Chu Li felt a reluctance to actually take the shower, although it appeared that there were no visual monitors in there and therefore that there was some measure of privacy afforded. He had never bathed very often, but he ordinarily would have wished it now. But some fear, an unreasoning thing, made him hesitate. He did not, however, have much choice.

The hypnotics held. When he emerged and looked at himself in the mirror, he still saw the image of a young boy, not the image that was actually there. He dressed again and was led back to the detention room.

After lights-out, she lay beside him, and their hands came together and squeezed; she clung to him as if he were the only real thing in her life. They hugged and cuddled for a bit and rubbed each other's backs. In the dark, she had no deformities at all.

He wanted her, and clearly she wanted and needed him, but his injuries prevented that for now. The fact that they were isolated and alone and facing an uncertain but definitely unpleasant future heightened their desire. But they both slept, huddled against each other for reassurance.

For Chow Dai, Chu Li's companionship was a deliverance, no matter how temporary, from the pit of hell. She had never experienced the kindness and gentleness that this boy had shown her even when she had been unscarred; the fact that he did so even when she looked so horrible was wondrous and magical. She barely knew him, yet she knew she needed him and would risk anything for him. He had but to ask.

She dreamed the first pleasant dreams she had dreamed in weeks.

Chu Li's dreams were different. He dreamed that he was making real love to her, although she had long, silky black hair and no scars, but as he approached her, naked, she suddenly got a look of horror on her face and shied away, crying.

This was mixed with other, stranger dreams that even included spaceship schematics and nightmares where he saw his parents, alive again, but when he ran to them they recoiled in horror and turned, and when they turned back they were not his parents at all but the tall, frightening figures of that other girl's parents, the chief administrator and his wife. The girl was there, too, running in and out of his dreams, spoiling even the good ones, dancing through and whispering tauntingly, "I know a secret."

The elderly orderly awakened them with a breakfast of rice and fish heads. "Eat well and relax," he told them genially. "Tonight you leave for your destinies."

"My sister and the boy-are they all right?" Chow Dai asked nervously. She had almost a sixth sense, as did many twins, ,about her sister even when separated, but she had no real feelings of Chow Mai now, and that worried her more than anything.

"Oh, they are getting along fine, as are the two of you, it seems. Do not worry about them. You will see them today." He chuckled to himself and left.

He looked at Chow Dai. "Today. Sometime today."

She nodded. "I hope they let us see each other for a while first. You know, when my sister and I are together, often we need few words even to talk to one another."

Chu Li was feeling a bit dizzy, a little fuzzy in the head, but he put his disorientation down to nervous tension and apprehension. About midday he felt he had to go to the bathroom and called for the guard. The sense of disorientation continued and his stomach was upset. In the bathroom, he could be alone and, hopefully, get something of a grip on himself. He felt as if he was losing his mind.

Twice he'd failed to respond when Chow Dai had addressed him by his name.

Images-strong, primary images-of his parents, siblings, old friends, the details of his past life, seemed to be melting or fading. He suddenly could not remember what his father or mother looked like. The other memories, though-her memories-were all still there and seemed to be getting clearer in spite of his attempts to push them back.

He was led to the bathroom, and he sat, holding his head in his hands. Then he looked down and put one of his hands down between his legs. Suddenly, some of the conditioning broke away and was gone. They have emasculated me! He unbuttoned his tunic and looked at and felt his chest. Two huge nipples atop small, perfect breasts. He quickly got up and disrobed completely, examining his body as if for the first time. The smooth skin, the curves... A girl! They have changed me into a girl!

And not just any girl. He knew what was happening now. He was being changed not just to female, but into her, the one he hated, the daughter of his people's murderers!

He saw it all now, or thought he did. She could not remain as she was, so she had somehow convinced the computers there, or the doctors, to take him, a lowly nothing, and change him into a mental and physical duplicate of her. The victim was turning into the oppressor. The memory of the beatings had probably been planted so that he wouldn't notice the surgery until it was too late to betray her.

There was an angry knock and an impatient snarl from the other side of the door.

He knew he had to get dressed again fast and get out of there. They could change his shape, but they could not change his mind, he vowed to himself. He was a boy, even if now locked in a girl's body. He might have her memories, but he would never become her. Never. He would die first. There was more to manhood than what they had stolen from him. Monks refused all sex, yet they were certainly men. It was important to him that he keep this attitude no matter how much of her eventually took over. He could never become her, become the callous, cruel, and evil one she was, if he retained that.

He was rudely cursed by the guard and led back to the detention room where Chow Dai awaited. Chow Dai. He could face anything but dashing her few hopes-even this. He still wanted her. He loved her, damn it-but he could never make love to her. That was what his dreams had been telling him.

"Rat! You were gone so long, I was getting worried about you," she told him.

"I-I made some discoveries about myself," he responded carefully. At least his voice still sounded normal, at least to him. He wanted to tell her, to tell somebody, but while she would understand, the revelation would still crush her.

He couldn't do it. Not now. Not until he had to.

"Discoveries?"

"My-injuries-are far worse than I thought, that's all."

She hugged him. "Don't worry. Peasant girls are taught infinite patience."

Infinite is right, he thought sourly, but said nothing. For the time being, escape was the only thing that mattered. If they did not escape, none of the rest would matter. Later, if they made it, he would find some gentle way to tell her.

In fact, by the change in him, the quieter periods, his reluctance to really get close, she guessed a part of the truth. She suspected that he had just now realized the extent to which the same people who had tortured, raped, and disfigured her had also disfigured him. She knew just from the treatment she had received afterward that they could do much, even make you forget your injuries and pain for a while, although the effects wore off. Her mood fell as she voiced her suspicions to herself. They have made him a eunuch, she guessed. It is the only explanation. She had almost expected it, guessed it from the start when he had spoken of his injury. Well, she wasn't going to pretend that it didn't matter to her, but he was still the same kind, gentle one who had treated her with respect and ignored her own disfigurement. She had no intention of abandoning him, not now. If he could ignore her disfigured shell and see only someone worthwhile inside, she could certainly do the same.

But though both of them saw and preferred the lie, the truth would not be kept down inside of Chu Li. Bit by bit, as the day wore on, Song Ching's truth chipped slowly but methodically away at Chu Li, and he fought it. The boy's memories and sense of identity were rapidly fading now, leaving only Song Ching, yet the biochemically induced Chu Li personality was becoming firmer, harder, fixed.

Even for the computer it had been a rush job, an emergency, and it might have been predicted that something undefinable and unanticipated would arise. Song Ching had ordered blocks that made her cold, unemotional, machinelike, and this had been altered only as required by the masquerade. As a result, the basic personality and responses of Chu Li were the only ones present and created an overwhelming desire to remain as they were, resisting all attempts at change.

The brain created personality, but it also was subject to a measure of adaptation, and, having no countermanding "fallback" personality, it responded to this urgent desire to maintain current levels. There was a dichotomy inside of her, a war between body and brain that simply could not go on.

"Are you all right?" Chow Dai asked worriedly. "You look ill."

"I-I think I should just lie down for a while," he managed. "It is an-aftereffect of what was done to me. I apologize, but if I lie down for a while, it will be all right."

He was a conscious combatant in the war raging inside him, and it had made him physically ill, both feverish and upset. The tension and confusion were enormous; he could not stand this much longer. Either something had to break or he knew he might well die-die on the brink of possible success and escape in which he was the only hope for these other people. Any moment now the guards could come for them, so there was no time for such a fight. By now he knew he really was Song Ching; there had been no tampering with Chu Li's body or mind.

Chu Li was certainly dead, his body long sent to dust or turned to energy, and she was responsible for that. It was an intolerable thought. It was intolerable that she should live again while he was dead, no matter what the price of that life might be, yet his memories even now were less than ghosts, mere wisps fading with each passing moment, leaving only Song Ching.

The brain had several mechanisms for resolving such dilemmas, whether caused by biological malfunction or trauma or otherwise induced, and all of them were forms of what they called insanity. If it could not resolve the problems, the brain got hung up in endless loops and the result was catatonia, but in this case both sides had a sense of urgency and a single central purpose: escape.

Escape to the stars. The brain needed only a lie that both sides could accept and believe; if that happened, then memories could be rewritten, attitudes adjusted, and everything resolved to allow function. A new reality was called for, and a very personal one.

In a miraculous revelation, she suddenly understood what had happened, and there was no more fight, only awe at the justice of the gods. When the computer had executed Chu Li, his soul had not gone on but had instead been placed in the body of Song Ching, who had ordered the destruction of her own personality in her plot. Her own soul had been cast adrift when this was done, and Chu Li's had filled the empty vessel in a measure of justice. The soul was shaped and formed and purified or dirtied by its experiences in the flesh, but it did not retain memories as such. Still, she knew it was Chu Li's soul animating Song Ching's body and guiding her thoughts. That was true justice: The soul of the enemy who was destroyed by her family was now in possession of her body, her memories, her knowledge, and those would be used against her family and the system that supported it. That was clearly the will of the gods.

There was a price for this, of course. Chu Li's soul had not risen to be purified; it remained the soul of a teenage boy. He was a man trapped in the body and with the memories of a beautiful woman. It would be a frustrating burden to carry, but the symmetry of the justice meted out by the gods required it. Because the knowledge in her head was so vast, so complete, and so dangerous to those who must be punished, it was a burden that had to be accepted. It left someone with the means to avenge, and that had to be sufficient.

For now, the Chu Li masquerade had to be continued so that the primary goal could be attained. Later there would be time for explanations and the truth. The reclining figure sat up, saw the anxious Chow Dai, and smiled. "I am all right now," he assured her. "I will be all right from now on."

She looked relieved. "I was almost going to call the guard and have you looked at. You really worried me."

He was glad she hadn't done that, or the ruse would have been up right there.

There being no machines to measure and identify souls, it would have taken but a moment for the stupidest of medics to realize that this was not a boy named Chu Li.

He looked at Chow Dai's ugly, scarred face and reflected on how truly ironic this all was. He could do just as well looking like her; indeed, it would solve some potential problems down the line. She, on the other hand, would prosper and blossom with the body he wore. The scientists could make a sadist a gentle poet and a peasant into an educated artist with their chemicals and processes, but only the gods could switch souls. Although it would work out here, it was in a way a reassuring thought: that there was one thing, at least, beyond science and reserved for the gods.

Not long after, Chow Mai and Deng Ho were sent in to join them. Deng's conditioning still held; Chu Li hoped it would hold long enough to avoid any complications. The two sisters rushed to each other and embraced and cried a little. Deng grinned at Chu Li. "Hello, Rat. Surviving?"

Chu Li nodded. "And you?"

Deng gave a knowing smirk. "No problems if you just shut your eyes," he whispered, then grew more serious. "They've been through even worse than us.

It's crazy, but we're going to some mad hell, and / feel sorry for them. Kind of takes your mind off it."

Chu Li looked over at the sisters, who were chattering away in pure peasant dialect. They seemed to be talking at the same time, and he guessed from the few words he caught that they were using a kind of spoken shorthand, expressing complete thoughts. That's fine, he thought. He understood full well that the monitors would never make sense of that garbage.

The girls had only a few minutes for their reunion, though. The door opened again, and the duty guard stepped in.

"You will all stand and be silent!" he barked imperiously. "You will now be addressed by the captain of the vessel that will carry you to your final destination!" He was as stiff as usual, but nervousness was revealed in his eyes and in small jerks of his head back toward the door.

Chu Li-he refused to think of himself as otherwise and certainly not as a "she,"

all physical evidence to the contrary-was startled that such a ship had a captain at all. A steward perhaps, or even a jailer-but a captain?

They heard the barred gate open and then clang shut again, then the sound of heavy footsteps approached the door, which the guard had continued to hold open.

When the captain walked in, the prisoners all gasped and stared at him as if he were some sort of monster.

They are giving us to foreign devils!

Carlo Sabatini stopped and looked at the expressions of absolute fear and revulsion on those four young faces and drank it in. Seeing the reactions of people who had never in their lives seen anyone who was not Oriental was the only bit of fun there was in this hick, provincial spaceport. These four looked like they'd never seen anybody but a Han Chinese and the Mongolian guards before.

"My name is Captain Sabatini," he announced in flawless Mandarin, the result of a session with a mindprint machine. "I am master of the interplanetary ship Star Islander which will take you from here to Melchior."

Three of the kids looked blank, but he noticed that the boy on his far right did not seem to react at all. Clearly that one knew more than the others, and Sabatini wondered why. He filed it for future reference.

"The ship, as you may or may not know, is fully automated. It is piloted by a machine that can make decisions far quicker than any of us and can fly the ship as no human could. Basically, my job is to make sure it works correctly and to be certain that any and all passengers and cargo get safely and comfortably to their destination, as well as handling things at the ports. As you can see, I am not Chinese, but rest assured, I am human. I have the same sort of blood inside of me, and I work the same way."

They stared at him, still somewhat awestruck and not a little afraid. He was imposing, standing over a hundred and eighty centimeters tall and weighing at least ninety-five kilos of pure muscle. He had an olive complexion that in their society would have marked him as ill and at death's door, thick black hair with some streaks of gray on the top and cut short on the sides, and a medium black mustache. He wore a shiny black uniform with leather boots and belt; the shirt was open at the top and exposed a fair amount of chest, covered in thick, black hair. He even had hair on his arms and the back of his hands: thick, black curly hair. The body hair in particular fascinated all of them. It was impossible not to think of him as some big ape or gorilla wearing clothes.

Still, Chu Li was able to break the spell enough to think clearly. If he goes along, then there is at least one space suit aboard.

"We don't normally take off from Earth," he told them, "so this will be a rough ride at the start. You will need to board the ship when it's angled up, get into seats as if it were lying flat, and get strapped in, and I do mean strapped.

Anyone who isn't fully strapped in will die in the takeoff. Since some of you might be tempted by that idea, we will have you restrained in place for that part of the trip. Once we reach orbit and the artificial gravity in the cabin stabilizes, you will get a measure of freedom, since I don't want to have to cart you to the bathroom or spoon-feed you, but you will still be under limited restraint. I want no problems in our journey, which, if no unexpected problems or emergencies develop, should take forty-one days. This is no interstellar speed ship."

That impressed all four of them. The two boys, who at least understood what spaceships were, still had trouble with that time span. The distance involved was really beyond their comprehension.

"Don't be too downcast. At other times it might have taken up to a year to reach Melchior. The positions are the best possible right now for the shortest distance, which is why we are taking off now and why we have to do everything exactly on schedule. Now, since we're going to be together a long time, I want to get some facts and rules straight before we even begin."

They just continued to gape at him.

"First, and most important, you are booked not as passengers but as live cargo.

That puts you in the same class as dogs, cats, chickens, and horses. There are two pressurized sections of the cabin. One is for people, the other is for animals. The animal section has cages that are not very large and is otherwise pretty dark and unpleasant. You will be placed initially in the human section, but if any one of you causes me any problems at all, one or all of you will be put back there and kept there for the duration of the voyage. They don't even have toilets back there, so think about it. Second, so I don't have to look behind me all the time, you will be shackled at all times and limited in the area you can move. Still, some of you may figure that I'm only one man, and you might try and get the best of me in a weak moment of mine. You might try. You might even succeed, although I promise you that if you try and fail, you will find me very unpleasant. But let's say you succeed."

He could see in their eyes that this had crossed their minds. It always did, and he'd transported tougher and nastier ones than these.

"I cannot pilot the ship," he told them. "I cannot even get to the bridge, since it is without air or pressure, and so neither can you. No matter what happened to me, I couldn't help you, and you would wind up in the exact same place and in the hands of the exact same people, only you wouldn't know how to run the life maintenance and support system for the cabins. I also have within me, implanted by a surgeon-where, I don't know-a tiny transmitter. It is hooked both to the ship and to a Master System relay. If I die, that beacon stops transmitting.

When it does, Master System will call the ship and determine whether my death was natural or murder. If it was murder, Master System will take direct command of the ship and release gas into the compartment that will not kill you but will put you down into a sleep from which you cannot wake up without the antidote.

If you kill me, not only will you not escape and not die, but your families back here, no matter how innocent, will replace you."

Not likely in the Song Ching family, Chu Li reflected, but then realized that there were cousins and others who might well be forced to replace her. However, it was empty to threaten Deng or himself that way. The system had already destroyed their families and friends as well. Still, for the girls' sake, he could not fail.

All right. So far it was proceeding exactly as the plans in his mind told him it would. Of course, Sabatini had not mentioned a couple of other safeguards, but he; wouldn't. That was all right. There were ways around this.

"Now, with all that out of the way," Sabatini concluded, "let me say that I am a ship's captain, not a member of the police or the military of anyone. I haul cargo and people. If you are friendly, cooperative, and make no trouble, this can be a pleasant voyage. I treat people the way they treat me. Treat me nasty, and I'll be nastier. Treat me nice, and I can be very nice as well. Any questions? Come-speak up. We will be off soon, and it'll be too late."

Chu Li didn't want to draw much attention, but he had to know one thing. "If you please, Honorable Captain- what is this Melchior to which we are being sent?"

"Melchior is a rock about thirty kilometers across that floats around the sun out in the asteroid belt. There's nothing on top but some beacons and a single dock, but the thing is a hollowed-out rock full of chambers, tunnels, rooms, even something of a town. It's a lot of things. It's a place for scientific research. It's occasionally a meeting place for important administrators who want to be away from all monitoring. Mostly it's a prison run by scientists who don't have to obey the rules because they're cooped up there, too. I'll tell you what more I know when we're under way. That satisfy you for now?"

Deng Ho wet his lips nervously. "Then-we are to be the experiments this time?"

Sabatini shrugged. "I don't know, boy. Nobody really knows, except maybe some of the administrators. I never heard of anyone ever escaping, though. Once you're inside, with that maze of tunnels and air locks, you get so lost, you might never even find your way out."

8. THE RAVEN AND THE WARLOCK.

THE ILLINOIS VILLAGE WAS IN TURMAIL. Two of their best warriors dead, a dramatic escape by the two whom the chief had called his "playthings," Chief Roaring Bull himself kidnapped, a slave woman missing, and a boat, supplies, and weapons stolen-it all made the rest of them feel downright insecure. The chief's eldest son, along with the rest of the clan, met to decide just what action to take.

"They're long gone," some argued. "Far downriver in foul weather. If they don't drown, they'll be out of reach before we can get the word down to stop them."

"But it's bad for business," others argued. "What if word gets around that this was done to us? Who will fear us and pay us tribute then? It will give the others ideas."

"They won't be bragging, if they survive at all," the first group argued. "The man's on the run from Council. He won't even mention this. As for Chief Roaring Bull, they're certain to kill him when he's no longer needed, if they haven't already. You heard what the girls said about that pair. They smelled of death. I say we bottle it up here. Anyone, at any time, who speaks of this to anyone, even among ourselves, shall at the very least lose his or her tongue and suffer torments. Let us tighten our own security and our tongues and go on as before."

"And what of the chief?" the others responded. "How will we explain his death?

It is bound to get out."

"Everybody knows he was a steady fire drinker. We'll just say he got drunk and mad at somebody on the river one day and went out there. That'll explain the body, no matter what the condition. He's never going to tell anyone different."

They all looked at Black Bear Foot, the chief's eldest son and heir apparent. A very imposing man in his own right, he had sat impassively listening to the debate without getting involved. Now the man they would make chief spoke.

"Yes, but what if father manages to come back alive?" he asked nervously. He had not always been the eldest son, but his late half brother had gotten too ambitious too fast. Some of the same men who now offered Black Bear Foot the leadership had encouraged his brother, then lost their nerve and betrayed him when faced with the wrath of Roaring Bull.

"Now listen and hear what I say," he said gravely. "The two who failed to watch the strangers will take one canoe, and the two who were so afraid of getting wet that they allowed the chief to be taken will go in another. One of you will bring back the chief, or his body, or all four of you will wish that you were dead, though you will not die. Understand?"

They understood, but they didn't like it.

"Also, send runners south on both sides of the Mississippi to contact our allies. Tell them only the story that Roaring Bull got drunk and was lost on the river and that we seek him and fear his capture by traders who bear grudges against him. Tell them that they will get a great reward if the chief is returned alive and a lesser reward if dead, but if dead, they will get the same great reward if they also return his killers, dead or alive. Got it? Then go!"

Those who would travel left to prepare, but the rest of the council remained in session to work out the details in the chief's absence. They were still hard at it when two strangers rode right into the village on horseback and stopped all there dead in their tracks.

The man on the brown horse was a Crow from the northwest mountains. An unexpected sight this far from his tribal territory, he was a striking man with a mean and fearsome look about him. He was dressed in full fur and buckskin and had a hard, tough, nasty face that seemed more a natural rock formation than a human feature. His eyes were narrowed and mean-looking, and he chomped on a half-smoked but unlit Caribe cigar. Observers could tell in an instant that he would no more hesitate to kill a man than to swat a fly; to stop him, one would need ten good men, all willing to die themselves.