"At any rate," Gadrial continued, "given the Ransaran views on the preciousness of each individual life, the possibility of any of our major religions-most of which were still quite cheerfully chopping up the adherents of their Ransaran coreligionists at the time-signing off on the notion of trial-and-error experiments on humans was . . . remote, shall we say. So both the Mythalans and the Ransarans, each for their own very different reasons, outlawed that sort of experimentation on humans from the very beginning."

"But not on other creatures," Shaylar said, and managed not to grimace when Gadrial shook her head.

The more Shaylar heard about the Mythalans, the more she preferred the Ransarans. Yet it was obvious to her that even the humanistic Ransarans were very, very different from her own people. Most Sharonians would have found it exceedingly difficult to "sign off on" that sort of experimentation upon any creatures, not just humans. There were exceptions, of course, as she was well aware, but the existence of those like her mother, whose Talent allowed communication with sentient nonhuman species, made them rare. Very few Sharonians would have been prepared to suggest that a cow, or a chicken, was intellectually or morally equivalent to a human being. But, by the same token, very few Sharonians would have been prepared to deny that the great apes and the cetaceans had attained a very high level of intelligence which, if not equal to that of human beings, certainly approached it very closely. In some ways, that same Talent kept them from over-anthropomorphizing the lesser animals, with whom no meaningful contact was possible. Still, by and large, they tended to regard themselves as the stewards of the worlds in which they lived, and the notion of creating experimental monsters would have been highly repugnant to them.

Not that she had any intention of discussing that with Gadrial just now. Especially since, so far, she'd managed to conceal the existence of that specific Talent, despite her mother's life work.

If they ever ask me exactly who Mother's an ambassador to, keeping that particular secret a secret is going to get sticky, she thought. So let's not go there just now, Shaylar.

"So, how does all of this relate to transport dragons and battle dragons?" she asked, instead.

"Well, it was Ransaran magistrons who built the first dragons," Gadrial said, as if she were discussing how to go about baking a cake, Shaylar thought.

" 'Built' them out of what?" the Voice demanded.

"There's some dispute about that," Gadrial admitted. "According to at least one tradition, there were still some of the great lizards living in Ransar at the time." She shrugged. "I've always had problems with that particular explanation, myself, since the fossil record seems to indicate that all of the great lizards had died out-rather abruptly, in geological terms-long before dragons were ever developed. Still, there are undeniable similarities.

"At any rate," she continued, as if blithely oblivious to the way Shaylar's eyes were bugging out ever so slightly, "the original dragons were developed in Ransar strictly as beasts of burden. As a way to move cargo quickly from point to point, for the most part, although there are still some wingless dragons in Ransar, where they've been used for centuries instead of horses or unicorns as really heavy draft animals. For the most part, though, their military applications were limited strictly to improving transport. Until the Mythalans got into the act, that was."

"And why did I see that one coming?" Shaylar demanded rhetorically.

"Because you're so clever," Gadrial told her with a wry chuckle.

"I've always rather suspected that Mythalan resentment that we primitive Ransarans had produced something they hadn't played a part in what happened," the magister continued. "After all, to be brutally honest, most of us were pretty primitive compared to Mythal, at that particular point. Hansara was a Tosarian, and Tosaria had evolved a much higher level of civilization than most of the rest of us. My ancestors, for example, were still painting themselves blue and yellow and pickling their enemies' heads as door ornaments at the time. As far as Mythal was concerned, though, all Ransarans were still doing that, and yet the Tosarians had produced not just dragons but Hansara's basic work. Given shakira arrogance, I'm sure they felt an enormous temptation to prove they could do it better than we had. But they weren't interested in simply improving transportation capabilities; they were looking for direct military applications."

Gadrial's amusement of only moments before had vanished.

"Skyfang is a pure transport type. As Daris says, he probably goes clear back to the first egg. Which means he's bigger, stronger, and less maneuverable than a battle dragon, but that he has more endurance and basic lift capability. And, aside from his teeth and claws, he has no natural weapons."

"You mean battle dragons do have other weapons?" Shaylar's eyes widened.

Mother Marthea! she thought shakenly. Surely the things' fangs, claws, and horns are vicious enough! How could even Mythalans want to add still more weapons to their nightmare?

"They certainly do." Gadrial's voice was as grim as if she'd actually Heard Shaylar's thought . . . and shared it. "The weapons Jasak's men used against your people are called 'infantry-dragons' because they replicate the 'natural' weapons the Mythalans built into their real dragons, Shaylar. Some battle dragons breathe fire-or, rather, spit fireballs. Others throw lightning bolts. And still others, despite periodic efforts to ban the breeds in question entirely, project poisonous gases and vapors."

Shaylar gazed at her in horror, and the magister shrugged. She was obviously sympathetic to Shaylar's reaction, but there was something more than simple sympathy behind that shrug, and she returned Shaylar's gaze levelly.

"I can understand that you find the thought frightening and unnatural, Shaylar," she said. "And I don't disagree with you that building something like that into a living creature is a typically Mythalan sort of thing to do. In fact, I've always thought battle dragons are probably the most horrific battlefield weapons-short of the mass destruction spells which were banned when the Union was formed, at least-that Arcana's ever deployed. But I can't believe your people are that much different from ours when it comes to fighting wars. You've thrown the fact that Jasak's troopers' infantry-dragons burned your people to death into the face of every Army officer you've confronted, and I admit that that's a horrible way to die. But war is full of horrible ways to die, isn't it? Are you going to tell me your people never poured flaming oil onto someone trying to storm a castle wall? That they never blew someone's abdomen open with those artillery pieces of yours-those "mortars"-and left him to bleed slowly to death on the field of battle, screaming in pain? Never used fire as a naval weapon that gave men the choice between burning to death or drowning when their wooden ships went up in flame around them?"

Shaylar started to open her mouth in a quick response, then paused and closed it once more. Gadrial was right, she realized. When it came to the organized slaughter of combat, there were countless horrific ways to die. No one had a monopoly on ghastliness.

"I'm not saying you don't have every right to regard what happened to your survey crew as an act of barbarism," Gadrial said more gently. "If nothing else, your people were civilians, and all you were doing was defending yourselves. But when you think about all the horrors Arcanan weapons could unleash against your people, you need to remember that our people are worrying about horrors just as great coming from your people. Both sides are terrified, and both sides think the people on the other side are barbarians. I pray to God every night that we're both wrong, that Master Skirvon and Master Dastiri are going to sit down with your people and somehow negotiate an end to all of this without one more single person being killed.

"But if Skirvon and Dastiri don't pull that off, then Jasak's father is one of the men who are going to decide what happens next, how Arcana goes to war against Sharona. You already know what Jasak's going to tell him, but it's going to be almost as much up to us-to you, Jathmar, and me-to convince the duke that prosecuting the war with every weapon at our disposal is the wrong thing to do. And if you're going to help convince him of that, you've got to be able to be brutally honest about just how much barbarism there really is on both sides."

She stopped speaking, and there was no sound except the noise of wind and water for several seconds. Then Shaylar gave a tiny nod.

"You're right," she said. "Or partly right, at least. I'm sure being caught in the explosion of an artillery shell is just as terrible as being killed by one of your lightning bolts. And, yes, my people have used flaming oil and set their enemies' ships on fire with what we call 'Ternathian Fire.' I suppose the only real difference is how we go about inflicting our mutual atrocities, isn't it?"

"I'm afraid so," Gadrial agreed sadly.

"Maybe it's only the fact that I am a civilian," Shaylar continued. "I'd never seen anyone actually killed in front of me before, never even thought about how horrible and terrifying and ugly that would be. And," she managed something that was almost a smile, "something about being on the receiving end of something like that does tend to give you a somewhat biased opinion of just how . . . humanitarian it is.

"But I'll try to think about what you've said. Especially the bit about helping to convince Jasak's father Sharona isn't simply a pit of horrors waiting to consume Arcana."

"From what I've heard of the duke, he's not likely to think that, anyway," Gadrial said. "But there are going to be others, as well, and some of them very well may."

"I understand." Shaylar nodded. Then she inhaled deeply and squared her shoulders.

"But you were saying about the dragons?" she said.

"I was saying that they call the infantry support weapons 'dragons' because of the way they replicate dragons' natural weapons," Gadrial said. "But they aren't anywhere near as deadly as an actual battle dragon. The artillery's field-dragons are many times more powerful than the infantry-dragons Jasak's men had with them that day, and much longer ranged. But even the heaviest field-dragon is much less powerful than the weapons built into battle dragons. All of the infantry and artillery weapons rely on charged spell accumulators, but battle dragons are spell accumulators. They charge themselves from the magic field after every shot."

"I'm trying very hard to remember what we were just saying," Shaylar told her a bit wanly. "It's a bit difficult, though, when you tell me about something like that."

"I never said it would be easy. Just that we've got to do it, anyway."

"I know, I know." Shaylar shook her head. "But are you saying that you think it's something about the . . . magic the Mythalans used to graft those horrible capabilities into their battle dragons that causes them to hate me where transports like Skyfang don't?" Shaylar asked, deliberately trying to step back from the horrendous vision of dragons flying over Sharona belching death and devastation.

"Probably," Gadrial said, leaning back in her deck chair as if she, too, was grateful to back away from the same vision. "Although, actually, I think it probably has less to do with the weapons themselves than with the changes in the dragons' . . . personalities, for want of a better word, that went with it. The original Ransaran dragon breeding lines had deliberately emphasized docility. The breeders didn't want something that size which would suddenly decide it ought to be eating its handlers. The Mythalans, typically, decided to 'improve' upon that when they set out to create dragons for combat. So they spliced in several of the characteristics of a Mythal River crocodile." She grimaced once more. "You might say that their personalities are just a little more aggressive than those of a pure transport, like Skyfang."

"I see," Shaylar said slowly, and, in fact, she rather thought she did. She'd sensed a similarity between Skyfang and the huge whales who sought out her mother when they needed an interface with humanity. The dragon wasn't as intelligent as the great whales-or, at least, she certainly didn't think he was-yet there was that undeniably familiar "feel" to his personality. But if Skyfang was somehow similar to whales, then the battle dragons were more akin to the great sharks . . . or, perhaps, to barracudas.

"That's very interesting," she said after several seconds. "It's a lot to take in, of course . . . even without your well-deserved little lecture." She smiled crookedly, then she yawned. It wasn't completely feigned, and her smile turned lopsided. "In fact, if you don't mind, I think I'm going to take advantage of the sun until lunchtime and sleep on it."

"By all means, get as much rest as you can," Gadrial advised her with an equally crooked smile. "We won't be getting much of it over the next half-dozen universes or so."

"In that case . . ."

Shaylar settled back in her deck chair and tucked the light blanket around her legs. Then she gave Gadrial a smile, closed her eyes, and dreamed nightmares of Sharonian nights filled with the ghastly pyres of dragon breath.

Chapter Forty-Eight.

"So, Davir. What kind of effect do you expect these negotiations to have?" Darl Elivath asked.

It was late as he and Davir Perthis sat sipping tea. They were in the Sharonian Universal News Network's green room, in the wing of the Great Palace set aside for the press, waiting for official word that the Conclave's Committee on Unification had finally managed to report out draft language for the proposed amendment to the initial Act of Unification.

"On the Conclave and the Unification? Or on whether or not we go to war with these people?" Perthis asked.

"Both, I suppose," Elivath said. "It took the threat of a war to get the Conclave assembled in the first place, after all."

"Well . . ." SUNN's Chief Voice scratched his chin thoughtfully. "I suppose the fact that they want to talk at all has to be a good sign. At least it's not what you expect out of the kind of murderous barbarians we've all assumed we were facing. And the possibility that it was all a mistake-that they thought our people were soldiers who'd attacked one of their people-genuinely hadn't occurred to me."

Perthis was a bit surprised by how unwillingly he made that admission, and he wondered why he was so unwilling. Was it that he'd invested so much in hating the "Arcanans" for what they'd done that he simply didn't want to give up his hate? Or was it what he'd Seen from Shaylar's final Voice transmission? He remembered once again Seeing Ghartoun chan Hagrahyl stand up with his hands empty . . . and go down again, choking on his life's blood.

Perthis was a man who'd spent his entire adult career in the news business. He knew, beyond any shadow of a doubt, that what he'd Seen from Shaylar was the truth. It was, quite literally, impossible for a Voice to lie about something like that in such a deep linkage to another Voice. But the professional newsman in him also recognized how even the truth could be misread, misinterpreted. Was that what had happened here?

It was entirely possible that it was, he admitted. And if it was, the fact that relatively few people on Sharona-Davir Perthis, included-had ever seen a violent death with their own eyes had undoubtedly contributed to it. The sheer, horrifying emotional impact of seeing that sort of carnage with your physical eyes would have been bad enough for someone who'd never seen it before. Going the extra step and Seeing it with the total clarity (and emotional overtones) which could only come from a powerful Voice trapped in the middle of it only made it infinitely worse.

"What about what they say happened to Shaylar?"

Elivath's question broke in on the Chief Voice's thoughts, and Perthis looked back up at him with a sour expression.

"They haven't really said all that much, when you come right down to it," he pointed out. "Aside from the fact that she wasn't killed outright-which we already knew-all we have is their claims that they tried to get her to one of their Healers before she died. Or that they could have done anything for her if they'd managed to reach one in time. We didn't get that from a Voice, either, you know. And either way, she's still dead, and they still killed her."

"So you think they're lying?"

"I didn't say that." Perthis realized he sounded a little defensive, and waved one hand. "All right, I admit I thought it. I'm having a hard time getting past my original image of them, I guess. But the fact is, Darl, that we don't have any sort of confirmation of a single thing they've said, and I'm just . . . uncomfortable with the fact."

"But if they did try to save her, and if it turns out they can prove it, don't you think it would make a difference with public opinion?"

"If they genuinely tried to save her life after making an honest mistake, then probably yes," Perthis said. "But that's a lot of ifs, Darl. They've still got a lot of talking to do, as far as I'm concerned, to explain how what were supposed to be a bunch of trained soldiers mistook someone standing up and holding out empty hands as an act of aggression. Mind you, I'm not saying mistakes like that can't happen. Gods know they've happened in our own past. I'm just saying that after actually Seeing the events from our crew's side, it's going to be hard to convince a lot of our people, including me, that that's what happened here."

He started to say something else, then stopped himself. He didn't know exactly how much Elivath actually knew about the rumors regarding the Voice messages to Emperor Zindel and the Conclave. The original message from Regiment-Captain Velvelig, informing the emperor and the Conclave that the Arcanans had asked for negotiations, had been released directly to the Voice network and the general public. The follow-on messages had not been, and neither had any of the Conclave's-or Zindel's-responses to Velvelig.

Ostensibly, that was to avoid further exacerbating public opinion by generating unreasonable expectations, on the one hand, or generating additional fury when the bobbles and stumbles which were undoubtedly inevitable in opening negotiations with a totally alien civilization occurred, on the other hand. Perthis supposed that the official reasoning made sense, but he'd picked up on a few very quiet rumors that it was because those follow-on messages from whoever was actually talking to these people included reports that the Arcanans weren't being completely truthful. He had no idea what they were supposed to be lying about, but the thought that they were lying at all was hardly reassuring.

"Well, let's assume it turns out they really did their best to save her life," Elivath said. "And that they really do want to settle this as peacefully as they can, given everything that's already happened. If all that's true, what kind of effect do you think it's going to have on the Conclave and the unification?"

"I don't know that I expect it to have any effect," Perthis replied. Elivath raised one skeptical eyebrow, and the Chief Voice shrugged. "By now," he pointed out, "the debate's taken on a life of its own. Besides, even if we manage to put the brakes on this current confrontation, we still know the bastards are out there, don't we? All of our conventional political equations are going to have to take them into account from now on."

"Do you really think so?"

Elivath grimaced and set down his tea cup. He sat turning it on its saucer for a moment, lips slightly pursed, while he gazed out of the green room's window at the Great Palace's well-lit grounds under the great, midnight-blue dome of the starstruck heavens. Then he returned his gaze to Perthis.

"I was talking to one of the Authority's theoreticians," the Voice correspondent said. "From the way he was talking, this may be the only point of contact we'll see with these people. So if we get control of it, or just seal it off, wouldn't that be more or less the end of it?"

"Only point of contact?"

Perthis leaned back in his own chair. To be totally honest, he'd never thought of Elivath as the sharpest pencil in SUNN's box. He respected the strength of Elivath's Talent, and his integrity, but he'd also always thought of Elivath as one of his correspondents who required rather more careful direction than many.

He knew Elivath knew he regarded him that way-that was one of the problems when Voices with powerful Talents worked with one another-but he also knew that both he and Elivath had qualities the other respected, as well. Still, he'd never really considered Elivath an investigative reporter. The correspondent was extraordinarily good at explaining even complicated concepts to his audience, once he'd mastered those concepts himself, but he usually needed them explained to him in the first place by the investigators who'd gone out and turned them up initially. Part of Perthis' job was to see to it that the proper experts were found to explain things to him, and he was unaccustomed to having Elivath go out and do the finding for himself, especially in technical matters. But if the correspondent had, indeed, turned up some new technical information, Perthis wanted to know about it.

"Why should this be the only point of contact?" the Chief Voice continued after a moment. "Aside from the fact that we've never had one before, which might predispose us to expect it to be the only one, that is."

"I'm not the best technical man we've got," Elivath pointed out mildly-and, Perthis thought, with considerable understatement. "We both know that. But according to this fellow, the latest models for how the multiverse works suggest that our particular universe is part of what I guess you might call a 'cable' of universes. Sort of like those stranded cables they used to hang the bridge across the Ylani Strait, I guess."

He waved one hand, frowning, as if he weren't completely satisfied with his own analogy. Not too surprisingly, Perthis reflected. No one, as far as he was aware, had ever come up with an analogy for the multiverse's structure that he really liked.

"Anyway, this fellow I was talking to says that all of the empirical and theoretical work that's been done suggests that all of the universes in the multiverse had the same common starting point. What caused them to . . . separate from one another were events that had multiple possible outcomes. Each possible outcome happened somewhere, and that started the separate, divergent universes."

He paused, one eyebrow raised, and Perthis nodded to indicate that he was still following. That part of the theory had been explained to everyone, over and over again. There might be an Arpathian septman somewhere so far up in the hills that they still hadn't invented fire who hadn't heard it, but everyone else was fully aware of it.

"Well," Elivath continued, "this guy I was talking to says that up until recently we always figured that whenever a new universe was created, it went off in its own unique direction. That each new universe radiated at what I guess you could think of as right angles to the universe it split off from because of the particular event that created it. But he says that that theory's been challenged lately, and that the brains' best current guess is that the universes that are most similar lie . . . parallel to one another, for want of a better word, instead. They're all 'headed the same direction,' so to speak, not racing away from each other."

"I got the same briefing when this whole thing blew up in our faces," Perthis agreed, nodding again. "In fact, they said something about the Calirath Glimpses proving the existence of parallel universes."

"Yeah." Elivath made a face. "I remember. It made my head hurt, actually."

"Only if you tried to follow the theory instead of the consequences," Perthis pointed out with a wry grin. "Just remember that the boffins think that what a Glimpse is is really a sort of precognitive peek across into those parallel universes, whereas a straight Precog is stuck looking along the event line in his own universe. A Glimpse isn't true precognition, but more of a . . . statistical process. They do have some unique capability in their Talent which lets them follow possible human actions and outcomes, but the unpredictability of human nature means they can't be sure what any particular human in any particular universe is going to do. What they can do, apparently, is see the possible actions and outcomes of a whole bunch of people simultaneously. The same people, living in parallel universes. And what their Glimpses are is the most common outcomes of all those actions."

"Like I say, it made my head hurt. It still does."

"Mine, too, if I'm going to be honest." Perthis grinned. "But, the main point, is that that's the reason the Caliraths can See the consequences of human actions when no one else can. And if the universes in question weren't really, really close to one another-really 'parallel,' and really similar to one another, I mean-then a Glimpse based on what's going to happen in any other universe-or universes, for that matter-wouldn't help when it comes to figuring out what's going to happen in this one."

"That's probably what this fellow was getting at when he said that the parallel universes stay 'close together,' " Elivath said. "But he also pointed out that where the portals form is where one universe 'runs into' another one, and since similar universes stay close together and . . . head in the same 'direction,' then it's the most dissimilar universes which are most likely to collide and form portals. He says that's the best current theory for why we've never run into humans before. As different from us as these people obviously are, they still almost have to come from a universe that's in our basic 'cable,' since there are humans in it at all."

"I think I see where you're headed with this," Perthis said slowly. In fact, he was impressed by Elivath's analysis. Of course, he realized the Voice hadn't come up with it on his own, but it was obvious he'd been thinking hard about it for some time.

"So your basic point," the Chief Voice continued, "is that since we're all . . . traveling along in this same direction of yours, the odds are against any of the universes in our 'cable' colliding with another universe in their 'cable.' "

"Exactly." Elivath nodded vigorously, and it was Perthis' turn to gaze out the window into the night while he thought.

"I'm not sure it follows," he said finally. "Mind you, Darl, I'd like it to. Given how murderous these bastards seem to be, I'd like it a lot, actually. But if I'm following the logic properly, then didn't we start a fresh 'cable' at the moment our universes made contact? What I mean is, isn't there a new batch of universes spreading out from the point at which our universe and their universe found the same portal cluster? And if that's true, aren't the strands of that new 'cable' all laying out parallel to one another . . . and at right angles, for want of a better description, to our original 'cables'?"

"Now my head really hurts," Elivath said plaintively, and Perthis chuckled.

"It's not that bad. Or, at least, I don't think it is," he said. "At the same time, it sort of underscores our basic problem, doesn't it? You and I are hardly multi-universal theorists, but from what I'm hearing out of the people who are, they don't really have any idea at all what the ultimate consequences of this contact are likely to be. We may never find ourselves sharing another portal with these people, or we might find ourselves running into them every time we turn around! At any rate, I think we have to plan on the basis that we could be running into them again and again."

"And," Elivath said, cocking his head, "you see this as an opportunity to put Ternathia in charge of the planet, anyway."

Perthis managed not to blink, although the shrewdness of the correspondent's observation had taken him considerably aback. I think I've been underestimating him, the Chief Voice thought after a moment. Either that, or I've been an awful lot more obvious about my little manipulations than I ever meant to be! He gazed at Elivath for several seconds, then shrugged.

"I suppose you're right," he conceded. "Oh, I started out feeling that way simply because of the threat these people represented. I figured somebody had to be in charge if we were going to respond to them the way they obviously deserved, and Zindel was absolutely the best person I could think of for the job." The Chief Voice's lips twitched humorlessly. "For one thing, he's so damned levelheaded I figured he'd probably help restrain my own murderous impulses if they needed restraining.

"I still do think we need a world government that can not simply take advantage of whatever we manage to negotiate with these people this time around, but keep an eye on them for the future. But I'll admit that I've been more and more impressed with the possibilities of a world government-especially one with Ternathia's traditions behind it-for dealing with all the rest of our problems, too."

"Somebody to make the children behave right here on Sharona, you mean?" Elivath asked, but Perthis shook his head.

"That's probably part of it," he conceded, "but not all of it. Not by a long shot."

He paused briefly, trying to decide how best to say what he was thinking. It was odd. He was a professional newsman, yet putting his own thoughts into words in a conversation like this one often refused to come easily for him.

"We do have some problem children here on Sharona that need somebody to look after them until they finish growing up," he continued seriously at last. "But in realistic terms, and especially given the safety valve the portals have given us, the nations whose problems are a simple lack of maturity aren't any particular threat to the rest of us. Unfortunately, that's not true for all of our problem children."

"You're thinking about Uromathia, aren't you?" Elivath challenged.

"Mostly," Perthis admitted. "But even the current problems with Uromathia are almost all due to Chava, when you come right down to it. I mean, Uromathians in general sometimes seem to me to walk around with a king-sized chip on their collective shoulder, especially where Ternathia is concerned. But by and large, they're not really any more jingoistic or just naturally nasty than anyone else. The fact that their current emperor-and all three of his sons, as far as I can tell-are certifiable lunatics, now, though . . . that's a problem.

"On the one hand, that means getting rid of him (and of them) would solve our present difficulties with Uromathia. But, on the other hand, it means the next Chava-whether he's Uromathian or from somewhere else entirely-will simply present his own clutch of problems. Putting someone like Ternathia in charge of a world government with the mechanisms in place to deal with future Chavas as they arise will save us all an awful lot of grief down the road. Whatever happens at Hell's Gate."