But he was a murderer, she reminded herself. And he had killed so casually, with not a moment's hesitation. She wondered what drug regime he was using.

"Excuse me." A new voice. It turned out to be Alison Scott. She was standing before Elisha, her two terrified daughters at her side, their hair of blue and green shining in the meaningless, flickering light of the walls.

Joan felt a stab of pain in her lower belly, hard enough to make her gasp. She had a sense of things escalating out of control.

Bex was staring at her accusingly.

"Bex, are you OK?"

"You said Rabaul wasn't going to hurt us. You said it was so unlikely, while we were here. You said we were safe."

"I'm sorry. Really. Alison, please go sit down. There's nothing you can do here."

Scott ignored her. "Look, whoever you are, whatever you want, we are hot, we are tired, we are thirsty, we are already starting to feel sick."

"That's ridiculous," Elisha said evenly. "Psychosomatic. You're being neurotic."

Scott actually snarled. "Don't you psychoanalyze me. I demand-"

"You demand, you demand, yammer, yammer, yammer." He approached Scott. She held her ground, her arms tightly wrapped around her girls. Elisha lifted Bex's aquamarine hair, tugged it gently, rubbed it between his fingers. "Genriched," he said.

"Leave her alone," Scott hissed.

"How beautiful they are, like toys." He ran his hand down Bex's hair to her shoulder, then squeezed her small breast.

Bex yelped, and Scott pulled her away. "She's fourteen years old-"

"You know what they do, Dr. Joan Useb, these genetic engineers? They stuff a whole extra chromosome into their kids, an extra chromosome full of desirable genes. But, aside from the hair and the teeth, do you know what that extra chromosome does? It stops those perfect kids breeding with us old-style unenhanced Homo sapiens. Homo sapiens. Now, what higher exclusion barrier can you imagine than that? Today, the rich even set themselves up as a separate Now, what higher exclusion barrier can you imagine than that? Today, the rich even set themselves up as a separate species. species." As if absently, like pulling a fruit from its branch, he pulled Bex away from her mother's grasp. One of the female terrorists held back Scott. Elisha ripped open the girl's blouse, exposing her light, lacy brassiere. Bex closed her eyes; she was muttering to herself, a song or a rhyme.

"Elisha, please-" Now there was another stab of pain in Joan's belly, a liquid surge. She found herself bent double. Oh, Christ, not now, she thought. Not now.

Suddenly Alyce was here. "Take it easy. Sit down."

The wall images were changing, Joan saw. Her vision was misted, but there seemed to be a lot more orange, black, gray.

Alyce was grinning, a humorless grimace, like a skull's. "That's Rabaul going up. Great timing."

Elisha had gotten hold of the girl's wrists and pushed her arms over her head.

Joan said quickly, "Come on, Elisha. You aren't here for this."

"Aren't I?"

Scott said grimly, "If all you want is something to fuck, take me. take me."

"Oh, but there would be no point," Elisha said. "It's not the act but the symbolism, you see. This is the first time since the extinction of the Neandertals that there have been two distinct human species in the world." He stared down at the girl. "Is it rape, if the act occurs between different species?"

The doors blew in.

There was screaming, running, the crackle of gunfire. Small black pellets were hurled through the open doors and burst. White smoke began to fill the air.

Joan looked for the terrorists, trying to count. Two of them had fallen when the doors were charged. Another two, running and firing, fell as she watched, suddenly turned into tumbling puppets. Most of her delegates were on the floor or cowering under the furniture. Two, three, four looked as if they might be hurt: She saw inert shapes in the smoke, splashes of bloodred in the gray murk.

A new ripple of pain passed over Joan's abdomen.

Elisha stood before her. He was smiling. He had hold of a length of black cord that extended from his waistband.

At least Bex had been released; the girl, in the arms of her mother, was backing away.

"Elisha. You don't have to die."

His smile broadened. "All over the planet, five hundred of us are poised to make the same statement."

Alyce half reached for him. "Don't do it, for God's sake-"

"You won't be harmed," he said. He pulled his balaclava back over his head. "I die as I lived. Faceless."

Joan screamed, "Elisha!"

He tugged on the cord, as if starting a gasoline engine. There was a flash around his waist, a belt of transient light. Then the upper half of his body tipped away from the lower. As the pieces of him fell, neatly bisected, there was a stink of blood, the acid stench of stomach contents.

Alyce clung to Joan. "Oh, God, oh, God."

The smoke was thickening, blinding, and Joan was coughing like a lifelong smoker. Now the pain came again, washing through her abdomen and back. She held on to Alyce. "Has it ever struck you how maladaptive group suicide is?"

"For God's sake, Joan-"

"I mean, individual suicide can sometimes be justified, from a biological point of view. Perhaps a suicide is removing a burden from her kin. But what biological rationale can group suicide ever have? The capacity to believe in cultural dictates has been adaptive. It must have been or we wouldn't have it. But sometimes the mechanism goes wrong-"

"We're crazy. Is that what you're trying to say? We're all crazy. I agree."

"Ma'am, please come with me." A shadow before her. It looked like a soldier in a space suit, reaching for her.

Pain rippled through her again, an extinction of purposeful thought. She crumpled against Alyce Sigurdardottir. She heard another explosion. She thought it was just another part of the military or police operation.

She was wrong, as it happened. That had been Rabaul.

Once the sea had penetrated the magma chamber, the explosion became inevitable.

Shreds of molten magma flew into the air faster than sound, reaching heights of fifty kilometers. They broke up into solidifying fragments, ranging from tiny ash particles to chunks a meter wide. Mixed in with all of this were chunks of the shattered mountain itself. These bits of rock had been hurled far above the weather, far above aircraft and balloons, above even the ozone layer, fragments of Rabaul mingling with the meteorites, burning brightly and briefly. It was a sky full of rock.

And on the ground, the shock wave moved out from the shattered caldera at twice the speed of sound. Silent until it hit, it leveled everything in its path, houses, temples, trees, bridges. Where it passed energy poured into the air, compressing it and raising it to enormous temperatures. Anything combustible burst into flames.

People could see the shock was coming, but they could not hear it and they certainly could not flee it. They just popped into flame and vanished, like pine needles on a bonfire. This was just the beginning.

Space suited soldiers bundled Joan out of the smoke-filled bar, out of the hotel, and into fresh air. She was put on to a stretcher that was hauled away at running speed. All around her was a blizzard of movement, people running, cars rushing, tarmac beneath, helicopters flapping through an orange sky.

Now they were bundling her into the back of a van. An ambulance? One, two, three, lift. One, two, three, lift. The stretcher slid inside the vehicle, alongside a kind of narrow bunk bed. There was anonymous equipment on the walls, none of it bleeping or humming, nothing like the equipment in the medical soaps she had once been addicted to. The stretcher slid inside the vehicle, alongside a kind of narrow bunk bed. There was anonymous equipment on the walls, none of it bleeping or humming, nothing like the equipment in the medical soaps she had once been addicted to.

She waved her hand through the air. "Alyce."

Alyce grabbed her hand. "I'm here, Joan."

"I feel like an amphibian, Alyce. I swim in blood and piss, but I breathe the air of culture. Neither one thing nor the other-"

Alyce's drawn face was above her, distracted, fearful. "What? What did you say?"

"What time is it?"

"Joan, save your breath. Believe me, I've been through this; you're going to need it."

"Is it day or night? I lost track. I couldn't tell from the sky."

"My watch is broken. Night, I think."

Somebody was working on her legs- cutting away her clothes? The ambulance lurched into motion, and she heard the remote wail of a siren, like some animal lost in the fog. All she could see was the bare, gloomily painted roof of the vehicle, those meaningless bits of equipment, and Alyce's thin face.

"Listen, Alyce."

"I'm here."

"I never told you my family's true history."

"Joan-"

She said sharply, "If I don't make it out of this, tell my daughter where she came from."

Alyce nodded soberly. "You came to America as slaves."

"My great-grandfather worked out the story. We came from what is now Namibia, not far from Windhoek. We were San, what they called 'bushmen.' We nearly got wiped out by the Bantu, and in colonial days we were killed as vermin. But we kept some cultural identity."

"Joan-"

"Alyce, gene frequency studies show that female-line DNA among San women is more diverse than anywhere else on Earth. The implication is that San genes have been around in southern Africa much longer than any genes anywhere else on Earth. People of San ancestry are about the closest we'll ever get to the direct line of descent from our common grandmother, our mitochondrial Eve-"

Alyce nodded soberly. "I understand. So your child is one of the youngest people on the planet- and the oldest." Alyce covered her hand. "I promise I'll tell her."

The pain came in waves now. She felt as if her mind were dissolving; she struggled to think. "You know, normal human births are statistically likely to happen at night. An ancient primate trait. It's as well to bear your child in the safety of your treetop nest."

"Joan-"

"Let me talk, damn it. Talking makes the pain go away."

"Drugs make the pain go away." make the pain go away."

"Ow! That one felt different. Is there a midwife in this damn van?" That one felt different. Is there a midwife in this damn van?"

"They're all trained paramedics. You've got nothing to be afraid of."

"I think my daughter is keen to see the inside of this scruffy ambulance."

"You've done your classes. Breathe. Push."

She began to breathe in gasping snatches, Oof, oof, oof. Oof, oof, oof.

Alyce kept glancing down toward the business end. "You're doing fine."

"Even if I do have the pelvis of an australopithecine."

"You really are full of shit, Joan Useb."

"Not anymore, I fear."

"She's coming. She's coming, coming," Alyce said.

The baby's skull bones and their junctions were soft, able to mold under the pressure of being squeezed through the birth canal. And she was able to withstand oxygen deprivation up to the moment of birth.

These last moments were the most extreme physical transformation she would suffer up until the moment of death itself. But the baby's body was flooded with natural opiates and analgesics. She was feeling no real pain, just a continuation of the long womb dream out of which her self, her identity, had gradually coalesced.

A space suited paramedic took Joan's child, blew into its nose, and slapped its backside. A satisfying wail filled the ambulance. The soggy little scrap of flesh was hastily wrapped in a blanket and handed to Joan.

Joan, exhausted, wondering, touched her daughter's cheek. The child turned her head, and her mouth worked, seeking something to suck.

Alyce was smiling down, sweating and exhausted herself, like any proud aunt. "By God, look at her. She's already communicating with us, in her way. She's already human."

"I think she wants to suckle. But I don't have any milk yet, do I?"

"Let her suckle anyhow," Alyce advised. "It will stimulate your body to release more oxytocin."

Now Joan remembered her classes. "Which will cause my uterus to contract, reduce the bleeding, help expel the placenta-"

"Don't worry about that," said a space suit. "We injected you already."

Joan let the child lick her nipple. "Look at that. She's making grasping motions. And it's like she's stepping. I can feel her feet."

"If you had a hairy chest she could probably support her weight, and maybe crawl over you. And if you moved suddenly, she'd grab even harder."

"In case I go bounding off through the trees. Look, she's calming."

"Give her twenty more minutes and she'll be pulling her tongue at you."

Joan felt as if she were floating, as if nothing was real but the fragile warm bundle in her arms. "I know it's all innate. I know I'm being reprogrammed so I don't shuck off this damp little parasite. And yet, and yet-"

Alyce laid her hand on Joan's shoulder. "And yet it's what your life has been all about, but you just never knew it before."