And Jes arrived. He listened to our stories, then turned and climbed the stairs to Jason's room. Meya touched her belly and followed him. Ozchan rose, but I shook my head and went myself. I had seen the cold, hard look that Jes had sent Meya's husband when he saw them standing together.

Jes stood by Jason's bed, his fists clenched, staring at our father. I stopped by the open door, ready to grab my brother if the need arose. Meya watched him, her hands folded along the top of her belly.

"Jason?"

Jason looked on the verge of waking, skin warm and dark, hands folded at his sides. Face serene. As usual, as usual. His eyelids never moved.

"Jason?"

Meya reached across the bed toward her brother.

"Jessie, please..."

"How could you?" he shouted. "You, Meya, of all people! How..." He stopped and turned from her, hiding his face. She came to him and put her hand on his arm.

"Jes..."

He spun around, his fist clenched, but when his hand reached her cheek his fingers were open and he caressed her cheek. She kissed his palm. Then he pushed her back and ran from the room.

I caught Meya, steadying her.

"Are you all right? Are you hurt?"

"I'm sorry," she whispered. We held each other for a moment, then went downstairs.

Before we could tell Jes about Drake, about Meya, he went down to the communications shack at the pad and put through an urgent message to Mish and told her all about it. I suppose they must have commed back and forth for over an hour; the bill came to seven hundred fremarks. Jes came back from the pad with a certified, double-validated message from Mish. It was very short and quite to the point. It said, "Stop him."

Legally, she had the right. Morally, she had the right. Jes confronted us in the living room and put the message on the table, looking at us as though we were a community of strangers. I suppose we were.

"You're worshipping a corpse up there," he said. "Jason's dead and you know it. Jason died when that murderer touched the controls, when our brother killed him, and you know that, too."

"Jes, listen to me," Tabor said.

Jes ignored him. "What do you think you're doing up there?" he shouted.

"Preserving him, so that when Mish comes home it will be even worse? She's been bracing herself for Jason's death ever since he came back to Aerie. She knew he'd want to die at home, she knew that he would die, even if he didn't understand that. Do you think it would be any easier for her, coming home to a shape of Jason's that's whole and young and breathing, and none of Jason inside at all? What are you, a family of ghouls?"

"It's my fault," Meya said. "They wanted to do it before, and I wouldn't let them."

"Then you can do it now," Jes said and left the room.

I think he was being a coward. If any one of us could do it, he could, and should, have. But we said nothing, and Meya rose and went upstairs. After an hour she came down again. We heard her putting on her water clothes in the hall, and the sound of the door opening and closing behind her. Ozchan rose, but Tabor shook his head and went himself, followed Meya through Haven to the kasirene village, and saw her to Teloret's door. Left her there, where she had gone before for comfort and help.

She'd used a hypo full of digitalis, one of the drugs Ozchan kept stocked in his room, for emergencies.

Two days later Mish came home.

*Part Six*

*1233-1234*

*New Time*

*Almost*

*Spring*

'"Single-mindedness is all very well in cows or baboons; in an animal claiming to belong to the same species as Shakespeare, it is simply disgraceful."'

'-Aldous Huxley'

MISH DESCENDED ON AERIE LIKE A BOLT OF alien lightning, and her family stood aside, watching, as she roared up the hill from the landing field and into the house. Meya held out her arms, but Mish pushed her aside and glared around the room.

"Where is he?" she demanded.

Quilla dropped Tabor's hand and stepped forward. "In Haven," she said.

"The undertaker -- "

"Bring him back. This is his home, and he belongs here." She turned to stare past Meya at Ozchan. "You're M'Kale. I'll talk to you later. Where's Mim?"

"Here, Quia Mish."

"We'll need food, wine, beer, bread, meat. Quilla, you send out invitations for the wake. Tonight."

Phlegmatic Mim stared down at Mish, her arms crossed and her expression grim. "Quia Jason wouldn't want a fuss," she said.

"You were in his confidence, I suppose?"

"Mim's right," Tabor said. "He liked things to be peaceful."

"So we'll have a peaceful wake. Get going. I want all the stuff up from the storerooms. And get this place clean, it's a mess."

Quilla caught Meya's eye and formed the word "Hoku" with her lips. Meya nodded and moved toward the door.

"Where're you going?" Mish said.

"Into Haven to tell Klein to bring Jason back," Meya said.

Mish stared at her, then nodded and left the room. Quilla followed her, and stopped when she saw Mish staring at the ramp on the stairway.

"What's this?"

"The ramp for Jason's chair. So that he could move up and down stairs."

"What chair?"

"One that I made for him, with wheels and a place for his monitors. He didn't use it very often."

"Jason in a chair?" For the first time she sounded uncertain. The twins appeared at the top of the stairs and looked down at her, their hands clasped together. Mish gasped and turned, almost running into Tabor.

"Go take care of your children." she shouted, and pushed past him. Mim came out of the room, gave Quilla a flat, hard look, and went into the kitchen.

"Quia Kennerin..." Ozchan said."

"Get out," Mish said. Ozchan came out of the room and closed the door behind him. Quilla sat at the foot of the stairs beside Tabor, and the children came and sat in her lap. Ozchan put his hands in his pockets and shook his head.

"Can't you give her something to calm her down?" Quilla said.

"I doubt if she'd let me. Is Hoku coming?"

"Meya went to get her." Quilla pressed her cheek against Decca's hair.

"She's got her thinking turned off," Decca whispered. "Just faces and words, but no thinking."

Jared slid onto Tabor's lap and stared at the living room door. "She's inside like Hetch's 'bots," he said.

"Don't talk about her like that," Tabor said.

Jared shrugged. "She is," he said.

Quilla put her arms around Decca and closed her eyes. The rain had slackened, and she heard the whoosh of the skimmer as it came up the hill and stopped before the door. Hoku came in, holding her bag and her side. She leaned against the doorframe, looking at them, and tilted her chin questioningly. Quilla nodded toward the living room door. Hoku opened the door and went inside. Meya came in and pushed damp hair from her face.

"She was expecting it," Meya said, almost angrily. "She had her bag packed and everything. She'd even told Klein to bring ... to get..."

Ozchan tried to hold her, but she pushed him away and went upstairs.

Jes came in from the kitchen and looked at them.

"The guilty parties," he said.

Ozchan put his hands on his hips and glared at Jes, who stared back.

Quilla looked from one to the other, and groped for Tabor's hand.

Hoku closed the door behind her and leaned on it, watching Mish pace back and forth. Mish stopped pacing and put her fists on her hips.

"Well?"

"Well," Hoku echoed. She moved toward a chair. "Welcome home."

"Welcome! This place is a mess, people keep grabbing at me, Mim talks back to me, Meya's impossible, it's complete chaos, and Jason's..."

Hoku let the silence settle, then said, "Dead, Mish."

Mish's hands plucked at the sides of her tunic. Hoku put her bag down on a table but remained standing.

"Jes said that Hart tried to do something to him. Tried to change him."

"That's true."

"And it didn't work."

"That's not true. It worked beautifully."

"Then why did my husband die?" Mish shouted.

Hoku frowned. "There was an accident. The controls were turned off for a moment, his brain lacked the oxygen it needed. But it would have worked, Mish."

"It was no accident. Jes said -- "

"Jes wasn't here."

" -- that some friend of Hart's -- "

'"Jes wasn't here."'

"Jes didn't believe it. Jes said you were all hiding something."

Hoku sat, her back stiff against the back of the chair, and put her hands in her lap.

"Hart brought a man named Tev Drake with him. Drake was a transplant addict, an old man although he didn't look like it Hart told Drake that after Jason had been through the treatment, Drake could take it. Drake started to fall apart and didn't want to wait. He tried to disrupt the treatment, and Meya stopped him."

"Then what? They told him it was a no-no and sent him away?"

"Jes didn't tell you?"

"Jes said that Drake had left. Said that he didn't believe it. Said that he checked the records, and Drake was signed onto a shuttle that left the day Quilla said he left. Well, I believe it. And I'll tell you why."

Mish clenched her hands at her sides and leaned over Hoku. "They let him go because he owns Albion-Drake, and if they'd stopped him, we'd have lost our processors. They sold my husband for their planet -- that's what they did.

They killed Jason."

"Drake didn't own Albion-Drake."

"He owns fifty-two percent of it, and that's enough."

Hoku thought curses at the Kennerins. Why hadn't they told Jes the truth? For fear of harming Meya? More likely Jes had heard the outline of the story and rushed off to com Mish, and the rest had been so angry at this that they'd refused to tell him the rest of the story. Probably refused to talk with him at all. Hotheaded Kennerins.

"Mish, do you think your family would..."

"What else am I to think? I sent Jason home so that he could, could die with some dignity, with some peace. And they turned him into a circus, they played games with him. They killed him, all of them."