memories in order to be fully myself again.

She had a similar path ahead of her as Raimon, only hers was much, much longer.

"Where would you like to go?" KiTamarani asked gently, and Eklund felt Raimon's gaze on him as well.

He had no one, except maybe Elisabeth, who certainly played a special role in his life. But he had no family, no relatives, no one who needed him. Freedom stretched out before him at the end of his life, and that freedom allowed him to make a decision he might not have made under other circumstances.

Agent: Ready.

"I want to go with you," he said. "I want to go with you."

KiTamarani and Raimon exchanged glances.

"You brought him to me," said the Counselor. "How could I not grant your wish?"

KiTamarani held the hands of the human and the metamorph, Eklund to her left and Raimon to her right, and together they entered the house with the walls of water.

Perspectives

17 APRIL 421 SN, 11:30

Kerberos

Elisabeth had just arrived at the hospital when the world around her began to tremble. At first she thought she was experiencing dizziness, but then she realized that the ground beneath her was shaking. She grabbed the railing of the porch steps with both hands and heard the terrified screams of the people around her. A low rumble came from the distance and something obscured the light of the sun. Elisabeth looked toward the Reef Sea and saw something black rise into the sky. It looked like a cloud that was being torn by different winds, causing it to change shape again and again. The cloud was followed by a ... golden star. It rose more slowly and had just left the sea behind when the black one disappeared into space.

The light returned, reflecting off the spikes of the star, which accelerated, also hurtling toward the firmament. Elisabeth tried to think clearly. She had just experienced a shock, caused by the terrible encounter with Lutor in her apartment, and now she was observing something that seemed like a hallucination. She blinked several times, but the golden star remained in the sky, rising higher and higher...

Then she saw the waves. They towered high as they rolled from the open sea towards the city, higher than ever before. The other people nearby saw them, too, and began to run, but Elisabeth stopped on the steps, her eyes wide with astonishment. She realized she was witnessing events that were unique - and could be devastating.

The low rumble in the distance swelled, became thunder, and grew closer.

The high waves reached the harbor, and Elisabeth watched as ships and boats were lifted and swept away by the torrents. A crash joined the thunder as the breaking waves smashed buildings.

At last the doctor's paralysis lifted and she hurried up the stairs and into the hospital. The corridors and wards were a chaotic jumble of nurses and patients, and Elisabeth shouted: "We need to evacuate the hospital immediately!

"It's too late for that," someone replied. "Besides, many of the patients are bedridden. We can only hope that the water doesn't rise too high."

Elisabeth took these words as her cue to step back out onto the porch. The thunder turned into a loud hissing sound as the water rose rapidly beneath the stilted buildings. It bubbled, seemed to boil, and carried debris from the destroyed buildings. Elisabeth did not see the shuttles and battleships of the soldiers above the city, did not hear the sirens and screams. The water occupied all her attention, the swirls in it, the foam, the pieces of rubble and animal carcasses, a body here... It reached her feet and climbed up, flowing through the doors into the hospital. When it touched the doctor's knees, the water paused as if undecided, flowing and sloshing, then decided to flow back out to sea.

A fist released from Elisabeth's heart and she watched, deeply relieved, as the water level dropped again.

She raised her head, looked across the delta and watched the tide recede. She lowered her eyes and noticed a mudskipper wriggling on the porch next to her. She carefully kicked it over the edge and into the water.

"The first patient has been helped," she said, turning and entering the hospital to help other, human patients. There was a lot of work waiting for her.

Edwald Emmerson stood on the Pillion Mountains, three thousand feet above the sea, and watched something black rise. A shadow of the horror that had shaken him at the bottom of the sea and killed Raphael trembled inside him, and for a few seconds he wrestled with his own feelings and what he was seeing as reality. Could he believe his eyes? Was this really happening? He vaguely remembered a round room and a round table with a strange device, the autocrat sitting next to him, completely frozen, Valdorian ... And then suddenly he was standing in this place, high up on the rock face, without knowing who or what had brought him here.

High waves formed under the black thing, and a star appeared, as yellow as ... as the artifact Emmerson had seen and touched in the station at the bottom of the sea. The star followed the dark one, but more slowly, and both disappeared beyond the planet's atmosphere. Emmerson's gaze stayed up, and he saw a flicker and flash like explosions in nearby space.

Below, a tidal wave rolled toward the city, reaching the autocrat's artificial island, lifting it, tipping it aside...

Stokkart's colorful, tacky mansion sank into the churning sea, and Emmerson nodded in satisfaction. "Perhaps there is such a thing as justice after all," he said quietly.

He watched the destruction caused by the high waves on the outskirts of the city and in the delta. He thought of the chaos in Chiron when the tidal wave destroyed buildings and caused the water to rise everywhere. At this height, there was only a dull rumble, and the shuttles and battleships above the city looked like gray flies.

Then the tide returned to the sea, and Emmerson listened to a silence that made everything seem surreal. He felt the wind, saw the sun in the sky, and wondered if what he had seen and experienced in the last few hours had really happened. He thought of the two huge artifacts that had risen from the sedimentary rock at the bottom of the ocean after millions of years. Shouldn't that have caused a lot of seismic activity? How had the artifacts broken through the rock?

Questions that could not be answered at the moment.

Finally, Emmerson turned around, found a shaft of light from the citadel between the rocks, and began his descent.

Sitting in the office of the NHD planetary director, Edwald Emmerson saw an Acheron that looked surprisingly familiar. From this perspective, the world didn't seem to have changed at all. But Emmerson knew that Kerberos would never be the same. Which he didn't regret at all. He was still trying to come to terms with his recent experiences when Elroy Tobias walked in.

"It's not just the autocrat that's gone," he said. "There's no sign of Turannen, Valdorian, Jonathan, Benjamin or Dokkar."

In his mind's eye, Emmerson saw the figure on the round table again, in that other world, a shadow of which lingered in his mind.

"Let's hope they stay gone," he muttered.

Elroy glanced at the infonaut's display in his hands. "The Hades system is no longer isolated. The barrier that separated it from the rest of the universe is gone."

Emmerson nodded. "Another piece of good news."

"It gets even better." Elroy Tobias allowed himself a smile. "The drugs are no longer effective."

Emmerson gave him a questioning look.

"The first reports came in an hour ago and have since been confirmed. The drugs made from Kerberos organisms no longer work."

Emmerson smiled. "We are free of the autocrat and the drugs. Could we have hoped for more?" He stood up. "Let us try to bring order to this world."

Epilogue

RIPPLING TIME, FRACTURING SPACE

Agoron rested in the still fertile Ovum of the Akida, the flagship of the Time Fleet, connected to all its systems, both active and dormant. Ancient knowledge continued to flow into him, and part of his consciousness was still busy absorbing it, sorting it, understanding it. He knew that the Akida had been the first ship the Eterne had received as a gift from the Exalted One of Dominion immediately after the First Conflict. It had become the mother of the Time Fleet: Her ovum had produced over a thousand morulae, semi-intelligent aggregates that were more time machines than starships. Nearly all of those time ships had been lost towards the end of the war against the Kantaki and Feyn, but a lucky coincidence had saved the Akida from destruction. During their imprisonment in the Void, the Akida's still-functional ovum had given birth to one hundred and forty-nine morulae, which had grown into new ships, machine-like creatures that had begun to develop a collective intelligence. The Aeonaries before Agoron had not dared to stimulate the Ovum of Akida to greater fertility, for if it were damaged by overuse, the renewal of the Time Fleet would no longer be possible. Through the connections, Agoron sensed the readiness of the Ovum, but also its age, which deserved respect and consideration.

One hundred and seventy-one ships numbered in the Time Fleet of the Eterne, joined by twenty-nine Kantaki colossi. The honeycomb city at the center of the Void was nearly empty - only a few guardians remained, charged with the honorable task of preserving Aeon. All other Eterne were in the trance rooms of the ships, ready for the journey through space and time. Only the other six seculars of the Circle of Seven and the pilots were fully conscious, along with a few observers in the eyes and ears of the ships.

As Agoron continued to absorb ancient knowledge and process it with cool rationality, he sent his thoughts out and saw the spindly ships of the Time Fleet alongside the dark giants of the Kantaki. Close behind them stretched the gray of the shield through whose narrow cracks Agoron had sent his message into the future.

The seed was on its way. Not much longer, not much longer...

Agoron's thoughts returned as he noticed something in the continuous stream of data: a tiny gap where it felt like there shouldn't be one. He remembered noticing something similar once before, in the memory chamber, during the connection to the information junction. False data? Could it be that some of the transmitted information had been manipulated? Such a thought seemed ... monstrous to him. Ancient knowledge was absolute truth - all Eterne assumed that. This basic principle was the foundation of their thought structures. Should it be questioned? And why was he the only one to notice something? The emanations of the other six seculars did not indicate that they doubted the truth of the ancient knowledge.

Agoron focused his inner gaze on the gap in the data stream, on the flaw, but before he could figure it out, It arrived.

The shield of the Void shattered.

The gray barrier shattered into myriad shards, and a temporal hurricane swept them away, scattering them across the eons. The young Omnivore shredded the nearby vortexes, traps set by the Kantaki to react to the Eterne's time ships, but they did little to harm It.

The time has come, Agoron told the other seculars and pilots. He forgot about the missing part of the data stream and allowed himself to rejoice. Our captivity has ended.

The Time Fleet of the Eterne, consisting of one hundred and seventy-one long spindles, began to move, accompanied by the twenty-nine ships of the renegade Kantaki. The young Omnivore, with Valdorian as wayfinder, led them to the next time shafts and neutralized more vortexes.

Agoron guided the Akida through his connections to the Ovum and sensed excitement in the semi-intelligent machine. The collective of the fleet knew something important was happening, and the Eterne in the trance rooms gathered their strength for the first transfer.

To the future.

To the time of the final conflict.

A new time war was about to begin.

Publisher's afterword

Dear readers,

We hope that Andreas once more was able to offer an interesting new look at science fiction – and at a possible future for humanity. We were amazed at how easily we were able to find our way back into this universe, even though some time had passed since the first volume. But that only confirms how deeply impressed we were by the first volume with the wonderful images and movies that were created in our heads while reading. And the author creates these fascinating images and films again in this story. We read many sentences two or three times, not because we didn't understand them, but because the choice of words for moods, emotions and events was so special that we could really feel and experience them. What about you? Care to share your experience with us? Then drop us a line or two at kdp@a7lbooks.com or - even better - write a review at a7lbooks.com/links/4010611. Thanks a lot!

We, that's Brandon Q. Morris and Joshua T. Calvert. Probably you already read a book by one of us. We chose Andreas' book to publish in our company because it fits our readership so well.

May we inform you about more of his books? If so, please sign up for our newsletter at a7lbooks.com/abrandhorst/. As a bonus, you will get two free e-books and the Diaries of Rungard Avar Valdorian that he wrote between the years 302 SN and 421 SN. Don't worry, we won't send you the whole 3000 page folders of his diaries but only the most important moments he shared with us.

Also, Andreas invites you to take a look at his homepage at

https://www.andreasbrandhorst.de

Yes, there's an english section if you click on the appropriate button!

If you'd like to follow him directly, you can request his newsletter here (you'll get the diaries as well):

www.andreasbrandhorst.de/english-newsletter/

Thank you so much!

Brandon Q. Morris & Joshua T. Calvert

PS: "Time War", the last part of the trilogy, is available here:

a7lbooks.com/links/4010690

Book Recommendations from A7L

The Disturbance by Brandon Q. Morris

No one has ever ventured deeper into space than the four astronauts of Shepherd-1. The aim of their mission: to witness the creation of the cosmos. Using the sun as a lens, they are to align a flock of probes in such a way that the moment of the Big Bang becomes visible.

For astronomer Christine, this is a dream come true. So she is bitterly disappointed when the first images are obscured by a kind of veil that prevents any insight. She works obsessively to find a solution, but when she finally succeeds in lifting the veil, she sees something that would have better been kept hidden…

a7lbooks.com/links/2414404

The Object, by Joshua T. Calvert

Deep space holds secrets…

…and one astronomer for NASA has found a big one.

But it’s not what she thinks.

Dr. Melody Adams, a physicist at the Gemini North Observatory, was studying Pluto in the telescope data and it struck her as odd. The numbers didn’t make sense. Could there be an extraterrestrial object in our solar system?

She followed protocol. The scientific community didn’t believe her. And before she knew what happened, her career was over.

The day that changed Melody’s life was like any other over the previous two years. She’d found she had a gift for writing and her career as an author had almost healed the pain of losing her job. When the Secret Service rang her bell, everything changed.

Something was nearing Saturn…

…and it was slowing down.

Had she been right about the object?

You’ll love this hard science fiction novel because Melody is about to find out that everything she knew about space and time was wrong.

a7lbooks.com/links/3945729

The Genesis Signal, by Dominic A. Meier

2077. In the greatest feat of strength in history, 900 chosen people are put into cryogenic sleep in orbit to provide Earth with a plan B in the event of a global catastrophe. One of them is engineer Adrian Morris.

When he awakens from cryostasis, he is horrified to discover that parts of the Genesis space station have been destroyed. Almost 2000 years have passed and the planet he once called home seems to have been completely devastated. Adrian and the other survivors decide to return to Earth to search for answers among the ruins. But when they get there, they receive a mysterious signal that does not originate in the solar system …

a7lbooks.com/links/4047941

The Shock Trooper, by Jayden R. Cox

Humanity has colonized the Milky Way and its first encounter with an old alien race has not been peaceful.

The merciless Seisossa, a lizard-like race, seem to have humans at the top of their menu. But the brave men and women of the Imperial Marines throw themselves against the attackers every day to protect the human colonies from the horrors that wait in the dark.

Among them is Captain John James Johnson. His preferred area of operation is the frontline. No mission is too hot for him, no obstacle too big. The word "impossible" does not exist in his vocabulary. With his renowned valor and straightforwardness, he is the Empire’s first choice for the hardest missions.

His life and that of his unit suddenly take a dangerous turn when the Empress sends them on a secret mission that will decide the fate of the Empire, and may just end the war with the Seisossa at the same time.

a7lbooks.com/links/3697301

Sol in Flames, by Ralph Edenhofer

In the 23rd century there is only turmoil. Large corporations have established numerous colonies in the solar system, exploiting it with their never ending hunger for resources. To survive the hostile environment in space and on a largely devastated Earth, the corporations breed genetically modified workers - disdainfully called 'mutants'.

When mutant children are found on Mars that appear to have been born naturally, the long-believed fact that mutants cannot reproduce is exposed as a lie. Chaos and war seem to be inevitable.

Kareena Toran, security officer on Mars, tries to fight the collapse of her homeworld by uncovering the truth behind the alleged mutant-babies. On Earth, beta-class mutant Skip gets n trouble when he starts to stand up for the rights of his fellow mutants who get into the crosshairs of the ruthless corporate armies. At the end of his and Kareenas struggle lies either a brighter future for mankind or an endless war that will devour them all.

a7lbooks.com/links/3418764

Glossary

Abissale - This is what the Kantaki call the Omnivore, a reality-eating entity that has permeated the universe since the beginning of time and space, creating non-linear time.

Acheron - A jungle river on the one giant continent of Kerberos.

Adlats - NHD creatures that consume vermin, dirt and other contaminants in homes.

Aeonar - Head of the Circle of Seven among the Temporals (Eterne).

Agorax/Agoron - A Temporal. Performs the tasks of a Suggester.

Aidon - A water world like Aquaria, in the Pirros system. Inhabited by New Humans. Within its rings are the Aidon shipyards.

Akuha - The language of the Akuhashi.

Akuhan - A world of the Akuhashi. Jonathan Fentur is from there.

Akuhashi - Servants of the Kantaki. They are said to live in an almost symbiotic relationship with the Kantaki. They act as mediators between the Kantaki and all other races.

Algae puree - A kind of "compote" made from algae.

Alliance - Fierce opponents of the Consortium, consisting of hundreds of individual business groups and corporations, led by Enbert Dokkar, who lost nearly his entire family in a sabotage attack by the Consortium.

Alternate worlds - Virtual Realities.

Ambiental Bubbles - Necessary for creatures that cannot survive in an oxygen-nitrogen atmosphere; usually float on levitator pads.

Ambiental Field - Force field with special ambient conditions inside.

Aquaria - Planet whose seas are inhabited by deep-sea jellyfish, from whose stomachs a rare anesthetic is extracted.

Aquawagon - Vehicle used on Tintiran to travel across the seas.

Arhr, Father - A Kantaki.

Arkan - An elderly police officer who conducts investigations in the Citadel.

Arsenal planets - Three in total; secret project of Cordoban’s. They store weapons, equipment, and most importantly, "sleepers" in sub-planetary stasis chambers: thousands of genetically engineered soldiers, absolutely loyal, unshakable, ready to sacrifice themselves in battle at any time.

Autarks - Rank above the subalterns in the social hierarchy of most human worlds. Their ancestors were able to pay their own way to the first off-world colonies and establish an independent life there. During the fourth and fifth centuries SN, this term is used primarily to refer to people who do not perform paid labor.

Autocrat - Constantine Alexander Stokkart, nominal leader of Kerberos.

Base Mass - Obtained from algae sponges and used as a base for creating artificial creatures (Adlats).

Boris - Member of the scientific team aboard the MeteoTech-14 orbital station.

Borkard - A member of the Enlightened Community on Kerberos, a Christian fundamentalist from Shanhall.

Brrin, Father - Ancient Kantaki on Munghar, a timekeeper.

Caravel - Hotel in Chiron.

Cataract, Great - An Acheron waterfall on Kerberos.

Channel - A pillar of hyperdimensional energy on Munghar. Formerly used by the Kantaki to communicate with the Council, it is now a tool of the Timekeepers.

Chiron - Capital of Kerberos, city of millions in the delta of the Acheron River.

Circle - Families of the Temporals.

Circle of Seven - Governing body of the Temporals.

Cobalt Fly - Shimmering blue insect on Kerberos.

Combat Spider - A mechanical device that greatly increases a person's combat potential. It looks like a spider-like monster made of metal and synthomass: a bucket seat surrounded by motors, compact generators, batteries, special servos, weapon and sensor systems, grappling arms, and six telescoping legs that allow controlled movement in any terrain. The battle armor also includes a levitator.

Consistory of the Consortium - The Consistory, like a "council", is where representatives of all the corporate groups sit and elect the Primus inter Pares, the head of the Consortium.

Continental Forest - A jungle that stretches over six thousand miles across the continent of Kerberos to the shores of the Emerald Sea.

Corrector and Repairer - Repair damaged cells of the metamorph.

Creative Circles - The groups of programmers who create the alternate worlds.

Culcar System - A peripheral sector of the Consortium, providing a logistical and administrative center for the outskirts. An industrial center for, among other things, the construction of interplanetary starships.

Dandari - Planetoid in the Kintau system containing an Alliance logistics center; destroyed by a Consortium task force. Arik Dokkar's mother and two brothers were killed.

Data Servo - Powerful computer.

Defensive - Defense center of the Omnivore's core.

Demetrio, Elisabeth - Doctor in a Chiron hospital. A staunch atheist and close friend of Brother Eklund.

Dido - An associate of the autocrat.

DiKastro, Lidia - born 276 SN on Xandor, 4th planet of the Mirlur system, daughter of two nonconformists Roald DiKastro (writer) and Carmellina Diaz (pianist); is training to become a Kantaki pilot.

Direal - Akuhashi interface suit.

Divorator - A creature of the continental forest of Kerberos. Neither plant nor animal, it is a mixture of snail, fungus, and amoeba.

Dohann Nexus - Just under seven thousand light years from the sector of the galaxy colonized by humans.

Dokkar, Enbert - Leader of the Alliance and arch-enemy of Valdorians.

Dominance - Power sphere of dominance. This is where "creations" are prepared.

Drankor - Planet with dust oceans where rafts sail.

Dream Center - A district of the city of Chiron on Kerberos.

Dreamers - Nonconformists who spend most of their time in alternate worlds.

Durant - The birthplace of Brother Xalon. A planet with twice the gravity of Earth.

Earth - Controlled by the Alliance.

Echna - Ruler of the shadow world in Lutor's alternate world.

Eklund, Brother - Member of the enlightened community on Kerberos. A healer.

Election - The members of the Circle of Seven choose their leader, the Aeonar, at the Election.

Elysium - Realm of power from which the healers of Kerberos draw their abilities.

Emerald Sea - The sea north of Kerberos' continental forest.

Emmerson, Edwald - Head of security for the NHD branch on Kerberos.

Enlightened Community - Community of healers on Kerberos.

Eterne - This is what the Temporals call themselves.

Executors - Cells in the metamorph that cause structural changes.

Fentur, Jonathan - Valdorian's personal secretary, jack-of-all-trades, completely reliable.

Fern Palms - Large trees in Chiron on Kerberos.

Feyn - The Feyn live on the other side of the galaxy. They were attacked by the Temporals before humanity, allied with the Kantaki in the Thousand Year Time War, and eventually achieved victory over their enemy from the past.

Filip, Anton - Chief meteorologist aboard the Meteo Tech-14 station in orbit around Kerberos.

Formation Matrix - The equivalent of DNA on Kerberos, programmable, contains a base program.

Ganngan - Alien intelligent species, golem-like.

Genetically Modified - Genetically modified humans, often adapted for specific activities. This term is also used for the New Humans who have colonized extreme worlds.

Gergurrak - Optimistic and ambitious observer of the Eterne.

Girdo - Member of the scientific team aboard the MeteoTech-14 orbital station.

Global Director - Head of the entire New Human Design group, as opposed to the individual planetary directors.

Great Cycle - Kantaki unit of time, equal to approximately one hundred standard years.

Grekki - Intelligent alien species.

Guraki - A planet inhabited in 109 SN, in the Desmendora system, 22 light-years outside the Consortium's sphere of influence, where the first Xurr ruins were found.

Helen - Member of the scientific team aboard the MeteoTech-14 orbital station.

Hogaron - Eterne of the Mintor Circle, a secular member of the Circle of Seven.

Horgh - A species that has also developed faster-than-light space travel technology; they use "jump ships," but they cause mental shockwaves that often cause madness and death in humans. The Horgh is tied to certain interstellar routes called Jump Corridors.

Identer - Used for identification and payment, similar to a credit card.

infonaut - Mini data servo.

Information Center - Information Center in the Memory Chamber of Aeon.

Initial Conflict - The Initial Conflict is what shaped the Eterne into what they are.

Interlingua - The language most people speak.

Jisbo - Father of the young fisherman Sebastian on Kerberos.

Jorrlen 4, Admiral - Commander of the fleet Valdorian flew to the Hades system. The fourth version of this type of soldier.

Judith - Wife of Lukert Turannen.

Kabaea - One of the central worlds of the Alliance, the fourth planet in the Epsilon Eridani system, 10.8 light-years from the Sol system and Earth. Capital Tonkorra. Approximately two billion inhabitants. A world with considerable industrial capacity, but also large nature reserves.

Kantaki - This insectoid race practices faster-than-light space travel, but needs pilots with the "gift" to find the "threads" that connect all things in the universe. The hyper-dimensional tangle of these threads is constantly changing, never the same in nature. The Kantaki have a "Sacred Code" that governs their existence and must be respected by all. They live partially in another dimension and outside the time stream, which gives their pilots relative immortality. For their services, which they offer to other races, they sometimes demand rather strange payments. Passengers and cargo are transported in "transport bubbles".

Kantaki Nexus - Cylindrical space stations belonging to the Kantaki, located inside and outside the galaxy. They are used for the maintenance of Kantaki ships.

K-devices - Devices designed by the Kantaki, equipped with artificial intelligence.

Kerberos - Planet in the Hades system, part of the Consortium. It is home to a branch of New Human Design, which mainly conducts basic research. Kerberos is known for its many narcotics. The nominal head of the government of Kerberos is the Autocrat.

Kontar Circle - The Pergamon Secular is part of this circle.

Kordun - Lutor's identity in the alternate world.

Korran - Opal diver on Kerberos.

Krsah, Mother - Kantaki, one of the Big Five.

Kuiki - Kordun's advisor.

La-Kimesh - Many millions of years ago, these people evolved into an advanced galactic civilization, allied with the Kantaki and sharing their belief in spirit condensed into matter and the five great cosmic ages. Twenty-two million years ago, the La-Kimesh died out, leaving the more than fifty thousand planets they inhabited empty.

Larl, Mother - A Kantaki.

Levitator Cars - Flying vehicles for individual transportation.

Linear and Nonlinear Time - By "linear time" the Kantaki refers to the normal time stream and normal causality universe. If a pilot is not careful, he can end up in "nonlinear time," a maze of parallel universes from which it is difficult to find one's way out.

Linguator - A translation device.

Lion - Pilot of Mother Krsah's ship.

Lorgard, Rubens - Head of the NHD branch on Kerberos.

Lutor - Special representative of Lukert Turannen.

Magnates - The highest rank in the social hierarchy of most human worlds. Magnates run the major interstellar business conglomerates and wield political power.

Mandala - A strange artifact in the Citadel on Kerberos, meditation aid and portal to Elysium.

Memorants - Cells in the formation matrix that store information.

Meridional Ocean - Large ocean on Kerberos, with thousands of large and small islands.

Messenger Substances - These substances are used in the programming of the Formation Matrix and give structure to the cell complex.

Micronauts - Nanoscale machines.

Mirror - The moon of the ringed planet Nurando, in the peripheral sector of the Entente.

Mrreg, Father - The owner of the Kantaki ship whose transport bubble brings Valdorian to the Hades system.

Mrri, Mother - A Kantaki.

Mudskipper - Life form on Kerberos. Its bite is dangerous.

Munghar - Kantaki world, 4800 light-years outside the human-populated galactic regions, Kantaki world of origin with the sun Urirr ("the Guardian").

Needle Rock - A special rock formation just before the Great Cataract in the Acheron River on Kerberos.

Netcatcher - Fish in the Acheron that catches cobalt flies with gill fins that have developed into net-like structures.

New Human Design - Consortium group specializing in genetic manipulation.

Offensive - Offensive center of the omnivore fragment.

Olkin - Creature in the omnivore fragment's control center.

Opal Diver - Type of life form on Kerberos.

Panther Class - Medium sized fighters, delta-shaped and two hundred feet long.

Panthon System - The solar system containing the planet Rodriguez (central branch of the NHD).

Perfid - One of the many drugs on Kerberos.

Pergamon - A Temporal Secular, a member of the Circle of Seven.

Petrokos - Grand Commissioner of the Chiron Police on Kerberos.

Pillion Mountains - Mountains south and east of Chiron on Kerberos, up to three thousand feet high.

Pilot's Dome - The room aboard a Kantaki ship from which the pilot steers the ship through trans-space.

Pioneers - Pioneers explore alien systems and search for colonizable worlds.

Pirros System - The Aidon Shipyards are located in this solar system, in the central sector of the Consortium.

Plasma Drive - Propulsion for shuttles and interplanetary ships, allowing travel at up to eighty percent of the speed of light.

Polar Oceans - Oceans on Kerberos, partially frozen.

Power - Allows the members of the Enlightened Community to become healers.

Predefined - Successor designated by the head of the Circle of Seven.

Preh, Father - A Kantaki.

Premother - An Eterne who carries breeding pods on her back.

Presidential Office - This office is at the disposal of the chairman of the Chiron Urban Symposium on Kerberos.

Prevalence - The force upon which creation is based, consisting of the "prevalents," descendants of the cosmic intelligences of the first, original universe. They created additional universes to sustain life itself.

Prevalent - See Prevalence.

Previtae - Previous existences of the counselors, who continually renew themselves and thus live forever.

Priority Corridor - Kantaki ships fly through one of these P-corridors when they need to get to a communications hub to relay messages to all other ships.

Priority Message - A message sent by a Kantaki ship from a communication hub when it is very important.

Privacy Guarantor - A device that guarantees privacy, similar to a jammer.

Programming Modules - Tissue masses of data and information prepared for the metamorph prototypes. Various identities, structural programs for body forms, etc.

Quinqu - An intelligent alien species.

Raimon - A boy of about twelve years of age on Kerberos.

Raphael - The Autocrat's right-hand man.

Reef Sea - Sea on Kerberos.

Reef Shrimp - Life form on Kerberos.

Resurrection - Genetic treatment that rejuvenates the entire body, also called "revitalization".

Robertson, Willbert - Creator at NHD on Kerberos.

Rodriguez - Planet in the Panthon system; central branch of the NHD.

Rosalinda - An old acquaintance of Brother Eklund.

Sacrium - Part of the trans-space where the Kantaki meditate.

Sandrina - Opal diver on Kerberos.

Scarlet Sea - Equatorial sea on Tintiran.

Sebastian - Young fisherman whom Brother Eklund cured of a very nasty rash two years ago.

Seculars - Immortal temporals. There are only seven.

Sekuritos - The police of Chiron.

Shadow creeper - Predator in the continental forests of Kerberos, with long fangs and poisonous spines.

Shanhall - A planet inhabited primarily by Christian fundamentalists, part of the loose confederation of spiritualist worlds. Originally inhabited by the "Enlightened One" and his followers, who flee the Sol system in 2045 of the Old Era and encounter a Kantaki ship. Feydor is from there.

Shepherd - Leader of the Enlightened Community in the Citadel of Kerberos.

Shrine - Prayer cave in the citadel.

Sovereigns - Rank above the Subalterns and Autarks in the social hierarchy of most human worlds, but below the Magnates. They are former Autarks who have managed to build medium-sized businesses.

Spring Devil - Predator on Kerberos.

Springboards - In the void between galaxies, the Kantaki use these types of devices.

Spur - A weapon used by Kantaki and Feyn against the Temporals and Abissale.

Standard Years - Generalized concept of time, refers to an Earth year.

Storm, Amadeus - Secretary to Lukert Turannen.

Subalterns - Descendants of human colonists whose financial resources were insufficient to establish an independent existence on other planets. They had to borrow money (even for passage in the transport bubble of a Kantaki ship) and contractually agreed to work off the debt. As a result, most of them remained tied to certain economic groups. Only a few subalterns manage to rise in the social hierarchy.

Swarmers - Creatures sent by a Divorator to search for its food.

Sweeper - Small creatures that crawl over the bodies of the Timekeepers on Munghar and rid them of parasites.

Syndrome - Disease caused by parasites on Kerberos.

Tanbert - A Sekuritos.

Taruf - Alien species.

Thornfish - Fish species on Kerberos.

Tiger-class - Battleships, elongated ovals, nearly 300 hundred feet long.

Tintiran - Planet in the Mirlur system, central sector of the Consortium. It was on this planet that Valdorian met Lidia. Tintiran is not only a popular vacation world but also the seat of the Academy of Sciences and Fine Arts. Capital: Bellavista.

Tobias, Elroy - Investigator in Edwald Emmerson's security division of the NHD Kerberos.

Transferer - Vehicles of the Eterne that look like spirals of intertwined rods. They draw their power from time, converting temporal energy into kinetic energy.

Translink - A communications link that covers interplanetary or even interstellar distances and is controlled by the Kantaki.

Trans-space - A type of "hyperspace" through which the Kantaki ships travel.

Transstellar Credit (Transtel) - Currency used not only in the Consortium but also in the other regions of human-populated space.

Tschiowan - Their reality singers created a Sun Gate consisting of twenty-one Red Giants.

Turannen, Lukert - Coordinator of the Consortium and Global Director of the New Human Design Group, fierce rival of Valdorian.

Ulgar, Professor - Exoarchaeologist.

Urban Symposium - "City Council" of Chiron.

Valdorian, Benjamin - Eldest of Valdorians, born in 372 SN.

Valdorian, Hovan Aldritt - Valdorian's father, born 240 SN, died 315 SN, by accident; became Primus inter Pares of the Consortium in 310 SN.

Valdorian, Rungard Avar - Born 274 SN, Primus (common title; official title: "Primus inter Pares", first among equals) of the Consortium.

Wainosh - First Dynasty of Kabaea. Conducted experiments with non-linear time in 2521 of the Old Era.

Wolf-class - Battle shuttles, wedge-shaped, seventy-two long.

World Soul, the - The "determining Power" that Brother Eklund believes in.

Xalon - Brother of the Enlightened Community on Kerberos. A New Human, from a world with twice the gravity of Earth.

Xsi, Father - Kantaki, one of the Big Five.

Xurr - Legendary, apparently extinct species that left ruins here and there. The Xurr came from the galactic core a hundred thousand years ago and disappeared about ten thousand years ago.

Yurrl, Mother - A Kantaki. Owner of one of the five ships that traveled with a spur from Munghar to Kerberos.

Chronology

Brief history of the Kantaki

The insectoid Kantaki evolved many millions of years ago on the planet Munghar in the Urirr system, four thousand eight hundred light years outside the galactic regions inhabited by humans. They had many natural enemies on the surface of their world, so they retreated into subplanetary cave systems. Early in their development, the philosophy of the Five Great Cosmic Ages emerged.

The Age of Birth.

The Age of Growth.

The Age of Maturity.

The Age of Understanding.

The Age of Spiritualization, which closes the cycle: The spirit that has become matter returns to the realm of the spiritual.

The Kantaki are aware of an ominous force that has permeated the universe since its creation, which they call "the Abissale. They are also aware that in the fifth and final age, the spirit, having once become matter, must prevail against the Abissale in an all-important conflict for the cycle to end. They believe that the spirit is not yet ready for this conflict, and so they seek to prolong the Fourth Age by exerting their influence as a stabilizing factor that watches over time.

The construction of the Plurial lens within Munghar allowed the Kantaki to see into the Plurial, a realm of myriads of universes. This accelerated the Kantaki's technical and biological evolution into a hyperdimension beyond the three spatial dimensions we know and beyond the normal time stream. Their spaceships are composed of many individual segments and exist partially within the hyperdimension. They use trans-space, an intermediate dimension that not only allows them to travel faster than light. Trans-space also allows the Kantaki to meditate in what is called the Sacrium, a place that brings them closer to the spirit that once became matter.

When the Kantaki ships encountered other civilizations, it turned out that none of the other intelligent species had achieved faster-than-light space travel. (Later, there would be two exceptions, but they did little to change the Kantaki monopoly: the Xurr and the Horgh). They offered their ships as interstellar transports and set up a conversion fund, which became the new basis of their economy. From now on, they were paid for the transportation of goods and people and demanded respect for their Sacred Code. Those who did not comply were isolated from the Kantaki, with no way to reach or communicate with other solar systems. The complex and changing Sacred Code expressly forbade experiments with time, for a powerful and sinister enemy lurked in the past: the Temporals, helpers of the Abissale.

Important events in the recent history of the Kantaki:

1. 20 million years ago, a small group of disbelievers arose among the Kantaki. The Renegades, as they were called by their own kind, did not deny the existence of Spirit, who had become matter in order to learn and become Spirit again at the end of the Fifth Age. But they saw the seeds of the Abissale as an attempt by the Spirit to initiate the Fifth Cosmic Age, to bring about the end of the universe, and to throw off the shackles of the material. The renegades were expelled from the Kantaki community as heretics, and they set out in their ships toward the core of the Milky Way.

2. 3.8 million years ago, the First Conflict of Concepts escalated. Some influential Kantaki felt that the Sacred Code needed to be changed to allow for more active Kantaki participation in the Milky Way and other galaxies. The majority of the Kantaki decided to adhere to the eons-old Sacred Code, and this decision led to the Schism.

Under the leadership of Mother Krorah, one of the Great Five of her time, a portion of the Kantaki people set out to leave the Milky Way forever. They were considered renegades by those who remained, but the exiles were firmly convinced that they were following the right path. They turned their backs on their homeland and were never heard from again.

1. The Second Conflict of Concepts began 2.5 million years ago, when the Doghon world ships reached the Andromeda Nebula and the Milky Way, and it affected not only the Kantaki but many other races as well. The extraordinarily advanced Doghon had been traveling the universe for many millions of years, and as missionaries, they wanted to bring their kind of insight and knowledge to all intelligent races. They considered themselves a superior species and were not afraid to impose their philosophy on others. The Doghon set their sights on the Kantaki - their first real challenge since the departure of their world ships. The unarmed Kantaki were forced to retreat and reduce their faster-than-light spaceflights to a minimum. This left the populated solar systems of many races suddenly without communication with each other. The Kantaki tried to keep the planets they inhabited secret from the Doghon. They sought out races that were still tied to their original planets and in a comparatively primitive stage of development - there they planted the seeds of their religion. They also visited Earth. With the help of the Xurr, who entered the galactic stage for the first time, the Kantaki finally succeeded in driving out the Doghon. But the Second Conflict of Concepts left its mark on Kantaki society - voices were raised again and again for a change in the Sacred Code to allow direct intervention in interstellar events.

2. Nine hundred thousand years ago, the Kantaki learned of a dark force expanding in the center of the Milky Way. Refugees reported it, including the Toukwan, the "misguided," and the Kantaki tried in vain to contact the Council, which could not be reached even with the help of the Plurial lens. They sensed that great changes were coming, and saw this as a sign that the Fourth Cosmic Age was coming to an end and that the Fifth and Final Age would soon begin. But the Kantaki believed that the spirit that had become matter was not yet ready for the conflict with the Abyssals in the final Cosmic Age, and so they began to exert their interstellar and intergalactic influence with the goal of prolonging the Fourth Cosmic Age.

A brief history of Mankind

Phase 1: Nation States of Earth

2031 - The European Union and Russia establish the first permanently inhabited lunar station. Not only does the technological rivalry with the United States of America grow. Politically, the enlarged Europe increasingly becomes a counterweight to the U.S., which is under increasing domestic and foreign policy pressure following wars in the Near, Middle, and Far East, as well as Central and South America. The immense US military spending threatens an economic crisis of global proportions.

2032-2037 - The European-Russian lunar station is expanded and gradually evolves into a colony that processes local resources and begins industrial production.

2036 - An American manned Mars mission fails on its way to the Red Planet. The spacecraft, equipped with an advanced ion drive and seven astronauts on board, gets caught in the high-energy particle stream of a solar storm. The solar activity continues to increase.

2037 - China establishes its own permanently inhabited lunar base.

2046 - The second manned American mission to Mars arrives on the Red Planet. An accident leads to biological contamination of the Martian environment by terrestrial microbes.

2060 - The "Year of Change" on Earth. A huge stock market crash, largely due to the enormous American government deficit, destroys the savings of millions of people. The result is not only a global economic collapse with mass unemployment, but also growing discontent. There are uprisings in the South American states dominated by U.S. influence; the situation escalates and state power in South America crumbles. There is a new wave of terror, and the U.S. takes this as an opportunity to proclaim "American hegemony. In the European Union, also hit by the economic crisis, anti-American voices increase, but the emphasis is still on cooperation.

In the middle of the year, a devastating bombing in Rio de Janeiro killed nearly ten thousand people. Among the dead were the two sons of Jonas Jacob Hudson - known as the "Enlightened One" - a charismatic cult leader. Emboldened by public propaganda, Hudson believes Islamic fundamentalist terrorists are behind the attack and launches an unprecedented smear campaign against all things Muslim.

2062 - The economic situation on Earth is gradually improving. The European-Russian lunar base has become a city with nearly ten thousand inhabitants. Problems with radiation and micrometeorites lead to the development of the first energy-shielding fields, which help further flights to Mars and the outer reaches of the solar system. Hudson continues his smear campaign, and the Christian fundamentalists he leads, the "New Illuminati," gain more influence in the Western world.

2064 - The development of the "Levitator" frees humans from the shackles of gravity. Space travel becomes much easier and cheaper.

2065 - Improved ion engine. Flights to the Moon take only a few hours, to Mars a few days, and to the outer planets weeks. Compensators solve the problem of inertia.

2066 - First permanently inhabited station on Mars, under the auspices of the UN, but effectively governed by American hegemony. Among the station's inhabitants are followers of the Enlightened One.

2067 - Exploration flights to the outer planets. After the ecological disaster on Mars, humans have become more cautious, and Jupiter's moon Europa becomes a sensation. The first extraterrestrial life is found under the mile-thick ice shield, in an ocean of water hundreds of miles deep.

2069 - Remains of La-Kimesh are found in caves on Saturn's moons Dione, Mimas, and Tethys.

2070 - Expeditions find relics of the La-Kimesh on the Uranus moons Miranda and Ariel, who apparently visited the Sol system several times many millions of years ago and may even have established a colony there.

2082 - The Enlightened One and his New Illuminati carry out a plan devised long ago. Using a simple spacecraft, they travel from Mars to the asteroid belt to direct "God's Hammer" toward Earth, a small asteroid that will hit the Middle East and wipe out the centers of Islam. After twelve months it will reach its destination.

2083 - On Earth, measures are taken to neutralize the asteroid, and at the same time, the Second Great Migration occurs. Those who can, leave the endangered regions. Millions flee the Near and Middle East. The Western world and even the Far East are flooded with refugees.

2083 - The attempt to divert "God's Hammer" from its orbit is unsuccessful, and the attempt to destroy it causes the asteroid to break into several pieces. The catastrophe planned by the New Illuminati for the Islamic world becomes a global catastrophe, but one that primarily affects the American hegemony.

2085 - The underground Illuminati escapes from Earth with more than a thousand followers. A converted spaceship, designed to explore the outer planets, will serve as their generation ship, taking them to the stars, "to God". Between the orbits of Neptune and Pluto, the refugees encounter a Kantaki ship, the fifth to make a detour to the Sol system in the last three thousand years in search of wealthy passengers. Mother Rrirk, the ship's owner, meets the refugees and takes them in her transport bubble to an extrasolar planet called Shanhall, which later, inhabited by Christian fundamentalists, becomes part of the loose confederation of spiritualist worlds.

Phase 2: The Great Expansion

2084 - After the impact of the meteor fragments, the "League of Secular Nations" is formed, in which state and religion are strictly separated. The contact with the Kantaki means a serious crisis for the traditional religions and at the same time offers the possibility to leave the earthly chaos. But in most cases, the Kantaki demand high prices for the transportation of passengers and cargo, which not everyone can afford. Pioneers set out - some independently, most in the service of wealthy clients - and let Kantaki ships take them to foreign solar systems, where they set out in interplanetary ships in search of worlds suitable for settlement. In just thirty years, more than two hundred extrasolar planets are colonized, including Kabaea in the Epsilon Eridani system and Tintiran and Xandor in the Mirlur system. Emigration becomes a huge business, and new dependencies are created: People who want to leave Earth and don't have enough money sign contracts to work off the debt of the colonies. The BdLN governments barely manage to maintain political, social, and economic control over events on Earth and the many colonial planets.

2090-2200 - By the end of the twenty-second century, there are over seven hundred planets inhabited by humans, some of them more than five thousand light years away. Earth's population has shrunk from eight billion to just over two billion. Contact has been made with other alien species, including the Akuhashi, Taruf, Horgh, Ganngan, Kariha, Quinqu, Grekki, and Pintaran. The Horgh provide an alternative to the Kantaki ships. Their jump ships can also bridge interstellar distances, but the resulting shockwaves are almost unbearable for humans. All attempts to develop their own faster-than-light space technology and thus become independent of the Kantaki and Horgh have failed.

On Earth, a multicultural global society develops. Political control over distant colonies is difficult to achieve, especially since the social structures in the colonial worlds were thought to have been abandoned long ago: on the one hand, the "autarkic", who financed their own emigration and are financially strong enough to create a new life for themselves; on the other hand, the "subalterns", who are contractually obligated to work off their debts.

One group of people stands out from this structure: the Kantaki pilots. As it turns out, certain people have the special gift needed to navigate trans-space, and the Kantaki willingly take them into their service. Kantaki pilots are highly respected and considered untouchable.

The remains of the La-Kimesh are found on many worlds, and xenoarchaeologists wonder why their advanced galactic civilization came to such a sudden end some twenty-two million years ago.

Phase 3: Consolidation

2201-2500 - Many colonial worlds experience an unprecedented economic boom, as raw materials are available in virtually unlimited quantities and can be processed at minimal cost thanks to modern technology. In addition, there is a huge, ever-expanding market. There are no longer any legal barriers preventing unbridled economic growth and all its consequences. Economic conglomerates consisting of dozens and hundreds of corporations, largely determine what happens in the worlds populated by humans.

Genetic engineering makes great progress and extends the average life expectancy of humans. The first "resurrections" become possible, genetic revitalizations that rejuvenate the body but destabilize the genetic structure. Resurrections are very expensive and are denied to the subalterns. They create a social distinction among Autark, as not all of them can afford such treatments. In most cases, resurrection is reserved for the "magnates," the heads of corporations and groups, and the members of the new interstellar financial aristocracy. Advances in genetic engineering make it possible to create "new humans" adapted to specific environmental conditions and thus able to colonize worlds hostile to normal humans.

2212 - The Alliance is initially formed by fourteen corporations. Central World: Earth. But Earth soon loses its political and economic importance, and practically all important decisions of the Alliance are made in the Epsilon Eridani system, a good ten light years away, on Kabaea.

2227 - The Consortium is formed in opposition to the Alliance. Its members include the Valdorian Group of Companies and the New Human Design group, which specializes in genetic engineering.

2280 - Hegemony and the Entente form. The last remnants of the old nation-states disappear, both on Earth and in the colonies.

2292 - The Congregation is founded.

2311 - Worlds inhabited by Christian fundamentalists and other religious extremists, including Shanhall, unite to form the loose confederation of Spiritualist Colonies.

2314-2330 - More worlds are colonized; the Islamic Federation, the Anarchic Bloc, the Dreamer worlds (whose inhabitants prefer virtual alternate worlds to reality), and the Separate Planets with planned socialist economies are formed.

2401-2430 - The first great emigration of the Renouncers occurs, who attempt to return to the basics of life and make do with as little technology as possible. Within thirty years, they colonize more than twenty planets. Some of them allow themselves to be taken to the center of the Milky Way, where the Xurr once came from, aboard Horgh ships, in the hope of finding the creatures that combined the organic with the inorganic.

2429 - A special group of renouncers, the "Children of Happiness", take an extreme path. They renounce not only modern life but also the present. They set out in a large habitat ship, the "Time Ark", which over the course of several years accelerates to nearly the speed of light, causing them to experience the effects of dilation.

2458 - The "Year of the Returners". Seven of the escapees who left more than thirty years ago with Horgh ships to the galactic center return. Arriving on Kabaea in a Horgh freighter, they give the impression of having been driven mad by the shock waves of the jump ships. While being treated in a special clinic, they repeatedly report terrible events in the galactic core, especially in the "Black Tunnels" and the "Eleven Gates". In the descriptions of the returnees, the "World Cluster" plays a major role, and they mention creatures called Toukwan, who supposedly caused the Xurr to flee hundreds of thousands of years ago.

2477 - The planet Aquaria is colonized, and intelligent medusae are found in its oceans. From the stomachs of their distant, unintelligent relatives, the deep-sea jellyfish, a rare anesthetic is extracted that allows humans to withstand the shockwaves of Horgh jump ships.

(2489) - On the other side of the Milky Way, the Feyn are attacked by enemies from the past, the "Temporals".

Phase 4: The Dynasties

2501-2680 - The First Dynasty

Dictatorial systems, and economic dynasties, emerge, and their heads, the Dynasts, exercise far more direct and overt control than the Magnates had previously.

(2521) - The Feyn win a decisive victory over the Temporals, closing the time portals through which their opponents could enter the present.

(2533) - The Kantaki mother Krir becomes one of the Big Five.

(2641) - On the other side of the Milky Way, the Feyn open one of the time portals they closed one hundred and twenty years ago and send an expedition into the past, to the time of the defeated invaders. As it turns out, this is a big mistake.

2681-3010 - The Second Dynasty

After the fall of the First Dynasty, the Magnates seize power by military force, as the transportation of weapons and troops does not violate the Sacred Code of the Kantaki, as feared. The Magnates become the new dynasts, but this time their rule is not limited to a single planet or solar system.

(2717) - The expedition sent by the Feyn into the past returns after many years of delay, allegedly due to an erroneous time jump. What no one knows yet: in their midst are some camouflaged Temporals who have been entrusted with reopening the closed time portals.

(2774) - Temporals in disguise, who returned with the Feyn Expedition, set out on Kantaki and Horgh ships. On distant worlds, they open the first hidden time portals, allowing Time Warriors to enter the present, and begin preparations for the transfer of their main forces and the Time Fleet.

(2809) - Time ships begin to bring new portals to other worlds. The Temporals prepare for a major strike against the Feyn.

(2855) - Throughout the Milky Way, the Temporals have established bases on strategic planets and begin attacking the Feyn.

(2871) - The Feyn and their allies suffer defeat after defeat against the Temporals and are forced to abandon more and more of their colonized worlds. They begin to organize the Three Great Barriers to protect the central region of their empire.

(2903) - The Feyn's Three Great Barriers are completed, giving the defenders new hope. There seems to be a way to resist the Temporals after all. The central worlds take in a large number of refugees.

(2951) - Cloaked time ships penetrate the First Great Barrier, opening it to the Time Fleet.

(2964) - The Feyn work hard to develop an effective weapon against the Temporals, while the Second Great Barrier comes under increasing attack.

(3006) - The Temporals succeed in breaching the Second Great Barrier. Only a single line of defense now separates them from the Feyn's central worlds.

(3008) - The Feyn are still working on the "Spur," the weapon that will drive the Temporals back. The enemy's final assault on the Third Great Barrier begins. Behind it, fear spreads throughout the "Dozen," the twelve central worlds of the Feyn.

3010 - Humanity has colonized over eight thousand planets, more than a hundred of which are Extreme Worlds where gene-altered New Humans have established colonies. Over twenty thousand planets are used as resource worlds. There are twenty-one economic conglomerates, the largest of which are Alliance, Consortium, Hegemony, Coalition, Entente, and Congregation. The Second Dynasty reached the peak of its power when the Time War, later called the Thousand Year War, began.

Phase 5: The Time War (3011 - ca. 4000)

3011 - A time portal is discovered on Klinta and accidentally activated.

(3011) - The Temporals breach the Third Great Barrier and begin to attack the Dozen, but at the last moment the Feyn complete the spur and use it against the invaders. However, the Temporals are not banished to the past as expected. Instead, a tunnel opens through time and space, a conduit to the other side of the Milky Way.

3011 - The first Temporals come through the portal and are mistaken by underground fighters for the returned La-Kimesh.

3025 - Using telepathic manipulation, the Temporals take over dozens of human worlds undetected.

3030 - The Temporals succeed in opening more Time Gates. More of them come from the past and begin to build a hyper-portal.

(3041) - On the other side of the Milky Way, the Feyn close the time portals. Realizing that their spur did not work as intended, they begin a cautious search for the missing Temporals.

(3055) - The hyper-portal nears completion and Temporal activity increases.

(3056) - The Feyn discover that their spur has transported the enemy from the past through a conduit to the other side of the Milky Way. They contact the Kantaki and ask for help.

3056 - It is discovered that those with the piloting gift can detect cloaked temporals. This makes Kantaki pilots and sacred Kantaki Pagodas on human and other races' worlds prime targets for the aliens. They attack using variable time zones, transporting Kantaki pilots into the past and future, or even non-linear time.

3057 - A Feyn delegation reaches the human-inhabited spiral arm of the Milky Way. Like everyone else - except the Horgh - they are forced to use Kantaki ships to cross interstellar distances. They immediately realize what the alien visitors are up to and warn of the great danger. When they learn of the hyper-portal, they go in search of it, because they know: if the Temporals can complete and activate it, they can use it to open the time dungeons in the past and transport their entire force through a temporal corridor.

A Kantaki ship with Feyn aboard finds the hyper-portal, but it gets caught in a time trap that hurls it billions of years into the past, leading to a confrontation with the reality-eating omnivore, the Abissale of the Kantaki.

The Temporals activate the hyper-portal and open the time dungeons. Shortly thereafter, the first fleet from the past arrives, made up of Kantaki ships - descendants of the renegade Kantaki who were exiled twenty million years ago and went to the core of the Milky Way, where they allied themselves with the Temporals.

3060 - The Temporals drop their mask and openly seize power in the areas where they already have bases: the Qirell system, the Anarchic Federation, the Separate Worlds, and some planets of the Spiritualist colonies.

3060-3200 - On the other human-populated worlds, a creeping invasion takes place. Hardly any "normal" Kantaki ships travel anymore, as they are immediately attacked by the renegades.

Dozens of worlds break off all contact with other planets, hoping to avoid Temporal infiltration.

3201-3500 - Several attempts to break the power of the Temporals and drive them from occupied planets have failed. They have taken over not only human worlds but those of many other races as well. The Feyn and Kantaki form the Iron Pact to counter the threat posed by the Temporals and the renegade Kantaki. A new version of the Spur is used, but it does not have the desired effect. Instead, time anomalies begin to appear in and around planetary systems, harmless to the Temporals but a grave threat to everyone else. Similar anomalies occur on worlds whose inhabitants are fighting back against the occupiers: time warps through the past and future, gateways to temporal mazes.

The Magnates and Autarks try to come to terms with the new rulers, but soon realize that coexistence with the Temporals is impossible.

3501-3800 - With the help of the Renegades, the Temporals begin to weave the solar systems of the Kantaki inhabited planets into a complex network of time anomalies, containing numerous pathways into the non-linear time of the Plurial. Similar networks appear in other parts of the spiral arm, forming a metastructure whose purpose remains a mystery at first.

On the occupied worlds, a well-organized resistance movement emerges, in which the "Patriots," gene-altered individuals with the pilot gift, play the most important role. Protected from telepathic manipulation by the Temporals, the Patriots are able to detect both the enemy and its many time traps. In addition, these special New Humans are able to withstand the shockwaves produced by the Horgh ships' jumps without losing their minds or dying instantly.

Aboard a Horgh ship, a secret delegation of Patriots heads to a Nexus to plan a joint project with the Kantaki and Feyn.

3801-4000 - The Kantaki protect their home world of Munghar and other planets they inhabit with a multidimensional shield that is as impenetrable to the Renegades as it is to the Temporals. They have kept interstellar travel to a minimum, and as their philosophy dictates, their ships remain unarmed. However, they are protected by multidimensional shields and have managed to keep a few flight corridors open through the anomaly networks.

In 3840, an expedition composed largely of New Humans travels to the past, but does not return; it is assumed that they have failed. The Temporals begin to impose a stricter regime on the worlds they occupy. Local philosophies and religions are banned, and the End Times doctrine takes their place. Humans and other races are told to prepare for the coming "end of the world," for the Spirit that has become matter to become Spirit again, with all the knowledge it has accumulated during the Five Cosmic Ages. In 3936, nearly a hundred years after the expedition left for the past, two survivors return, aged only a few decades. They tell not only of a time labyrinth in which they got lost and which cost the lives of all the other members of the expedition but also of the plans of the Temporals. Using the metastructure created by their anomaly networks, they intend to create a black hole through time and space, to gather the seeds of the Omnivore, called "Splinters of God", paralyzed at the center of the Milky Way, and to collapse the entire universe - which would mean the end of the Fifth Cosmic Age.

However, the two survivors bring not only this terrible news but also an important piece of information that will allow Feyn and Kantaki to upgrade the spur. In 3999, just before the completion of the metastructure that will open the Black Hole, the new spur is ready and activated. The time storm it unleashes throws the Temporals back in time, but the fabric of space-time is torn in many places. The anomaly network ruptures and the Epoch of Chaos begins.

3909 - Kantaki pilot Esmeralda is among the Feyn on the other side of the Milky Way.

Phase 6: The Epoch of Chaos (c. 4000-?)

The length of the Epoch of Chaos varies from planet to planet due to extended temporal discontinuities. The Kantaki, living outside the normal timestream, try in vain to contact the Council, forcing them to begin "repairing the Continuum" on their own.

On the human worlds, "restoration" begins. While a long economic decline has begun as a result of the start of the Time War, the basic economic structures have been preserved. The magnates and high-ranking Autarks begin to claim a share of the victory over the Temporals. The old economic conglomerates are re-established. A few more planets join the Anarchic Confederation and the Separate Worlds, and the Confederation of New Men is added, but the Magnates know how to regain their old power. This time, however, they try to stay in the background, camouflaging their true influence with pseudo-democratic institutions.

Space-time, broken in many places, complicates the return to normalcy. Bizarre and dangerous paradoxes continue to occur, both in space and on the planets. The repair of the Continuum by the Kantaki and the gifted New Humans continues, but the damage is so extensive that they must concentrate on the most urgent matters first. Anomalies that cannot be immediately reintegrated into space-time are marked and isolated.

4121 ca - Pilot Floyd flies a Kantaki ship through trans-space for the first time.

Phase 7: The New Era

Since 1 SN - After the temporal chaos and the elimination of the largest space-time anomalies, the human worlds agree on a new time scale, beginning with the year 1 "Since New Beginning".

A period of growth begins again for the large economic conglomerates; two of them gain more and more power: Alliance and Consortium. For the first two hundred and fifty years or so after the Time War, the economic expansion remains largely without military activity, but then the old rivalries escalate, and competition gradually turns into confrontation. The Consortium proves particularly aggressive.

109 SN - The planet Guraki in the Desmendora system is colonized. The first Xurr ruins are discovered.

240 SN - Hovan Aldritt Valdorian is born.

269 SN - Feydor is born on Shanhall.

274 SN - Rungard Avar Valdorian is born.

276 SN - Lidia DiKastro is born.

301 SN - Lidia visits the Sacred Pagoda of Kantaki in Bellavista on Tintiran to have her gift tested.

303 SN - Hannibal Petricks, Chairman of the Aidon Shipyards, is named Primus inter Pares of the Consortium.

307 SN - Rungard Avar Valdorian is becoming increasingly influential in the fate of the Valdorian Group of Companies. He is responsible for the acquisition of several other companies.

310 SN - Hovan Aldritt Valdorian becomes the Primus inter Pares of the Consortium.

314 SN - The first mining towns are established on Orinja in the Takhal system.

315 SN - Hovan Aldritt Valdorian is killed in an accident.

324 SN - Denebian philosopher Horan dies.

342 SN - Madeleine Kinta is born.

369 SN - Rungard Avar Valdorian marries Madeleine Kinta.

324 SN - Kerberos in the Hades System is colonized.

324 SN - Jonathan Fentur is born.

357 SN - Cordoban is born.

372 SN - Benjamin Valdorian is born.

380 SN - Rion Valdorian is born.

390 SN - Valdorian successfully negotiates with the Arkanado Cartel and brings it into the Consortium, making it the strongest economic power in human-populated space.

394 SN - Valdorian plans an economic offensive against the worlds of the so-called Alliance of New Freedom.

395 SN - Hendriks, Cordoban's predecessor, is assassinated.

395 SN - Cordoban becomes the Consortium's new Chief Strategist.

398 SN - The marriage of Rungard Avar Valdorian and Madeleine Kinta is dissolved.

401 SN - A close cooperation between New Human Design and the Valdorian Group of Companies develops. Cordoban plans the Arsenal planets.

414 SN - Jonathan Fentur's wife dies.

419 SN - Cordoban arrives on Kerberos with plans for Project Double-M. Work on the Metamorph begins.

420 SN - A Consortium task force destroys the Dandari planetoid in the Hartman sector. Enbert Dokkar's wife and two of his sons are killed.

421 SN - Direct conflict between the Alliance and the Consortium begins. Valdorian sees his death approaching and sets out to find Lidia.

421 SN - The metamorph becomes active on Kerberos.

This book is published by:

A7L Thrilling Books Limited

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All rights reserved.

Translation: Lynn Taylor

Editing: Marjorie Hicks

Cover: Tom Edwards