They disembarked directly into a high-security area, with armed security guards and automatic security devices everywhere, and were then printed and processed.

The women understood only that they were to be imprisoned in a strange cave; their views of creation did not yet encompass a sufficient cosmology to understand just where they were or the nature of Melchior. It was a place in the Inner Dark, a spiritual realm ruled by spirits of evil. That was enough.

They were stripped, decontaminated, bound, then blindfolded and linked together for the final part of their journey. Silent Woman particularly protested the treatment, and Cloud Dancer was none too happy, but Hawks managed to calm them, convincing them that nothing could be done until they were settled and could get information, so there was no purpose to any resistance at this point. Privately he wondered if there was any possibility of successful resistance even later.

Like Dante, he had been forced by his enemies into entering hell alive; unlike Dante, he had no spirit guides to get him safely through and out again.

At the end of the nightmarish and disorienting journey, in which they seemed almost to float or fly in places, they were brought to a small, unfurnished room watched by security monitors all around the ceiling. Their blindfolds removed, they saw that Raven and Warlock were no longer with them, and none wished for a reunion. Those two had been replaced with an officious woman who looked as if she had been carved from some massive stone block, dull gray uniform and all.

She had a small clipboard in her hand and glanced at it, then up at them.

"You three have been consigned to the Melchior Penal Colony," she told them unnecessarily. "These walls and tunnels are incredibly thick and solid; the only way out is the way you came in. From this point back, there is no place at which you are not under constant monitoring and observation. Ahead of this point is a large chamber divided into two sections. The red block of flats off to your right as you enter is Maximum Security. The dwellings there are comfortable and self-contained but soundproof and allow only one inmate to a dwelling. Those inside must stay there. Inside, there is not a single point, not a square millimeter, that is not constantly under both visual and audio observation by humans and computers. Nothing, not even human waste, goes out without inspection and analysis, and nothing comes in except through totally computer-controlled access ports. You will be able to see inside every one, for the open walls are forcefields, all individual, but so firm that not even sound can pass through, and visual is one-way only. Anyone can see in, but you see a blank wall. You do not want to be in Maximum Security."

They accepted that at face value.

"The rest of the area is more communal. In a sense, it is a small town, although with rigid rules. We monitor the whole but not every specific thing. Rest assured, though, that we could pick you out of a crowd and eliminate you even in the most hidden corners, should we choose to do so. The dwellings there are larger and shared. Because we always know where you are when we want you, we have no limitations. You will be assigned a communal unit. If one or more of you moves elsewhere, it is not our problem. Everything used there is designed to degrade and is disposable. Clothing is not permitted. It is difficult to conceal a weapon or anything else if all are naked. You will draw everything that you need from the automated stores in the center area, as well as getting fed there.

You may draw three meals a day that are coded to you, no more. These cannot be saved up. Eat when you like within this limitation. Cold water is always available from the central fountain. Questions so far?"

There were none.

"All right, then," she continued. "We run on a twenty-five-hour schedule, which we have found more conducive to routine in this enclosed place. Everyone sleeps the same eight hours, marked by a bell sounding and then the lights going dim.

You will be in a dwelling within ten minutes of that bell and before the lights go down permanently. Anyone out after that or making excessive noise after that will be severely punished. Anyone ill or injured should report or be reported to the medical kiosk. Someone will come and tend to you. Those are the only major rules. You will learn the rest down there from your fellow inmates. When we want you, we will come and get you. Violence, resistance to our authority, or anything we determine as troublemaking will get you into Maximum Security and move you up to the head of the list for laboratory experimentation. Many inmates are already veterans of experimentation. Look at them and remember the price.

Now, there is just one more process, and you will enter. This will be your home from now until you die, so adjust to it and accept it. Go through that door now, one at a time. You may wait for your companions on the other side."

There was a small chamber, dimly lit by a greenish glow, beyond the door. A technician's voice said, "Step onto the little platform there and lean your whole face and body into the fabric stretched in front of it. Remain that way until I tell you differently."

It was like a spidery thin but incredibly dense mesh. Hawks pressed into it as directed and felt a similar substance close behind him. A sudden very bright light flared all around him, and he closed his eyes, the afterimage remaining.

He felt a sudden, intense, burning pain across his back and on his face as well.

He almost cried out but controlled himself. He would show no weakness.

It was over quickly. The mesh fell away, and the technician ordered him to go forward and out the security door. Still a bit stunned and feeling some residual pain on his back and face, he looked around and saw his first glimpse of the true heart of the Middle Dark.

In the Hyiakutt religion there were many spirits and many levels of magic and mysticism. There was but one god, all-seeing, all-knowing, and all-powerful, the Creator, the Father Spirit in whose image humanity had been created. Below the Creator were two levels of spirits set to do His will and protect His domain: the spirits of nature, and then the least of spirits, those of His most complex creation, humanity.

There was, of course, an opposite force, which the Creator allowed because He had created man as an experiment, perhaps as a game, to amuse and interest Him but also to be more complex companions. The human spirit was the least, yet it could rise higher than the fixed spirits if it worshiped the Creator, respected His creations, understood that the Creator made and alone owned all things, and showed himself worthy in courage and honor to rise above the middle spirits.

Without evil, without pain and temptation, humans would be as the middle spirits; defeating those things could make them worthy of the Creator's company.

For this reason the Dark had been formed and allowed to reign where it could.

Humans were born into the Outer Darkness, subject to the forces of evil as well as good. By making their spirits shine with deeds, they could dispel it.

Against this were the spirits of the Middle Dark, those that corrupted both human spirits and nature, and below it the Inner Dark, the place from which all evil came and where One lived whose Hyiakutt name translated out roughly to Corruption. It was a formidable enemy, for it had to be, in order to test humans. Without a worthy foe, the struggle, too, was worthless.

Hawks felt he was in the domain of the Middle Dark, although he had little religious faith or feeling. Now he knew it was real, for here it was. If such diverse and disconnected cultures as those of the Hyiakutt and Dante could feel the same contest and see the same visions through their individual cultural filters, then it did exist. Now he understood the odd, subconscious bond he'd always felt between that ancient foreign poet and himself. Culture masked truth-but there could be only one truth.

When Cloud Dancer emerged, he saw on her what they had done to him. Her pretty face and coppery skin had been marked on the cheeks with a bright silvery design, a line that began pencil-thin under the eyes and broadened out into a solid curve that bent back in on itself and ended as tiny little tendrils or even flowers. The design seemed to drink in light; he was certain it would retain some and glow in the dark, perhaps for a very long time. When she touched his face, and he hers, their fingers felt only skin, yet the design seemed inset, permanent, almost like a nameplate set into a piece of furniture or machinery. It was actually rather pretty and not at all disfiguring in the usual sense, but both had the feeling that the thing would not wear off. Silent Woman's identical markings were the most natural looking, although the shiny silver clashed with her muted reds, greens, blues, and oranges.

Hawks understood what it was for. One might impersonate someone in authority, perhaps steal clothing or the proper uniform; one might try all sorts of tricks, but one would never hide his or her face routinely without drawing attention. In the darkness of some of the tunnels, you would even glow in the dark, making a perfect target. He wouldn't be at all surprised, he thought, if the tattoo contained some synthetic mineral that could be automatically tracked by sensors, probably specific and unique to each individual. That was how they could pick out and shoot a troublemaker even in a crowd. On their backs, between their shoulder blades, was a bar of the same silvery material, going almost from shoulder to shoulder and about five centimeters thick. Within it, in black, was embedded a long string of characters in a language even Hawks did not know, but it was clearly a prison file number and identifier. It looked somehow superfluous on the back of Silent Woman.

"These are the demon brands so that we shall be known everywhere," Cloud Dancer noted. "Even should we leave here, we would carry their mark for all to see."

He nodded. "That's about it." He turned and looked over the interior of the prison complex. "It is a grayer underworld than I had imagined."

Cloud Dancer nodded grimly. "It is the worst of things. A place where all beauty and nature had been banished, all joy and all hope. A place without colors."

The entire semicircle could be viewed from the entrance. Walls, floor, and ceiling were all gray. The natural rock was gray, and all else had been painted or manufactured to match it so that it all blended into a plain nothingness. The cells, or dwellings, or whatever they might be called, were along three sides from floor to ceiling, rising up at least four stories in a stepped design.

They, too, were gray, although dull lights shone from each doorway. The only color was the flat and dull red of one block set off from the others to their right. The cells there had no doorways, just three-sided frames looking to the interiors, which were brightly lit, the very walls glowing with illumination.

Each was a single room with cot, toilet, sink, and nothing else except, in most of them, a lone occupant either sitting silently or pacing.

Below the dwellings, the area continued to be stepped; the lower levels were broad and somewhat rough-hewn and were basically featureless. The concentric rings formed an eerie rock amphitheater without seats or ornamentation. In the center was a broad oval in which a number of cube-like buildings sat, all equally dull and gray.

There were people about; a rather large number, it seemed, some in the area of the central cubes but most just along the broad steps or wandering aimlessly about. The lighting was indirect, its source the rocky ceiling of the chamber, and though little could be made out of individual humans from where the newcomers stood, little reflective glints off backs and faces told them that everyone here had the mark.

A man approached them. It was impossible to guess his age, but he was thin and light of build. He was so fair of skin that the two women, who had never seen humans from northern Europe, at first thought he was a walking dead man. He had incredibly thick light blond hair flowing down almost to his waist but no facial hair as Hawks might have expected from one of this man's race. His complexion was fairer than a baby's, although in a number of places he had some ugly bruises that showed up particularly well on his light skin. His cheeks bore the same silver design as theirs; the bar on his back was masked by his hair.

"Hello," the stranger said in a gentle low tenor. "My name is Hendrik van Dam, although most here just call me Blondy, particularly the Englishers and the others who speak it." He had a mild but pleasant north European accent. "I was told to meet you and get you settled." He paused for a moment. "English is all right, is it not? I was told-"

"No, English is fine," Hawks responded. "It is the only common tongue we have. I am called Jonquathar, which means Runs With the Night Hawks. Mostly I am just called Hawks, although in some circles where English is required, I am also called Jon Nighthawk. These are my wives, Chaudipatu, or Cloud Dancer in English, and the painted one we call Masituchi, or Silent Woman, since she has no tongue to tell us how she was truly called."

"You are of the Americas, I believe," van Dam noted. "We get very few of your people here, although some are sent." He sighed. "I would bid you welcome, only that seems a bit out of place."

Hawks nodded understandingly. "That is very true."

"I have a number for your assigned quarters, although we should go down to the shops first. You should eat something and relax a bit, then draw your bedding and supplies there before going up. I am afraid that seniority reigns here, so you are up top and off to the side. They are all really the same inside, so otherwise it does not matter. When you have nothing, the most trivial things become important, as you will see."

Cloud Dancer looked over to her left as they descended a rough rock staircase and gasped. "That couple over there-are they making love right there?"

"Oh, yes," van Dam replied casually. "You will see a lot of it, some of it quite passionate and some extremely nontraditional-some would say aberrant or abnormal."

"But-everyone is just ignoring them!"

"We are given nothing here. We can possess nothing. There is no reading matter, nothing to use for art or to record, not even things for sport. You spend much time talking here, but eventually you get talked out. It looks big, but the community is actually quite small, although there's some small turnover. There is some intimidation by the rougher sorts, but it is relatively mild here since they have no way of enforcing their will except through violence, and violence in here is strictly and severely punished. So you do what you can. You quickly lose all the usual social inhibitions here, and there are only so many footraces, wrist-wrestling contests, and the like you can do before you run dry.

So you eat, you sleep, and you have whatever sort of sex you wish here. You cannot get pregnant, and if you were when you came in, you are not now. There is nothing here but eternal boredom, and even that pales after a while. Then you just sit and wait until you are called."

"Called?" Hawks echoed. "By whom? For what?"

"Called by the Institute. Your mind, emotions, body, will-they play with all of them as they wish. We are their toys, you see. You will see some of their games here. At first you might be upset with seeing them or lose your appetite, but after a while it becomes just like that couple back there. You simply don't think of them as odd or even unusual anymore. Even when you know they play with mind and body, cripple and contort, after a while you look forward to being called. Anything to relieve this. You will see."

"How long have you been here?" Cloud Dancer asked the blond man.

"I truthfully do not know. You start to count the sleeps when you get here, but you lose count sooner or later, and after a while you don't try to start again.

Hair grows about six-tenths of a centimeter a month, and I have not cut mine. It was rather short when I arrived. Still, I have had a few sessions-brief, I think-at the Institute, so it is hard to say for sure."

"At some point," Cloud Dancer noted grimly, "we will all go mad."

"Oh, even that is not permitted. They look for signs of it and pick it. up quite well. They then pick you up, treat you, and you are not insane anymore. They make few slips. They catch it early on, when we haven't even seen it ourselves."

Hawks shivered. "And no one-tries to escape?"

"How? Through fifteen meters of solid rock with our fingernails and our teeth?

Then what? To the vacuum of space? The only other way out is through that door you came in, then through a maze of tunnels with countless air locks, all monitored. Even if you got all the way, which no one ever has, there is an average of two ships a month in here, and they stay only long enough to do their business and go. A few hours at best. Access to the ships is strictly controlled. I heard once that someone did get loose in the Institute and took some important hostages. The computer security system ignored the hostages and got the inmate anyway. No, I know of only three ways out."

"One, I suppose, is death," Cloud Dancer said, making it sound not at all an unattractive idea.

"Yes. Another is when they finish with you or can no longer use you. Then they might turn you into a slave, an obedient slave for them in their own quarters.

They have robots and all the comforts, but these are the kind of people who get a thrill out of having slaves to boss around and pamper their every whim. You can't fake it, though. They make very sure of you over here before they recode you over there."

"You said three ways," Hawks noted.

"Yes. The rulers here are in many ways just like the ones we grew up under. If they decide you have something, some talent, some brilliance, that will enhance their own power and position, they may employ you at the Institute. It's just as much a prison as here, but it is not boring."

They approached the boxlike buildings in the center. A number of people were there, eating off plasticlike trays with a variety of utensils, all rather soft and pliant. All the buildings were automated and computer-controlled. One put one's face into a depression to be scanned and identified. The food building delivered the food and whatever was needed to eat it, in portions matched to an individual's physical needs. The tray and utensils were encoded with the user's identification and were to be dropped in a waste disposal box available on the bottom three levels. No one could get any more of anything from the stores until everything was accounted for from last time. If a prisoner stubbornly kept an item, it began to decompose and give off a deliberately awful scent within a few hours.

Bedding was two sheets and a pillowcase, turned in daily before breakfast could be dispensed and replaced any time after the third meal. Some basic toiletries in very small amounts could also be picked up, and a new kit could be issued by turning in what was left of the old one. The newcomers ate, finding the food filling though even more tasteless than shipboard meals, then drew their meager supplies and followed van Dam all the way up to the top dwelling level. They would, Hawks thought, not lack for exercise.

The apartment, or cell, was spartan but functional. There were two bunk beds on either side of a rectangular room measuring about three by four meters. In the rear was a bare toilet, a sink with hot and cold water faucets and a small basin, a rack to hang the towels and washcloths, a small shelf for the lesser toiletries, and that was that. Van Dam told them that showers, with real water, were twice-weekly affairs and that they would be told when they were printed for a meal to go take one and then return to eat. The showers, in a chamber under Maximum Security, were fully monitored and could not be accessed except when ordered there. Anyone who refused to shower was denied food.

There was no door, although a forcefield came down during sleep period.

Prisoners were always monitored and recorded while inside their rooms, van Dam warned, which was why everybody stayed outside as much as possible. Cloud Dancer went to the door and looked out at the grim chamber.

"I am surprised," she said, "that no one has hurled themselves from here. It would be impossible to stop."

"Easy," the blond man responded. "Computers think a million times faster than people. They would snap on a forcefield that would catch you and hold you-in extreme pain, I might add-until somebody came and got you. Then you'd rate a trip to the hospital, and when you got back you'd be just the same, but you'd never think of doing that again. Believe me. I've seen it tried." He sighed.

"Well, that's about it. The rest you'll catch on to in the days ahead. I'll show you how to make the bed and use the toilet, and that will be that. We're never full, so this level isn't very crowded. If you want to use any of the unoccupied rooms until they're assigned, feel free. The only other assigned ones are some other newcomers. Been here about two weeks. They're three down in apartment forty-two. Two sisters. Chinese, I believe. You might like them. They're an interesting pair. Real bad scars, though, so be prepared. Not from here-they already had them."

The blond man left and made his way slowly back down toward the center. The two.

women watched him go, wondering why he was in such a hurry to get anywhere in this place.

Hawks walked up between the two women and put his arms around them. "I'm very sorry I got you into this. This was all my own stupid fault."

"We chose to keep the marriage and to follow you," Cloud Dancer replied. "Now we will do as any Hyiakutt would do. We will survive, and we will wait."

He gave a dry, humorless chuckle. "Wait? For what?"

"For opportunity. For whatever comes. Perhaps, even, for five golden rings."

12. A WAY OUT AND A PLACE TO GO.

SHE HAD BEEN IN DARKNESS SO LONG NOW THAT SHE was used to it. It was no longer a shock to awaken and not see, and the confines of her small quarters were so spartan and so basic that she now lived within them without so much as a bump or a stumble. Yet when they took her out of her cell, she was suddenly in a totally different and frighteningly disoriented world. She knew now that something had gone wrong near the start, that she was in fact a prisoner, and that the staff at least knew who she really was, but she had no idea why they had kept her there, in isolation, and still blind. Her sessions with the psychiatrists and their analytical computers had been routine but did not seem to be leading anywhere. This confused her more than ever, since the Presidium ran Melchior, and Song Ching's father was a member of the Presidium. Now, again, she was taken out of confinement and led first into a vast open space, then through doors and tunnels to the Institute, where she was seated in a large treatment chair. This time, however, things were different.

"My name is Doctor Syzmanski," a woman's professional voice said off to the right. "We have finally completed our analysis of you, and Doctor Clayben, our chief administrator, has made his decision."

They had done a lot of deep poking and probing into her mind and her psychochemical makeup as well as her genetic files. They had found how the computer had done what it had done, how she had managed to do what she had accomplished, and much more. They were quite surprised to discover that it was more than chemical mischief that made her believe she was a male inside. The re-orientation had triggered a whole set of processes within the mind of Song Ching, and both the mindprinting and the humbling aboard ship, as well as contact with ordinary victims, had eaten at the heart of Song Ching's massive egocentrism. Another blow, and a telling one, was that she was really fixated on her father. She had worshiped him and wanted only to have him return some of the affection and respect. He never had, and that had driven her even harder to prove herself to him, and she thought she had done so. In return, he had given her the ultimate slap. He had belittled her accomplishments and then moved to wipe her forever from his life. She had discovered that no daughter, no matter how brilliant, could ever be seen by him as more than an object. Only if she were a man would he take her seriously. This had reinforced the crude basic work done for the masquerade.

"You were conceived here," Doctor Syzmanski told her. "Did you know that?"

"No, but it does not surprise me."

"We are the only ones who could do it and allow him to get away with it. That's partly what we're for, how we justify our existence to the Presidium. Your father and mother contributed the basics, of course, but those were highly modified here before being carefully combined and then placed inside your mother. The technique is quite complex and quite revolutionary. Any children you might have, by any father, would be more or less reengineered to attain the maximum of physical and mental perfection the genes would allow. We understood your father's plan. You see, all the Centers exist to do just the opposite. To seek out the exceptional, the dreamer, the potential changers of the world, and either co-opt them into the Centers or eliminate them. Master System demands we breed only mediocrity or those satisfied with the status quo. Your father wanted to make the next evolutionary leap. You were part of that plan. Of course, it wouldn't have worked."

"Huh? What?" She was startled.

"Your father felt that by removing you from Center and thus from having your children's genetic code registered, he would escape detection. He could then protect the children from his position rather than eliminating or co-opting them into the system as he is employed to do. His ego kept him from seeing that his plan had real merit if it were done with two peasants picked at random, or perhaps fifty. However, he wanted it kept in his own family. He wanted his descendants to be the ones. You are already registered. Master System is not blind. It would order your father to recruit or deal with any children you might have no matter what he did to your mind-set."

"But surely he would have known this, been told of this."

"The greatest of men can be blinded and brought down by pride and ego. He did not want to be told. It would have been death or worse to do more than make the pro forma warning. He shut it out, refused to recognize it, because he could not accept the truth. We, on the other hand, find much merit in the idea if it can be removed from him. We are arranging, if we have not already arranged, to have you killed."

"What?"

"You may already be dead. Positive identification. Frustrated parents, perhaps some guilt there and even sadness at having caused it. Case closed. All, even Master System, satisfied. On Doctor Clayben's orders, you no longer exist."

"But Chu Li does." She began to feel some excitement coming back into her.

"Only in computer records. Those are easier to fix, but Chu Li must also die, here, in captivity, and be routinely disposed of. Then no one who was not actually with you will know. Oh, this Sabatini may think he knows, but we will deal with him and even adjust the pilot. We have changed identities, forms, all sorts of things countless times here, but right now you are probably unique in the Community. You do not exist. We have always thought of you as ours, anyway.

It is only right that you return to us when-ripe."

She began to get a sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach. "What do you intend to do with me?"

"You have turned out exactly as we programmed. You have learned more about computers and computer mathematics than many three times your age. You have also shown great courage and the willingness to take major risks for big stakes. That last is particularly rare. There is no way of knowing what you might accomplish, but we do not feel that we should destroy that potential. However, it is equally vital to know if the rest of the genetic programming works. It was far more complex and experimental. If it does, we can use it here to breed our own superior race. You are hardly the only one we worked on with this, but you are the only one we have at the right age and here on station. One problem has been how to. accomplish all this without you eventually turning our own system back upon us. We think we know a way, and we believe the great risks are worth it.

Don't worry- you will remember everything. You will still be you inside.

We dare not tamper much without risking killing that spark we desire."

The psychochemistry was simple, less than child's play to the masters of Melchior. Eliminate the blockers, shift the hormones, create others that would be manufactured ever after. She was not merely oriented back to female, she was reoriented to very female. She would be like an animal in heat, single-minded and insatiable, until a pregnancy occurred. No test would be needed. Once the brain received notification and began the preparatory processes, those animal urges would cease. She would be normal, in full control, and since she would retain her old memories and basic personality, and since she would find her animal self unnerving if not somewhat frightening, it was predicted that during the whole period she would probably prefer women as company, friends, and lovers. Once the child was born, her body would begin a repair and reset, and when it was prepared once more, in a month, perhaps two, the cycle would begin again. It would continue this way until she ran out of eggs, perhaps thirty years from now.