Significance. Suddenly the world seemed to have significance.

He felt the tickling again, a dim presence at the back of his mind. The boy was searching for him, trying to find him with his mind.

For a moment he resisted, a faint reverberation in his head like an insect brushing against the glass of a fastened window, then, as if he'd unlocked it and thrown up the sash, the words rushed in.Did you see the pearl?

He frowned, then answered. Yes.

Sampsa shifted slightly on the gently sloping rock, then stretched lazily, spreading his toes. The dream.

The boy was talking of the dream he'd had last night. For a second or two the silence in his head seemed vast, like the inside of some huge, sepulchral building, and then it came again.

That cloud . . . it's like a tiger. . . .

He watched the air show pass, the sun riding the great beast's back, feeling himself a channel, a window for the other's eyes.

Sampsa? Where are you?

He sat up and looked about him, letting the other see. "I'm on the island," he said, as if the other were blind and was seated beside him on the rock. "That house-" he looked up at the tower built into the rock face to his right-"that house is Kalevala. My home."

He stared at it awhile, tracing its ancient shape, letting his mind fill with his memories of the place, then looked down into the pool. The crab was resting now, its huge front pincers slowly opening and closing.

Erh . . .

The double. Sampsa leaned forward and, lightning quick, breached the surface of the water with his finger and touched the marking on the shell. As the crab scuttled away beneath a ledge of rock, he could hear laughter in his head.

He turned, looking south. "Why can't I see where you are?" You can, the other answered. Just close your eyes and look. He closed his eyes and looked. The blood-red of veins on the back of his lids faded to darkness and then . . .

The cottage seemed embedded in the hillside, the white of its walls vivid against the green. Beyond it similar cottages climbed the hill. And beyond that . . . "What is that?"

That's the City. Its walls surround the valley. "Ah ..."

He felt the boy turn; saw fields and trees and then . . . The bay. Slowly he moved toward it, past the charred remnants of an outhouse and down through fields until he stood beside it, looking out across the gray-green water. "Where are the waves?"

Again there was laughter. Then, beyond what he saw, he sensed the memory of waves coming in across a pale white rock that juttled from a beach of yellow sand.

"What is that?" he asked, confused, but he could hear someone calling now, and as he turned to look the vision flickered and was gone.

Tom. The other's name was Tom.

Sampsa opened his eyes and shivered. From its place beneath the rock ledge the crab eyed him warily, the message on his shell hidden from sight.

For the briefest moment he had glimpsed her, dark as his own mother was light, voluptuous where she was austere. And about her neck, the pearl; the same black pearl he had seen in the dream.

At once he saw himself in the water, forcing himself down, down, into the sunless depths, his legs kickingstrongly, his arms pulling him down through the hostile dark. For a moment he had glimpsed it, there on the shining open shell-a perfect night-dark pearl, as large as the tip of his little finger-and had stretched to take it, but even as his fingers reached for it, he had felt himself drawn upward and, lungs bursting, had kicked hard for the surface high above.

He had woken suddenly, gasping, his head ringing, his chest tight with imagined pain. The pearl. He had opened his hand and stared at his empty palm, the sense of loss powerful, unaccountable.

And then, that morning, diving with his father from the rocks, he had found himself searching the rocky bed of the bay, looking for it, expecting it almost, even though he knew no oysters grew in that frigid northern sea. And once again, his sense of disappointment had been sharp. But now he knew.

Did you see the pearl?

This time he smiled. Yes. I saw it.

"Sam-psa! Sam-psa!"

He turned and looked up at the house. His mother was leaning from the kitchen window.

"I'm coming," he yelled, beginning to make his way across the rocks toward the steps. Yet even as he did, he had the faintest sensation of grass brushing against his bare legs, the vaguest impression of an overpowering whiteness at the back of everything.

Doubled. Suddenly the world was doubled.

"Later on I'll show you the cave and the place where the trees were burned."

Yes, Tom answered. And maybe we can row across the bay to where the ground is fused glass-black. There was a house there once. . . .

Sampsa smiled, then began to climb the steps, deciding he would say nothing to his mother.

At the top of the steps he turned, letting Tom look out through him a moment, sharing with him the rugged beauty of the view.

No. This would be their secret, just he and Tom would know.

Later, Tom said. Okay?

"Later," he acknowledged, feeling Tom slip from his head. Then, alone once more, he turned, and pushing through the gate, made his way across the garden, heading for the house.

tom SAT IN THE CORNER of the room, spooning down his soup, while, on the far side of the room, his mother stood before the wall-screen.

On the screen itself, half life-size, three men-young men in their twenties-sat about a table, as if in a restaurant, talking and drinking wine. Tom glanced at it, uninterested, then concentrated on his soup again, aware only that his mother had gone suddenly from the room.

A moment later Meg was back, Ben in tow.

"There," she said. "That's him, isn't it?"

Tom looked up. His father was staring at the screen and frowning deeply as he listened. After a moment he laughed coldly, then, speaking to the house computer, said, "Play this item from the beginning."Tom finished his soup then pushed the bowl away. The program began again.

He had not really been listening, yet his ears had taken in every word. As the discussion began, he found he knew what each was going to say. Not that that was odd: it was a skill-a talent-he had inherited from his father. Perfect recall. Sometimes it came in handy. Most times it was a nuisance-a barrier to simple being.

He slipped off the chair and-unnoticed by his parents-crossed the room, seating himself halfway up the stairs, on the turn where the rope was.

His father had crouched before the screen and was watching it attentively. The man in the middle was someone called Sergey Novacek, a sculptor, supposedly, though how a man with a shattered hand could be a sculptor was beyond Tom. To his left sat a man who called himself an art critic-one Ucef Agrafes, which sounded like a made-up name. To the right of the screen was someone Tom had heard of, the famous painter Ernst Heydemeier, creator of the so-called Futur-Kunst movement.

And their subject? Tom smiled, noting the tension in his father's body. The subject was Ben Shepherd's The Familiar.

Just then the comset in the corner began to bleep. His mother went across and picked up the handset.

She was silent a moment, then turned, looking to Ben.

"He's watching it right now," she said, the words distinct enough to make Ben glance at her, before looking back at the screen.

"Okay," she added, after a moment. "I'm sure he will."

She set it down then went back and stood beside Ben, her hand resting gently on his shoulder.

"For me it's not the concept," Heydemeier was saying. "I think the concept is quite a brilliant one. But then the concept isn't what's new here. The concept of shell technologies is actually more than two centuries old and Shepherd can no more take the credit for inventing it than any of us sitting about this table. No, what's new here is the degree of realism he's striven for, and I'm afraid that's just what's so deathly about the whole thing. It's just too real, too lifelike. Why, it's like someone has simply gone out with a new kind of camera and photographed the inside of someone's head. It's . . . well, I just feel it lacks all of those qualities that we recognize as being artistic. Art has to make some kind of statement about the world. It needs to reinterpret it for us, otherwise it simply isn't art. And Shepherd's Familiar, I'm afraid to say, simply isn't art."

Tom heard the tiny grunt his father gave, and noted how he had pressed his hands together on his knees, as if to still them.

Novacek, who was chairing the panel, now leaned forward and, lifting a bottle, began to fill his glass again as he spoke.

"I take what you say, Ernst, but you seem to imply that, even if it isn't art, there is, nonetheless, some kind of technical excellence at work here. Indeed, that seems to be the single factor that swayed most of the critics who've thus far reviewed it. The surface glitter of the thing. For me, however, that so-called excellence seems more like sleight of hand; a kind of slick cheating. For me that smacks of the artist-and I define that term very loosely, I hasten to say-as magician. The whole thing is a cheap illusion, manufactured not by an artist, but by the worst kind of con artist."

"I quite agree," Agrafes chipped in. "In fact, I'd go farther and say that some of the scenes with thewoman are no better than the cheapest Porno-Stims-the very lowest kind of titillation-and say more for the moral bankruptcy of my fellow critics than for the excellence of the work. For let us be quite clear, we are not talking about genuine excellence here. Ben Shepherd's The Familiar is-and let us not pontificate or try to obscure the point-the start of a new and quite disturbing trend which, unless something is done to try to prevent its proliferation, is almost certain to lead us down the path toward total moral degradation. To my mind it's filth of the lowest level-filth masquerading as high art!"

Ben stood, putting up a hand. At once the image froze.

"Well?" Meg asked quietly. "It is him, isn't it?"

Ben nodded. His silence was the silence of anger.

"Do you know he married her?"

The look that came to his face was rare indeed; a look of shock. "You didn't say," he answered, his voice almost a whisper.

She shook her head, her eyes apologetic.

He looked back at the screen and shuddered. "He must haveiwaited years for this chance to get back at me. Cheap illusions . . ." He made a snort of disgust. "As if that manufacturer of funerary items could even tell!"

"Distractions," she said. "That's what you said they are."

He glared at her, and then relented. "Achh . . . this is exactly what I wanted to avoid."

"Then ignore it. Don't lower yourself to their level."

"But the lies-"

"Are only lies. Or an opinion. You never know, he may even be sincere."

"Who, Novacek? No. He's a cunt! A shameless piece of shit! I should have snapped more than his hand!"

"Ben!"

The anguish in his mother's voice surprised Tom. He stared at her, not quite understanding what had happened. The past. This was a chapter of the past he hadn't read.

"What did Neville want?" Ben asked, after a moment.

"He . . ." She sighed. "Look, Ben, just forget this. It will do far more harm to answer them than ignore them."

"Maybe. But what did Neville say?"

She looked down. "He says he's booked a slot on three of the major channels for ten this evening. That's if you want to answer the criticisms. I said you'd let him know."

Tom watched, fascinated, not knowing what would come. For once this was a situation he could not recall."Tell him I'll pass," Ben said, and Tom, watching, saw how his mother let out a huge sigh of relief at that.

But as his father turned away, he saw a strange glint in his eye and knew the matter wasn't over.

THE DAY HAD GONE WELL. According to Lin, they had taken in more than twice what he usually did, and he was kind enough to put it down to her presence there behind the stall.

"We should do this regularly," he said in a quiet moment. "The customers seem to like you."

She smiled and looked down, abashed and yet also pleased by his praise. But more than that, she had enjoyed the day-enjoyed it more than she cared to think. For so long, it seemed, she had been caged.

Not that she had ever looked at it that way before. And to even suggest it to him-well, it was unthinkable.

"If that's what you'd like . . ."

His lopsided smile said that it was. Pleased, she attended to the stall, rearranging what was left so that it looked its best. Customers came and went, and for the next hour she barely had time to think. At the end of it she looked to Lin.

"Well?" she asked, seeing how strangely he was looking at her.

"I should have known," he said with a little sigh.

"Known what?" she asked quietly.

"That it was wrong." He looked down. "Wrong to keep you shut away. You needed this. Or something like this. I've never seen you so alive."

She looked away again, disturbed. "It wasn't wrong," she said. "You took care of me." She looked back at him, then reached out, holding his arm. "Nothing you could ever do would be wrong."

His eyes sought hers, then looked away, as if ashamed.

"What is it?" she asked.

"Nu shi . . ."

She turned, facing the customer who had interrupted her. "Just a moment . . ." But the look of surprise on the man's face at seeing her made her stop and frown. "Can I help you?"

"No . . . no, I ... Forgive me, I made a mistake."

He turned and vanished in the crowd, leaving her staring after him.

"What is it?" Lin asked, seeing the look on her face.

"That man," she said.

"You knew him?"

"No ... I mean, I don't think I did."

"Then what?" Unexpectedly he reached out and took her arms, turning her to face him. His face was more earnest than she'd ever seen it, his eyes searching hers. "Did you know him, or didn't you?""No," she said, certain about it now that she'd searched her memory. "But he knew me."