It did not seem possible that her life should be so empty.

- 2 -.

Tommy Boone gasped and cried out.

The voice came out of the darkness.His voice, that had worn away at Boone for two days now. "They are crude techniques," he said quietly, "but they work. And so we use them."

Boone sat in a straight-backed chair, wrists bound to the armrests, ankles bound to the legs. His head was strapped back against the headrest and his eyelids had been cut off and a spotlight shone into his race. He was nearly blind from it. His cheeks were one purplish ma.s.s of bruises. His right eye had swollen almost shut.

He wore only a white T-shirt and underwear he had been asleep when they came for him. There was barely a white spot left on them; they were black with old blood or red with new.

Blood spurted from the index finger of his right hand; the finger itself lay on the floor, still twitching.

One technician flattened Boone's hand out, and the second tied a string around the stump of the finger; a maser set at low intensity seared the stump until the bleeding stopped.

Boone screamed while they did it to him, and did not stop screaming until the maser beam ceased.

"I wish to share my name with you," said the voice. "But first I must have yours."

Boone tried to speak. The inside of his mouth was bone dry, and the last time it had been wet had been with his own blood. Finally he managed to whisper harshly, "Suck me, Obodi."

"I have grown to appreciate your people," said the voice from beyond the lights. It was softer, that voice, gentler, than anything Boone had ever heard before in his life. Not even his mother had had a voice like that; not even his wife, who had died when Boone was only twenty. "You are an imaginative and vigorous and brutal people. Why, the unpleasantness I am inflicting upon you, it comes from a famous incident in your own history. When the Carthaginian tribe fought the Roman tribe, a Roman general named Regulus was caught by the Carthaginians; they removed his eyelids and tied him facing east at dawn." A chuckle. "I have had little enough time to learn of your past, so busy I've been kept these last years. Perhaps later I will have time to study more; I would like to understand you, and the forces that shaped you.Who are you? "

The crack of the voice penetrated the pain and fatigue; Boone heard himself answering as though another person used his tortured vocal cords. "Thomas Daniel Boone."

"That is very good," said the gentle voice. "I am Gi'Suei'Obodi'Sedon. I was a Dancer of the Nameless One; to day I am the instrument of your death. The release from your pain." The words wore away at Boone, as he floated half-conscious in the haze of his pain, under the blaze of the lights. "Here in this moment together, you and I, we are one. You are all of my world and I am all of yours. I know you as no one has ever known you before; I understand you, the dark and bright places within you, as no one has understood you in all your life. And I love you, Thomas Daniel Boone, for the good that is within you.

Release him."

Boone heard a hushed, rapid exchange out beyond the circle of the light, heard the flat finality of Obodi's voice: "As I said."

The technician came forward, into the light, a glowing white blob in Boone's ruined eyesight. The bonds that held his ankles were cut, and then those that held his wrists. The pain that struck him as the blood rushed into his extremities would have seemed, on any other day of his life, intense; now he barely noticed it. The strap that restrained his head was left in place, and in some distant corner of his mind Boone found himself absurdly grateful; if they'd cut it he would, he knew, have pitched forward from the chair like a rag doll.

The technician placed a laser in his numb, but otherwise undamaged left hand, and stepped back into the darkness of the cellar.

The man who Tommy Boone knew as Obodi, who had called himself Gi'Suei'Obodi'Sedon, came forward into the light. Boone could barely make out the shape of the man, never mind his features; all Boone could see was that he wore a long robe of some reddish color.

"The device in your hand is a laser, Thomas. My good and true Thomas. A weapon with which you can kill me if you wish, punish me for the pain and fear I have inflicted upon you."

Tears leaked from the corners of Boone's eyes. "Oh, G.o.d. What do you want of me?"

"I am not your G.o.d, Thomas, merely your death. I want you to take the laser and put it in your mouth and pull the trigger."

The moment Boone had known was coming since he had awakened here in this place left him so weak with fear he could not even lift the laser they had placed in his hand. "Please..." he whispered. "Please no. I don't want to die."

Boone was aware of Obodi coming closer. "What is a life, Thomas? A small thing, given casually, taken the same. It is nothing to be struggled for so furiously. Calm yourself and do not be afraid. Put the weapon in your mouth and pull the trigger."

Tommy Boone found a last reservoir of strength, snarled, "f.u.c.k you anddie ," and lifted the laser- "Stop!"The Voice was his father's, and Joe Mantika's, the man who had recruited him into the Rebs, and Father Bob's from Sunday school, merged into the thundering command. The Voice rolled over him: "PUT THE WEAPON IN YOUR MOUTH AND PULL THE TRIGGER!".

Tommy Boone did not hesitate. He flipped the safety off, brought the laser around, and blasted his own head off.

Gi'Suei'Obodi'Sedon stood in the circle of light, in a cellar in the city of Philadelphia, looking down upon the headless body of Thomas Daniel Boone, a good and true man.

Different from the Flame People, without doubt. Resistant to Speaking-but not impervious to it.

It was a good sign.

They kept him waiting nearly an hour.

Dvan did not let himself grow impatient. He had dealt with the Sicilian Old Ones before, though not recently, and understood the protocols that needed to be observed. He sat in a cool breeze and bright warm sunlight, with a gla.s.s of red wine on the small round patio table before him, looking out over the Santonia family's gardens, down across sculpted terraces of growing grapes. Don Emilio would leave him waiting until his business was done, whatever it might be, but no longer.

Shortly after one o'clock the don came out onto the patio, greeted Dvan warmly, and seated himself.

"Forgive me, William. But it has been many years, and your call came with such short notice-" Emilio shrugged. "It took me some time to verify your activities of the last decade or so." The old man smiled at Dvan. "I was surprised, to tell the truth. Newsdancing-" He shrugged again. "It seems a waste of talents such as yours."

Dvan smiled at the man. "Perhaps. But it is safe and requires little exertion, and I find in my advancing age that this appeals to me."

Emilio frowned. "Advancing age, eh? You must be, perhaps, eighty? It's been a good while, my friend.

You've carried the years-remarkably-I might even say surprisingly-well."

"As have you, Don Emilio."

Emilio nodded, accepting the lie for the politeness it was. "What can I do for you, William? If you have some thought of putting my name on the news Boards, I must tell you it would disturb me."

Dvan made a dismissive gesture. "Don Emilio, in the last few hours you have searched the InfoNet for my name. If any article about you or yours had ever been published under my name, you and I would not be talking."

Emilio said softly, "How I can be of service?"

"I'm looking for a man. His... occupation," said Dvan carefully, "was that of procuring women."

The old man shook his head. "We have no interests in-"

"He went by the name of Lucabri."

Silence fell. In the quiet Dvan could hear the buzzing of flies in the garden, the distant whine of the robots working the vineyards. Emilio stared at Dvan with hard, flinty eyes.

"He first appeared in Amiens, in France, early in '72. The next time I have certain knowledge of his location is in Genoa, in the summer of '73. And from there he vanishes. If you know where he might be, and would share that knowledge with me, I would be indebted to you."

"What is your interest in this... man?"

Dvan gave him an answer he knew the old don would accept. "It's not personal. I am doing a favor for a friend."

Understanding lit the old man's eyes. "Someone with a daughter, perhaps? Or a sister?"

"It would be a reasonable guess."

"And what action would you take if you were to find him?"

"I would ease the suffering of my friends, Don Emilio."

"While you have been wandering around Europe, William, Signor Lucabri has left a trail of bodies across Occupied America." The old man rose from the table. "If you wish to find him, go to America." Don Emilio stopped at the sliding gla.s.s door that led back into the villa. A servant inside opened the door for him, and he stood in the opening looking at Dvan-a wizened, shrunken old man who Dvan could not reconcile with the giant of a man he had known fifty years prior, who had killed, men and loved women with equal pa.s.sion. "He has been going by the name of Mister Obodi. And he is with the Rebs." Don Emilio gestured to the servant who had opened the door. "Please call Signor Devane a cab, and escort him to the gate." The old man turned about, and walked back inside slowly, shuffling across the black tile.

"Who is this?" Sedon asked quietly.

They sat together in the living room of Obodi's house in San Diego, looking at holos. The living room's bay windows looked out on a view of the beach, of the restless Pacific Ocean.

Sedon's manner was sleepy and relaxed and satiated; Chris Summers, in the two years he had been working with the man he knew as Mister Obodi, had seen it before. It was the way Obodi looked following a night with a boy who had pleased him, and the way Obodi looked after killing someone who had displeased him.

The holo was clearly a publicity shot; it showed a man perhaps in his forties or fifties, with dark hair and brown eyes. "This is Dougla.s.s Ripper," said Summers. "Publicity still. He's the Unification Councilor for New York Metro; he sits on the Council's Peace Keeping Oversite Committee. He requisitioned the PKF report on you."

Sedon quirked an eyebrow. "Indeed? Should I concern myself with this?"

Summers said patiently, "He's a popular man, sir. He's running for Secretary General, and he's probably going to win."

"In December?" Sedon smiled, a lazy, relaxed smile. "I hardly think so. What else?"

Summers nodded. "One more item.Command, next. This is a-"

Gi'Suei'Obodi'Sedon rose to his feet slowly, expression draining from his features, staring motionless at the holo.

At the man.

Summers continued a bit slowly. "-a newsdancer. He's been asking people about Signor Lucabri; we had a report that he met with Emilio Santonia. I wondered if you wanted anything done about it."

Sedon did not reply. The pale blue eyes stared, unblinking, and his hands trembled. He brought his hands together abruptly, stood with his hands clasped together in front of his chest and said something in a language that Christian Summers had never heard before.

"Sir? Are you all right?"

Sedon said something again in the language Summers did not recognize, then shook himself and said in very slow English, not looking at Summers, "Find... him. The man... and bring him. To me."

"Mister Obodi? You know him?"

Sedon stared straight ahead, at the holo of the newsdancer. A big black-haired giant of a man with pale skin and dead black eyes. "He cannot be alive." He shook his head slowly, spoke half to himself. "A...

resemblance, is the word. It has been too long for... Dvan... to be alive."

Christian J. Summers said, "Dvan?"

Finally Sedon looked at him. "What is his name?"

"Devane, sir. William Devane."

Sedon's voice was a mere whisper. "Oh, my old friend..." His eyes closed and he crumpled where he stood.

- 3 -.

She spent Friday with Dougla.s.s at the house in upstate New York.

There were times when Denice's life seemed starkly unreal to her; days such as these contributed.

Her earliest memories were of the Advanced Biotechnology Research Laboratory in New Jersey; and then of the PKF barracks in New York, and then, briefly, the happy times at the Chandler Complex.

During all those years she had been one child among many; that Carl and Jany were her biological parents, and David's, did not seem to matter; Carl and Jany wereeveryone's parents, parents to the near two hundred and forty children who had been placed in their care; Jany in particular had little more time for her own children than for all the others. She and David were only two years younger than the youngest of the Project Superman children. She remembered being cared for by other children; by Trent, and Heather; by Willie, who was somewhat older than the rest. Of rooms that were, even in the relatively large Chandler Complex, always too cramped, always shared with too many others.

A discontinuity occurred in her memory during the Troubles.

Afterward, the Young Females' Public Labor facility, one room, with forty other girls. When Orinda Gleygava.s.s had at last come for her, the opportunity to share a room with only three other girls had seemed like heaven.

Briefly she and Tarin Schuyler had lived together; for close to three years she had shared an apartment with a girl named Kim Mikonos, at G.o.ddess Home.

In the course of her life she had grown so accustomed to living with others, in small s.p.a.ces, that she did not truly notice it.

Ripper's house sat on two acres of empty land, shaded-overshaded, Ripper sometimes said-by trees upward of a hundred and fifty years old. The trees blocked any view of the house from the distant road; because she could not see them, Denice could often forget the presence of Ripper's security, four Security Services bodyguards, stationed down at the gate. The house was two stories tall, with ten rooms; Ripper was the only person who lived there.

There were servants somewhere, human rather than 'bots, a gardener and a maid, but Denice virtually never saw them.

His mother was dead; his father, stepmother, and two sisters lived on what could only be called an estate, four klicks further north. Denice had been there once, had not been surprised that his family, though gracious, had not seemed to think much of her.

A simple sign of wealth; not counting the genies she'd been raised with, Ripper was the only person Denice had ever met who had more than one sibling. The license was prohibitively expensive.

They rode horses in the morning, and played tennis in the afternoon. Ripper was a surprisingly good tennis player, and occasionally won; technique counted for a lot, and Denice's immense edge in speed and strength were largely offset by the fact that Ripper had been playing his entire life. Denice had never held a racquet until six months ago.

After dinner they went swimming together under banks of sunpaint so bright it seemed like daylight.

Ripper, after a few laps, sat in the whirlpool at the shallow end of the pool and watched Denice move back and forth through the water. After half an hour, she took a break, came over and joined him in the whirlpool.

"In college, thirty years ago," said Ripper, "I was on the swim team. I swear, Denice, you're a better swimmer than anybody I ever saw in d.a.m.n near professional level compet.i.tion."

"Thank you."

"Where did a street kid from New York learn to swim like that?"

Denice ducked her head, came back up with her hair slicked away from her face. She told him as much of the truth as was necessary. "The summer of '72, when I went out to California. I spent most of the summer swimming in the Pacific."

Ripper studied her curiously. "When you were out at the witch's commune-what was it called?"

"G.o.ddess Home."

He was silent, the bubbles swarming up around him. When he spoke, one who did not know how he thought might have thought he was changing the subject.This is where you've come from was the unspoken subtext: "Where do you envision yourself going, Denice?"