Private Steinhauer interrupted in a whisper, "Captain." Everyone looked at the MACO, who flicked his eyes to his right, toward the reflecting pool. "Company."

The group turned to face the pool. In its center, Inyx rose from the black water without a ripple of disturbance on its surface or a drop of moisture on his person. He ascended with an eerie floating quality and a perfect economy of motion. Then, once his body was fully in view, he strode across the pool without seeming to make actual contact with it. Hernandez found the spectacle quite surreal.

As he neared the tree's island, he spread his long, gangly arms and gesticulating tendril-fingers in a pantomime of greeting. "h.e.l.lo again," he said to the landing party. "Are all of you well? Do you require anything?"

Hernandez stepped out of the tree's dappled shadows to meet the Caeliar at the edge of the tiny island. "Aside from our freedom and a way to contact our ship and our home? No."

His inquiry and her rejoinder had already become a ritual. Since the landing party's arrival, Inyx had visited them twice per day, always asking the same bland question and receiving the same pointed answer in return. It didn't seem to bother him.

"I have important news," Inyx said. "The Quorum has agreed to grant you an audience, Captain. It's a most unprecedented turn of events."

Fletcher grumbled behind Hernandez's ear, "Took them long enough. You've been asking to see them for three days."

The captain ignored her XO's grousing and asked Inyx, "When do they want to talk?"

Inyx reached out toward her with one undulating hand.

"Now, Captain."

At the heart of Axion, concealed by a ring of delicately complex interlocked towers and slashed with stray beams of late-afternoon sunlight, stood an intimidating, colossal pyramid of dark crystal and pristine metal: the Quorum hall.

Inyx stood at the leading edge of the transportation disk that was ferrying him and Hernandez toward the pyramid. She didn't know whether he was guiding the disk or merely riding on it as she was. He did seem more confident in its safety than she was; he was perched on its rim, while she preferred to remain near its center. Like every other conveyance she had used since coming to the alien city, it imparted no sensation of movement-no lurch of acceleration or deceleration-and there was far less air resistance than she would have expected, given the speed at which it traveled.

The disk slowed and drifted at a shallow angle toward a broad opening in the middle of one side of the pyramid. From a distance it had looked to her like a narrow slash in the building's facade, but as she and Inyx were swallowed into the structure's interior, she appreciated how huge it and the pyramid really were.

Somewhere close to what Hernandez guessed was the core of the building, the disk eased into a curved port. As it made contact, Inyx stepped forward. Under his feet, the disk and platform fused into a solid structure with no visible seam.

Hernandez followed her Caeliar guide down a cavernous thoroughfare that cut all the way through the pyramid. In the distance, another narrow, rectangular opening framed a strip of cityscape aglow with daylight. Halfway between her and it, the ma.s.sive pa.s.sageway was intersected by another; the two paths formed a cross. Then she became aware of moving faster, as if in a dream, and she realized that she and Inyx were on an inertia-free moving walkway. Within seconds they slowed again and came to a stop at the very center of the intersection.

She looked at Inyx. "Let me guess: Now another disk takes us up to the top of the pyramid."

No sooner had she spoken than the disk started to ascend, through a vertical shaft that hadn't been there a moment before.

Inyx crossed his arms in front of his waist and bowed his head slightly. "I apologize if our civil engineering aesthetic has already grown monotonous for you. If you like, I can task an architect to prepare some surprises for your next visit."

"That won't be necessary," Hernandez said.

They reached the top of the shaft in a blur, slowed just as quickly, and rose the last few meters with languid grace. The sunlight was blinding in the pyramidal Quorum chamber, whose four walls were composed of towering sheets of smoky crystal suspended in delicate frames of white metal.

Four tiers of seating surrounded her, one sloping down from each wall, each suspended more than a dozen meters above the main level, which was open and empty except for her and Inyx. The floor was decorated with a fractal starburst pattern, each grand element echoed in millions of miniature designs. Hernandez strained to see how intricately the pattern had been reduced and surmised that it might well continue to the microscopic level.

A masculine voice resonated in the cathedral-like s.p.a.ce. "Welcome, Captain Erika Hernandez." She turned until she saw the speaker, a Caeliar in scarlet raiment, standing in the middle of the lowest row of seats on the eastern tier. He continued, "I am Ordemo Nordal, the tanwa-seynorral of the Caeliar."

Hernandez tried to conceal her confusion. "Tanwa...?"

Inyx whispered to her, "An idiomatic expression. You might translate it as 'first among equals'. Call him Ordemo."

She nodded her understanding and then addressed Ordemo. "Thank you for meeting with me."

Ordemo's reply was cool and businesslike. "Are your accommodations and provisions acceptable?"

"They are," Hernandez said. "But our captivity is not."

"We regret that such measures are necessary," said Ordemo.

Keeping her anger in check was difficult for Hernandez. "Why are they necessary? We pose no threat to you."

"Your arrival on the surface of Erigol left us little alternative, Captain. As Inyx already told you, we greatly value our privacy. Once it became clear that you were aware of our world, we were forced to choose between banishing you to a distant galaxy and making you our guests. The latter option seemed the more merciful of the two."

Hernandez rolled her eyes and let slip a derisive huff. "Don't take it personally, but we don't see it that way."

"That's not surprising," Ordemo said.

Reining in her temper, Hernandez said, "If it's isolation you want, we can arrange that. I could have your system quarantined. None of our people would ever return."

"Not officially," Ordemo said. "However, in our experience with other species and civilizations, we have often found that telling people not to come here inevitably attracts visitation by those who disregard authority-hardly the sort of guests we'd want to encourage. I'm certain you can understand that."

"Yes, of course," Hernandez said. "But if it's anonymity you want, we could wipe our records of your world from our computers-"

Inyx interrupted, "Forgive me, Captain, but we have already done that. And we have rendered them blind to any new data about our world and star system." When she glowered at the lanky alien, he added, "It seemed to be a sensible precaution."

"Do not be angry with Inyx," Ordemo said. "The decision to tamper with your ship's computers was made by consensus. He only carried out the will of the Quorum."

Diplomacy had never been Hernandez's strong suit, and the Caeliar were making this overture more difficult for her than she had expected. Through gritted teeth she said, "All right." After a deep breath, she continued, "So, if my ship's databanks are clean, and I swear my crew to secrecy, there's no reason you can't let us go on our way."

The tanwa-seynorral seemed unconvinced. "Except that when you reached your people, they would expect an explanation for your absence. And you and your crew would still know the truth, Captain. Coaxed by threat or temptation, one of you would talk."

"Then erase our memories!" She knew she was getting desperate, but she had to press on. "We can't reveal what we don't know. With all this crazy technology of yours, I bet you've got something that could whitewash our minds, make us forget we ever saw you. You could erase everything since the ambush of our ship, send us back, make us think we blacked out-"

"And that twelve of your years pa.s.sed in the interval?" Now the first-among-equals sounded as if he was mocking her. "How would you and your crew react to that, Captain? Would you accept a circ.u.mstance so bizarre without seeking an explanation? And if you did, who's to say that once taken back to that moment, you wouldn't make the same choice you did before, and set course once again to our world?"

Hernandez felt tired-of arguing, of plotting, of all the little battles that had marked every hour of her command since the ambush. Softening her approach, she said, "You make good points, Ordemo. I really can't refute them, so I won't try. But I just don't understand your motives. You cite this need for privacy as the reason my crew and I are being held prisoner. Why are you so afraid of contact with other races?"

"Our impetus is not fear, Captain," Ordemo said. "It is pragmatism." He looked at Inyx, and Hernandez did likewise.

Inyx turned to her and explained, "When less-advanced species become aware of us and what we can do, they tend to respond with either intense curiosity or savage aggression-and sometimes both. In the past, alien civilizations have inundated us with pleas for succor, expecting us to deliver them from the consequences of their own shortsightedness. Others have tried to steal the secrets of our technologies or force them from us. Because we will not take sentient life, even in self-defense, it became increasingly difficult to discourage these abuses. Some sixty-five thousand of your years ago, we concluded that isolation and secrecy would best serve our great work, so we relocated our cities and people here, to what was, at that time, a relatively untraveled sector of the galaxy. However, the recent development of starflight by several local cultures and your arrival on Erigol have reminded us that while changes are never permanent, change is."

"Yeah, life is hard," Hernandez said to Inyx. "Cry me a river." While the scientist struggled to pa.r.s.e her sarcastic idiom, she aimed her ire at Ordemo. "So let me get this straight: My ship, my crew, and myself are doomed to spend the rest of our days here because you don't like getting ha.s.sled?"

The angrier she became, the calmer Ordemo seemed. "It is not quite so simple a matter, Captain. These conflicts tend to escalate, despite our best efforts to contain them. Often, as we take bolder steps to defend ourselves and our sovereignty, several less-developed civilizations will band together out of fear or avarice. When that happens, we often must take...extreme measures, up to and including their displacement."

She held up a hand to interrupt him. "Displacement?"

"A shifting, en ma.s.se, of an entire civilization and its people, often to another galaxy. To use an a.n.a.logy from your own world, it's like catching a spider in your home and expelling it to the outdoors rather than killing it." He paused and grew more somber. "It's a tactic we find distasteful and distressing. Having been forced to it in the past, we now choose to conceal ourselves rather than risk provoking another such travesty."

Begging and pleading both had proved ineffective. All that Hernandez could do now was try to lay groundwork for a future opportunity. "If my people and I have to stay here, we'd at least like to get to know more about your culture," she said. "In particular, I'd like to learn more about this thing you keep referring to as 'the great work.'"

Inyx looked up at Ordemo. "With the Quorum's permission?"

"Granted."

"The great work," Inyx said, "is a project that has spanned several millennia and is only now reaching its fruition. Reduced to its core objective, it is our effort to detect, and make contact with, a civilization more advanced than our own."

Hernandez smirked. "Finally...something we have in common."

Inyx left the humans' penthouse suite after escorting Captain Erika Hernandez back to her fellow guests. He guided his disk along the outer edge of Axion, to a narrow promontory that extended beyond the city's edge and faced the setting sun.

Sedin, his companion of many aeons, waited for him at the end of the walkway. They met frequently at this place to watch the sky's ephemeral changes. Often they eschewed conversation, having long since run out of anything new to say. Silent presence now pa.s.sed for friendship between them.

The disk under Inyx's feet melded back into the memory metal of the city, and he stepped onto the walkway and willed it into motion beneath him. It whisked him with speed and precision to within an arm's reach of Sedin, and then it halted. With an ease born of many thousands of years of practice, he strode off the walkway and took his place at Sedin's side.

Beyond the mountains, the ruddy orb of the heavens made its descent, its colors bleeding into the darkness above it.

"You brought the human ship commander to the Quorum," Sedin said, her enunciation neutral but still intimating disapproval.

"She asked to see them," Inyx replied. "They consented."

The sky grew darker and swallowed the jagged silhouette of distant mountaintops. Stars peppered the sky before Sedin spoke again, her affectless manner betraying her disdain.

"They could have been displaced."

Inyx countered that statement of fact with another. "That was not the Quorum's decree."

"I audited the debate through the gestalt," Sedin said. "You shaped that decree. If not for you, they would have been displaced, like all the others. You advocated custody."

"Displacement was not warranted," Inyx argued. "They had no means of communication-"

"I've already heard your justifications," Sedin said. "And I know they swayed the Quorum. The matter is decided."

Darkness swallowed the last glimmers of twilight, and overhead the cold majesty of the galaxy stretched across the dome of the sky. Soon it would be time for Inyx to return to his research for the night, before paying another visit to the humans at daybreak. Tired of the hostility in his discourse with Sedin, he turned to leave.

He paused as she asked, "Why did you bring them here?"

"They came of their own accord," Inyx said, turning back.

"But you secured them permission to make orbit and come to the surface. You welcomed them to Erigol. Our home."

In time, Inyx knew, it might be possible to persuade Sedin to let go of her anxiety toward the unknown. That time, however, would not be this night. For now, he could only tell his comrade the truth and hope that it would suffice to postpone the rest of their discussion until the next sunset.

"I argued my conscience," Inyx said. "Nothing more."

Sedin was not appeased. If anything, she sounded more suspicious. "Your conscience? Or your curiosity?"

A new transportation disk appeared beside the end of the platform. Inyx stepped onto it and faced toward the city. He chose to ignore his friend's question-not out of guilt or anger, but because he did not, in fact, know the answer.

He willed the disk forward. "Good night, Sedin."

In the shade of the tree by the pool, violent ideas were taking root.

Most of the landing party was still asleep back at the penthouse suite. The MACOs, however, had risen at dawn, stolen away in silence, and gathered here. They circled around Major Foyle, who used a green twig snapped from a low branch to draw designs in the rich, black earth of the tree's island.

"Our biggest challenge right now is the scattering field around the city," Foyle said, etching a circle in the dirt. "We can't transport through it, and we can't get signals out."

Lieutenant Yacavino tumbled three small stones in his hand while he stared at the circle Foyle had drawn. "Depending on our objective, we need to either get outside the field or collapse it. It's fifteen klicks to get clear, and we don't even know how to get back to the planet's surface from up here, so I'd suggest we focus on knocking out the field."

"That's a good plan," said Sergeant Pembleton. "Except for the fact that we don't have any power left in our gear."

Foyle waved away the complaint with his twig. "There are ways to fix that," he said. "Worst-case scenario, we can use solar power to recharge the rifles."

"That would take weeks," Crichlow protested.

Pembleton deadpanned, "Are you going somewhere, Private?"

"The city has to have some kind of power-generation," said Yacavino. "Maybe we can find a way to tap into it."

"Talk to Graylock," Foyle said. "But let's remember that we have options. The rifles and hand scanners might be out cold, but we still have chemical grenades, flares, and our hands."

Private Steinhauer said, "I don't want to sound negative, Major, but CQC with the Caeliar sounds like a bad idea."

"He's right," Pembleton said. "Going hand-to-hand with a shape-changer that can levitate is a good way to get killed."

"Except that the Caeliar are pacifists, Sergeant," said Private Mazzetti. "They won't kill."

"Not on purpose," Foyle said, feeling the urge to clarify the situation for the younger men. "But accidents happen. Just because they aren't trying to kill us doesn't mean they have to save us when we make mistakes." The three enlisted men nodded.

Yacavino ma.s.saged his stubbled chin with his thumb and forefinger. "We need an objective." The Italian-born MACO looked at Foyle. "I a.s.sume we're trying to get back to the ship?"

"Yes," Foyle said. "And from there, out of orbit."

"And home," Pembleton added.

"Then we have to take down the scattering field," Yacavino said. "That's job one. Then we need to neutralize the Caeliar's ability to hurt the Columbia. Once that's done, we contact the ship, beam up, and get the h.e.l.l out of here."

Foyle nodded. "It sounds like there's a good chance we could achieve the first two goals by causing a major disruption of the city's power supply. Do it right, and we might gain a useful distraction while we're at it."

"A useful distraction?" parroted Yacavino. "An explosion?"

"Correct," said Foyle. "Is there a problem?"

The second-in-command looked troubled. "We don't know what kind of damage we might do with demolitions. We might be talking about a lot of collateral damage." His jaw clenched and he swallowed. "I don't think the captain will go for that, sir."

"No," Foyle said. "I don't imagine she will. Which is why we're treating that part of the plan as need-to-know information until further notice-and the captain doesn't need to know."

That seemed to mollify the privates, but Yacavino looked away to hide his agitation, and Pembleton had a cautious air about him as he asked, "What if she finds out anyway?"

"Funny thing about collateral damage," Foyle replied. "It can happen to anyone. Even captains."