It distanced the girl's memories a bit more, but she was still there.

The skimmer flew over vast, rocky desert and eerie tablelands, then began to slow and descend. Atop one desolate plateau there was a huge blocky complex, and to one side, rising up like a temple spire, was a spaceship. It could be seen clearly against the morning sky; the pilot pointed it out through the broad front windscreen of the skimmer. Chu Li brought himself out of the Ten Exercises to see what the excitement was about and got somewhat excited himself.

Space! They are exiling us to space!

They settled down so slowly and so close to the spaceship that it went by the front windows in dramatic fashion. Finally the door opened,-and the security lieutenant unbuckled himself and got out, carrying the security identifier from.Center. After greeting the other security officials, he immediately inserted the module into the space center systems slot. This way, the four young people would be identified by security records and systems as outbound prisoners. It was also another link in the computer-engineered masquerade: Now the spaceport records would show Chu Li as "he" now appeared, with the current Chu Li's fingerprints and eyeprints. The spaceport was tied directly into Master System; therefore, the Center security computer had encoded a correction program showing initial data errors and reversing the prints of Song Ching and Chu Li.

Her body was now totally identified and registered as Chu Li, 15, male, born in Paoting, Hopeh Province, apprehended in illegal activity, Chamdo Province, and declared Property of the State; remanded to Melchior Research and Detention facility until death. As the real Chu Li no longer existed, not even in trace, Song Ching was about to vanish impossibly and forever-and heads would roll for it.

When the prisoners were ordered out, the boys got their first clear look at the girls, both of whom looked downcast and old beyond their years. There were scars on their faces. Ugly ones.

They were marched inside and down a busy corridor, past many eyes staring at them from offices, to an elevator, then taken to an upper-level detention area.

It had clearly not been designed as such; there were barred gates at either end of a short corridor monitored by cameras as well as by human guards, but the four cells were little more than barren, unfinished offices in which had been placed some army mattresses that looked as if they'd seen work and a small commode not attached to plumbing but containing a pitcher of water and some plastic glasses. They were told that if they needed to eliminate they were to yell for a guard and that one would be along to take them one at a time to the lone toilet on the floor.

To Chu Li's surprise, he was pushed into a cell with one of the girls. "This is not proper!" he protested.

The guard grinned. "My orders were to split that pair up. They have a real way with locks and stuff. Go ahead and have some fun if you're old enough to know what I mean. We don't care."

The door slammed shut, leaving them alone. The girl kept her eyes on him but did not say a word. The haunted expression in her eyes drew his attention away from the two large, irregular scars that disfigured her face.

"Don't worry," he assured her. "I have much honor but little else and would not do that if I could."

The ice was broken, and she relaxed a bit. "What do you mean, if you could?" Her voice was high and nasal, her Mandarin dialect colored by a peasant's accents and tone.

"It is too embarrassing to discuss."

"There is nothing too embarrassing for me. I have lost even my honor. They-they gave us to the male guards for two days and nights before cleaning us up for this."

He was not certain what to say to that. Finally he managed, "You need not feel shame at that, at least / think not. It was not of your doing, and it is they who have dishonored themselves, not you."

She stood there a moment, then, slowly, tears came to her eyes and she began to cry. He wasn't quite sure what to do. Finally he went over to her, and she leaned against him and just cried and cried as he held her. He was just at the stage where he was finding girls different, exotic, and strangely important, but this was the first time he had ever held one in his arms. It felt good to lend some strength to her; he had been treated harshly, but she had endured far more.

Clearly this cry had been a long time coming, and he eased her onto the floor mat and just sat beside her, holding her until she had it cried out. She clung to him as if he were very important, yet they had only just now met and did not even know each other's names.

When she was done crying, he asked her if he could get her some water, and she nodded. He brought her a cup and a paper towel to dry her eyes.

She had been attractive once; he could see that. No great beauty, but it had been a good face, and because of that, the scars were an even greater disfigurement. One ran from the left side of her mouth up her cheek and then back toward her ear, pulling the corner of the lip up grotesquely and permanently exposing two teeth; the other was a huge, deep horizontal gash.

Both were built up like mountains on her smooth skin by scar tissue that had partly turned purple and brown. Still, as he looked at her now and helped her dry her tears, he felt odd stirrings inside him, and though he could not forget the scar tissue, for the moment it did not seem very important.

"I'm sorry," she managed, blowing her nose. "I-I was always the strong one. I am sorry that I permitted you to see me this way."

"It is all right," he responded. "You must be strong indeed to go through that and not be mad."

"Perhaps I am mad," she responded. "I have been living what can only be a nightmare, in which you are the first man to show any kindness."

"Only half a man," he responded, not realizing how much truth there was in that description. Because she had told him her ultimate shame, he felt not only that he could tell her his secret but that it might give her some idea that suffering was not exclusive. "The guards beat me terribly where that which makes me a man is, leaving it battered, bruised, and perhaps broken. There is no pain, but it will be a long time before I know. That is what I was too embarrassed and ashamed to say before."

"Oh! I apologize for asking. Please forgive me."

He shook it off. "What is done cannot be undone, and who knows what was done?

Only time will tell that. I am otherwise whole and very angry at all this. My people taught us that the world was ruled by monsters in human form, but I did not really believe this until they came for us. I am Chu Li, by the way, sometimes called Rat because of my small size and the year of my birth."

"I am Chow Dai. My sister who suffers with me is Chow Mai. As you might guess, we are-" she touched the scar on her right cheek "-were twins."

"I hope that my cousin, Deng Ho, is honorable with her and that they get along.

He is more likely to be crying on her shoulder, I fear, though he has held up better than I would have guessed." Sparing little, he told her how he and his cousin had come to be there and what his own people had been like, free of the tyranny of the machines.

She listened, fascinated. "I have nothing of that in my past," she told him. "I fear I have never known even that much freedom. Even the women of your people were free and educated."

"You are not of the Center?"

"No. Oh my, no! We are simple peasant girls. The family was very big, and we were always hungry, it seemed. When a time of drought came, my parents had no way to feed us all and no money to marry us off. Unlike some of the others of their generation, they did not believe in drowning baby daughters, and so had too many."

He was appalled. "They drowned babies?"

She seemed surprised at his reaction. "It has been the custom for thousands of years. They try and wipe it out, but in bad times it returns. Sons may return what they consume and care for the parents in their old age. Daughters are a burden, for you must pay even to marry them to someone. We understood this.

There was a petition to the Lord of the Estates, who had always encouraged even the poor families to keep their daughters, and he listened. We were sold to the household of Colonel Chin, a mighty warlord, to be personal servants to his own daughter."

"Sold?" He could hardly believe this. Hers was a world far removed from his experience.

"We didn't mind. Our parents were relieved of their burden, received some sum they could use, and knew that we were honorably employed. Our mistress was harsh and demanding, but we had fine clothes, food such as we had never dreamed of eating, protection, and something of a position."

"As a slave, you mean."

"No, as a member of the household staff. It has far more standing than planting and picking rice, and we were very young. Then we were taken one time to Center, a place we had never dreamed existed. It was like a high-born's heaven. It was our undoing, though, in the end. We helped the mistress bathe and clothe herself, tended to the personal things, but much of the other work was done by the machines. We were not permitted out of the quarters except in the company of our mistress, so it was very boring. We could not even sneak out, for we did not know how to open the locks."

"I would have spent the time reading. Surely there were many books and tapes around on many topics."

Again she looked embarrassed. "I-we-cannot read or write."

He felt foolish and ashamed of himself. In the colony there were many who were never able to master most or all of the more than thirty thousand characters of the alphabet. He himself had had help with machines and special training to allow him to read at a level far beyond what one his age, even if very bright, would have managed without them. Most people in China could not read, in fact.

Literacy was what truly set the classes apart, the heart of their division. If, somehow, a peasant could learn to read and take the examinations, he could rise in society. The better one read and the more one read, the more complex the examination one took. It was the one road to social mobility open to all Chinese, although, of course, it was next to impossible for a peasant to learn to read, while the child of a stupid or slow highborn who could not manage the skill was never demoted to peasant.

"I am sorry. I will make no more stupid remarks," he said lamely. "Please tell me more of how you came here."

Her smile told him that all was forgiven. "One day a man came who was an expert on locks. A security man of sorts. He was young and very handsome, and we made a fuss over him, I'm afraid. He began to brag about his trade and show off his knowledge of the locks and security systems, and even explained some of his tools. It was quite an education. He didn't think mere peasant servants could understand what he said, but it was actually quite simple. We soon found basic apartment locks no problem at all. Some other locks and doors were more difficult, but even ones requiring fingerprints were beatable. Once you understood the principle, it was simple to find a way around each."

"Some of those would still require special tools to defeat," he noted. "You said as much yourself."

"Some tools were simple and could be made from other things. Others, the complicated mechanical tools, you could get if you wanted. We once had an uncle who was something of a magician. A criminal, really, but a minor one. He would put on little magic shows and phony gambling games in the village. Sometimes he arranged to lose, for he would then simply brush against you, and the contents of your purse would be in a hidden pocket in his shirt. Anyone with long fingers, nerve, and short nails could do it if they practiced, and he showed us all the tricks. We kids would always be doing it to one another and to others just for fun. We never-hardly ever-kept anything."

"You said you used to have an uncle. He is dead now?"

"Yes. Hanged when I was twelve. The trick is even easier with two, and my sister and I are very good at it. So, when we saw a repairman with tools we wanted walking along, we had no problem getting them. The highborn used to be the easiest, but those of Center are easier yet. They are ignorant of the trick and casual about it."

He nodded, his appreciation of her skills growing. "So you were not bored anymore."

"No. Oh, it was really all just a game. Slip out and slip into the dwelling of some highborn who was not in at the time and take something minor, something pretty but not likely to be missed, such as a bottle of perfume or some bauble.

It became a contest, and it was most exciting."

"I bet. And then you were caught?"

"Not very quickly. We simply were carried away by our own poor ignorance. We wandered in one time to a security zone which was computer-monitored and tripped alarms. We were sealed in and trapped. At first they could not believe that we were who and what we seemed, but after long sessions with drugs and doctors and machines, they decided we were just what we seemed to be. So they tied us to a wall, whipped us, then gave us to the security guards. Then, suddenly, we were pulled back, bathed, cleaned up and tended to, placed in chains, and sent to the flying machine."

"Pardon me for mentioning it, but your wounds are from the beating?"

"No. I have more scars all up and down my back. When they first threw me to the guards, I fought. We both did. I scratched the face of one of them very badly.

They held us down while he carved this in my face and similar gashes in my sister's face. He-he said that we might as well enjoy what was coming, because no man would wish to do anything with us again. I wished only to kill myself in my shame, but they made very sure I could not do that. Only by finally convincing them that I would do nothing rash right now did I gain any freedom of movement, even to being here like this. I could see in every eye how hideous I have become."

"I-knew-a ,woman once. A girl. She was of highborn stock, and her beauty was perfection, yet inside she was the personification of all that is foul, evil, and monstrous in people. Those attracted to her beauty will be as flies in a spider's web. I, too, might have been a fly in her web, but even in this place I learn and improve myself. My Buddhist teacher would understand, although it took his pupil this long to see his meaning. The body is but a shell. One must look beyond to the soul and see only it if it shines pure." Impulsively, although he had never done it before, he drew her to him and kissed her. When their lips parted, the look on her face was a mixture of shock, surprise, and almost childlike wonder.

"I think," she whispered, "that I may yet live a little while."

"I did not do this out of pity, you must believe that, but I feel your pain within me," he said softly. "You have suffered far more than I have."

"No. I did not lose my family and all my people, and what I did I did myself, knowing it was criminal. You had no choice in it. We threw away comfortable lives out of boredom, and now we pay for that, but you are without guilt or blame, and you have lost everything. Now we both go to our fate, whatever and wherever it is. I heard them say that the great spire out there is a ship that goes into the heavens, beyond the world. Is that true? Is that even possible?"

"Yes. It can go from this plant to another."

"What is a planet?" she asked him, genuinely curious.

"Huh? Other worlds than this, like the moon, only farther off."

"You mean they are sacrificing us by sending us to the moon goddess? I have often prayed to her. She may be merciful."

He was startled. Ignorance was one thing, but how could he reconcile someone who had figured out in a brief lesson how to pick some of the most elaborate computer-controlled security locks in a high-tech place like Center with someone who clearly had no idea that there was any place beyond China, who thought the moon was a goddess and probably also believed that the world was flat?

"We are not being sacrificed," he assured her. "Not that we might not be better off at that. We are being sent to another place like the one we have just left, only suspended in the heavens so that there is no way for us to ever leave. I do not know what happens to the people sent there, except that it strikes fear even in the hearts of the guards of Center security."

She accepted that. "That fills me with fear as well. A place in the heavens could not ever be escaped from. You might go through the locks, but you would fall endlessly in the heavens."

"No, you would be dead before that. There is no air to breathe in space. The only air we will have will be in the place they keep us. It is better than any locks to keep someone imprisoned."

"Yet you are not afraid. I can tell."

In fact he was afraid, particularly now that he'd heard about her own treatment, seen the scars on the outside and sensed the others on her soul. If what both of them had experienced was not the worst punishment, then they were being taken to a horror he could not imagine. The fact that it was an unknown of such dimensions was terrifying, yet he could not admit that to her or let it dominate him.

"I fear only what I face that is worthy of that fear," he responded bravely.

"Then I will face death bravely and spit at him. For now, I still yearn to fight."

As they talked, he began examining the room for hidden cameras and microphones.

A plan was beginning to take shape in his mind, and if he could somehow communicate it to her and she could do her part, it was just possible. His people were gone, save for himself and Deng, but he still had their dream, and he had the knowledge to carry it out, as well.

He found surveillance devices-not many but sufficient to block any real secrets.

He settled back on the mat next to her. "You know, my people found how to fly one of those spaceships," he said casually but in a low tone. "It is a pity we will be chained and probably guarded in a locked room all the way to wherever we go."

She lay down comfortably beside him and squeezed his hand. "Yes, it is," she agreed.

They had talked almost nonstop throughout the day, without reservation or hesitancy in even the most personal and intimate things. It was as if they had known each other all their lives and were catching up on the time spent apart.

Too, there was both a direct and a subtle exchange of vital information as he tried to give her a cram course in the basics of astronomy while also conveying what he needed from her in the practical sense.

A meal was finally delivered, and it proved to be a pleasant surprise. The recipe was Mongolian, with chunks of lamb, fried wonton in a spicy garlic-laced sauce, and rice, and the vegetables tasted fresh. Even the tea was hot. Chu Li wasn't sure if this was the last meal of a condemned prisoner or, more likely, the same thing being served to the staff in this cobbled-together prison section.

Chow Dai wondered why they had bothered to split up the two pairs, since with human guards and cameras in unfamiliar territory she was unlikely to be able to do anything. Chu Li had responded that it was probably just another tactic to disorient them, but he didn't really believe that. Their captors had analyzed his mind, and Deng's, and the minds of the Chow sisters and knew them probably better than anyone did. They were being sent to this distant place, at great trouble and expense, because someone there, for some unspeakable reason, had a use for two boys and two girls in their middle teens. He suspected they knew that both Deng and he were the kind whose hearts would go out to such kindred spirits in distress and that mere attentions by a male might well guarantee that the pair would not commit suicide or try something so desperate it would mean their death.

The spaceship they had seen was an OG-47 resupply ship. It had to have landed for repairs of some sort that were not available at the moment in space; usually such ships did not land at all but were serviced by ground-to-orbit cargo ships.

The OG-47 had a pressurized passenger compartment holding up to sixteen for

one.

to three days, fewer for longer journeys. The pilot's cabin as usual was in a vacuum state in space but could be entered by airlock in a space suit. There was no guarantee that such suits would be aboard, but if they were, they would be Type 61s and stored in a computer-locked compartment to the rear of the passenger cabin, to be opened automatically in case of emergency.

It startled him just to know that. Where had he learned it? Not with his own people, certainly. Not from those strange memories of the girl, either. He became more and more convinced that someone had played some nasty tricks on his mind, and he didn't like it. Were they being toyed with? Had someone who knew his people's project given him this much just to see if he could really do it?

Steal a spaceship?

It had to be something like that. Dai and Mai were part of it, too. It was too impossible to believe that he, with his knowledge, would find himself teamed with two accomplished thieves and locksmiths. He did not for one minute believe that the girls were anything other than what they appeared to be, but someone or something had assigned them to be going just where he was going at the same time and on the same ship.

He disliked the feeling of being a wind-up doll in someone else's toy game. Who?

This Song Ching? It would be in character, but what profit would she get by it?

She wouldn't know if her plan succeeded or failed or get the data to use in any attempt of her own. To test the security system? Four teenagers with no real experience when there were almost certainly so many others they could use who would be better suited?

He could not know, but he would simply have to watch out. The fact was, no matter what the reason, they had to try to escape.

Certainly Dai was bright; she had understood immediately the implications of his comments and had been giving and getting information through the day's conversations as well.

That evening, the guards came for each prisoner individually and took them down the hall to a different room, which proved to be a small water shower with a little dressing area complete with built-in mirror. After bathing, they were provided with fresh clothing of the same design as their prison garb, but dyed yellow with security stamped front and back in Chinese and two other languages.