Lisa hurried through the ship's corridors, returning salutes when she was forced to but primarily attempting to avoid everyone's gaze. Not that she heard so much as a giggle from the crew, but she knew what they were all thinking.

She huffed to herself as she exited the lift on the med deck. One did not have to be a telepath to read the expressions of concealed amusement, to take note of the near smiles.

She came through the hatch to the nursery's observation room with fire in her eyes, the anger palpable enough to be seen clear across the room by the on-duty pediatric nurse and child-care staff.

"Sir?" the nurse asked cautiously after springing to attention.

Lisa threw everyone a cold, appraising look. "Which one of you made the PA announcement?"

A small hand went up, and a corporal stepped sideways into view from the rear of the group. "I did, sir?" the young staffer said in a tone that modulated to falsetto.

Lisa coughed into her hand, suppressing a smile. "Now hear this, mister. When my presence is required or requested, can send a courier or you can key into my command channel. But I don't ever-repeat: ever-want to hear a call that over the PA again. Is that understood?"

Yes, sir," the corporal returned crisply.

"'Admiral wanted in the nursery'" Lisa muttered to herself. "Remember, all of you, we have to at least pretend that I'm running this ship. That I'm not just some working mom fitting a job around child rearing."

"Sir!" said several voices in unison.

Lisa adopted a theatrically firm expression. "Good. NOW what's all this about?"

"The children, Admiral," the nurse said, indicating the nursery's one-way observation window.

Lisa stepped over to have a look, a puzzled frown contorting her features. Roy and a couple of human toddlers, along with Drannin and the rest of the Zentraedi children, were assembled in what was called the 'creative crafts area,' where a sphere a good fifteen feet around had been fashioned out of extruded plastifoam. Lisa could see that some sort of hinges were inset along the equator of the sphere.

"They didn't do all that by themselves, did they?" she asked in alarm.

The corporal shook his head. "No, sir. They asked for our help with the ... globe or whatever it is. But they told us exactly what they wanted."

"I take it it opens somehow."

The head nurse chuckled. "It does indeed, Admiral." Lisa regarded the two of them.

"What's inside?"

"The most amazing thing," the nurse said, enunciating each word. "They've been working on it all day long, every one pitching in. The Zentraedi doing the heavy work, Roy directing the other kids in the fine work. But with barely word exchanged among them. It's like they knew from the start what they were after."

Lisa felt a chill run through her. "And what is it?"

The nurse looked to the corporal, who drew a breath "Their own version of a puzzle block or a transformable toy. Made entirely out of what they could salvage from other toys except for a few items they asked us to procure: springs cams, lubricants, that sort of thing."

"Lubricants?! You should be in there supervising them."

"We tried that, Admiral," the nurse said. "But they stop playing whenever anyone enters the nursery. Frankly, sir, find it a little, well, unnerving. That's why I asked you down."

Lisa folded her arms, considering. "I think it's time we found out just what they're up to." She spun on her heel and stepped to the nursery door. "I'm going inside," she told the staff, one hand already on the knob.

In a silent and deserted corridor on the recreation deck, Rem pressed an ear against the hatch to Bowie's music room. He had promised Minmei he would wait until conditions were right before attempting to reachieve the altered state of mind that had gripped him when the lights had penetrated the fortress, but walking past the music room had proved too great a temptation.

Rem understood that the nucleic memories awakened by those probing lights were not his own but Zor's-Zor's to a degree he had never experienced. Not at the insistence of the Regent and Haydon IV's mind-bending devices, not with Cabell's guidance, not under the influence of dried Flowers from Optera's regrown gardens. The lights-and whatever intellect animated them-had accomplished something perilously wonderful by unveiling the sensate content of his progenitor's experiences. And though the lights had vanished, perhaps never to reappear, they had left an open frequency to his other self.

He ventured that he needed only attune himself to that unacommon freq and the flood of psychoid stuff would recommence. And with it, answers to just where the fortress was and for what purpose it had been brought there.

Reluctantly, Minmei had agreed to assist him. The clones' songs will provide the prompt I require, he had told her. But how much greater the effect if the triumvirate's harmonies could be reinstated! For Minmei it would mean coming out of voluntary retirement, facing fear, relocating the voice that had worked miracles.

And Rem could hear that voice now, muted by distance and inch-thick alloy. Bowie's synthesizer was teaching her a vocal line, a measured, seemingly impossible leap of octaves. Minmei sang and Rem grinned: Yes, yes!

"All right," Bowie said. "Let's see what happens." The three singers joined voices.

And a spike of pure light pierced Rem's mind.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN.

I must admit that even I am somewhat stunned by the sudden reappearance of this comforting darkness and these distant stars, because I cannot help but recall what I said to Hunter that day in engineering: What would you have me do-fashion you a galaxy? Words to that effect, at any rate. Hunter, as usual, didn't know how to take the remark. But could it be that I have actually succeeded in doing just that? Has the Protoculture finally endowed me with the ability to Shape, as Zand always maintained it would? And what, then, becomes my next move? Do I impost my will on the laws of this domain or simply think into being a world for us to orbit?

Dr. Emil Lang, The New Testament

Scanners indicate a profusion of life-forms, m'lord, Vard had told him. Perhaps this one will prove out treasure trove, eh?

Zor could not recall his reply now-a glance, a glower, some noncommittal sound. It was true that treasures were sometimes found or discovered, but most often they were the end result of greed, plunder, willful extraction . . . "Which is it that you hold in store for us?" he asked an arc of reflected light outside the viewport. "A discovery that will reward us with wealth and fame, the accolades of our distant fathers? Or a world that will bring out the worst in us, a world for the taking?"

The planet was the fifth of this star the charts called Tzuptum, a lush wanderer with a single oblate moon to light its night skies. Zor had a preference for such celestial partnerships and shivered thinking of Tirol's long night, Fantoma's oppressive proximity. It was not fitting for sentient creatures to be so overruled, rotated in the shadow of something monstrously huge. Thought and contemplation required a more subtle interplay of forces: of winds and tides and natural rhythms. In the absence of that grew an urge to dominate, to absorb the power of that larger other, to extend influence in the basest of manners, to conquer all that would threaten to overshadow . . .

He brought his face close to the hull's transparency, as though his eyes could tell him something the scanners could not. But what was there to discern from up here? he asked himself. Hailings had gone unanswered, and yet there was, as Vard had indicated, abundant life of a complex sort. So the planet's life forms were either pretechnological or atechnological. Primitive was the operative classification used by the ship's cyber-networks, but Zor knew better than to accept that as in any way descriptive.

Maybe they are right not to respond to us, he thought. Their way of saying they want no part of whatever it is we are offering ... But something told him there was more to it than that. From somewhere within him arose a belief that the dominant life forms on this world were simply too self-involved to answer. That deep in the dense forests below, an experiment of grand design was taking shape. And perhaps even now those beings were cursing their misfortune, decrying the fact that in this vast universe someone had found them-had found them out!

The dropships were standing by, Vard was telling him from the hatchway. With hailings still unacknowledged, ship's General Command was recommending accompaniment by surface-effect drones and a full complement of armed Troopers. What General Command called standard operating procedures.

The method had been utilized on dozens of worlds to no lasting ill effect, but Zor could not suppress a feeling that such techniques might prove calamitous here. He could argue the point, of course, but Command would ultimately have its way.

He turned to give the planet one final look before following Vard out into the corridor. In place of the anticipation he normally felt prior to a drop came apprehension.

"You are from this day forward changed," he said aloud, uncertain whether his words were directed to the planet or to himself...

Rem had been found lying unconscious in a rec-level corridor.

And Dr. Wenslow, astrogation's wide-scope expert, had detected a planet orbiting Lang's indecisive second star from the right.

The two messages had arrived simultaneously in Lang's lower deck study, where Rick and the scientist were still poring over star charts and indices. While Rick attended to the former, Lang linked systems with Wenslow to see for himself just what was out there.

"We've got him down in med lab, sir," a female lieutenant named Clay reported over the intercom.

"Any idea what caused it?" Rick asked.

"Not yet, sir. He was found outside the music room." Rick checked a half-formed expletive. Music room, he thought. This was the "emergency" he had excused himself for a little over an hour ago?

"He was alone? No one else around?"

The lieutenant cleared her throat. "Mister Grant and Miss Minmei were inside the room, sir. But they apparently had no knowledge of Rem's presence."

"Minmei?" Rick said. "She was there?"

"Yes, sir. Singing, sir."

Rick's mouth fell open. "You must have gotten that part of it wrong, Lieutenant."

"I don't think so, sir. She was singing with Mister Grant and the two Tiresian women. "

Rick pushed a hand through his long hair. What the hell was happening to his ship? he wondered. What had this place-those lights-done to everyone? He exhaled slowly and brought out his command voice. "Lieutenant, I want you to find some excuse for keeping Rem under close medical observation for the next, let's say, two hours." Rick glanced at his watch. "He is not to be released until 1900 hours."

"Yes, sir.

Rick patched himself through to security next and instructed the chief of station there that Rem's whereabouts were to be discreetly monitored at all times until further notice.

"And have someone keep an eye on Minmei as well," he added as an afterthought.

That much accomplished, he turned to Lang, who favored him with an enigmatic smile.

"We've actually got ourselves a planet?" Rick said.

Lang shrugged. "It would appear so." He activated a screen on his desk and beckoned Rick over. "Polar caps, mountain ranges, a verdant equatorial belt, Earthlike atmospheric conditions . . . Custom-made for us, wouldn't you agree?"

Rick raised an eyebrow, one hand flat on the intercom control panel again. "Yeah, a little too custom-made," he started to say as the bridge responded.

"Bridge, Commander Forsythe."

"Raul, Hunter. Put me through to Lisa, would you?"

"Sorry, Rick. She's not here. You might check the nursery." Rick felt his face flush. Another "emergency," no doubt, like Rem's need for a stroll around the ship and Minmei's sudden urge to sing. "Raul, what the hell is going on around here? Is everybody going space-happy? Who's running this ship, anyway?"

Forsythe was quiet for a moment. "Which question do you want me to respond to first, Rick?"

Rick let out an exasperated sigh. "Skip it, Raul. Just stand by for new course headings. And when the admiral returns, tell her I want to see her in the briefing room, ASAP."

Forsythe signed off, and Rick swung back to Lang. "Suggestions, Doctor?"

"I suppose it could be a trap of some sort, an attempt to lure us in," Lang began. "But I don't see that we have much choice. If the planet is inhabited in addition to being hospitable, we stand a chance of learning a bit about this place, perhaps even a way out of it. Certainly more than we'll learn from these stars something has seen fit to provide."

Rick studied Lang's expression. "You're serious about that, aren't you?"

Lang nodded.

"All right. Instruct astrogation to plot us a course in."

While reflex drives were carrying the SDF-3 toward a planet that had seemingly leapt into existence only moments before, the Ark Angel, recently reemerged in normal space, was bearing down on a world that had traveled hundreds of thousands of parsecs to settle itself on the dark edge of annihilation.

The Terran legation had tried to convince Karbarra to stay its warlike hand, if only until Haydon IV had a chance to respond to the charges brought against it. In this, the Ark Angel promised to act as intermediary and arbiter. But it had been plain that Karbarra was out for more than blood vengeance. The ursinoids had agreed not to obstruct Earth's representatives from communicating with the Haydonites but had assured everyone that a flotilla of Karbarran ships would be folding at the Ark Angel's stern and that any hostility Haydon IV directed against them would be met in kind.

Vince, Jean, Harry Penn, Scott, Cabell, and Nichols and his interface addict associates had passed most of the journey from Tirol gathered in the starship's situation room, discussing strategic options and speculating on the SDF-3's present whereabouts.

Scott, his body hot-wired on an assortment of liquid stimulants, thought he might simply spontaneously combust before the session ended. The brief reunion with his parents had only aggravated the concern he felt for his missing friends, and to top that off he had finally taken his tortuous relationship with Marlene to its predictable conclusion.

Back on the Angel after the nearly disastrous summit in Tiresia, he had gone to her cell-against his better judgment-where one thing had led to another, and had ultimately found the two of them pressed against a spot of bulkhead inaccessible to the prying eyes of the security cams, making love with animal intensity. Green blood or no, Marlene was a woman of human needs and passions. And while Scott was still deliciously dazed from their sensual intertwining, the encounter had left him more confused than ever.

"I'm sorry to make it sound like this, Cabell," Vince was saying, "but we didn't make the jump from Earth to get ourselves entangled in Local Group affairs. We came back for the SDF-3, not to assist Karbarra in its push for control of the spaceways."

Cabell's clear eyes narrowed. "Perhaps not, Commander, but I suggest the time has arrived for Earth to consider itself part of the Local Group. After all, it was at the insistence of your Plenipotentiary Council that this war machine was built to begin with."

The Terrans waited.

"I would point out to you that the SDF-3 had the capacity to fold to Earth shortly after the end of the Sentinels' campaign. You could have returned then, with the Local Group's blessings and thanks, instead of anchoring yourself in Tirolspace for an additional three years."

Vince snorted. "Embark on a five-year voyage to find our homeworld occupied by the Invid Regis?"

"So you chose to defeat her in a war," Cabell said in a casual way. "The result is the same. You perhaps succeeded in chasing her off, but at what cost? The fleet you labored to construct is gone, atomized. Your planet is devastated. And your philosophy of answering might with might has had a telling effect on the Local Group worlds." The Tiresian raised an accusatory finger. "You knew full well when you left Tirol what you had set in motion on Karbarra."

Scott was grateful for the momentary silence that followed Cabell's remarks. On the voyage out from Earth, Vince had brought him up to date on Local Group grudges, but Scott had not expected the once morose Karbarrans to be so radically affected by their recent economic windfalls. And aside from problems of a localized sort, there were, to hear Cabell and Nichols tell it, problems in the grand scheme of things as well. Scott could not follow half the mathematical proofs the scientists had offered up as evidence, but something had apparently worked a bit of underhanded universal micro/macro magic, tugging matter in both realms just that much closer together. Cabell had even said something about pulsar stars disappearing entirely a "Big Crunch" in the working.

"I don't see what Karbarra or Haydon IV's got to do with us," Scott interjected. "General Grant's already said it, Cabell: It's the Regis we're after."

Scott noticed Nichols and Cabell trade looks.

"We were hoping you could update us on that score, Colonel," Nichols said at last.

"Me? How so?"

"Well, you've been having intimate ... discussions with her agent, haven't you?" Nichols asked. "We thought maybe Marlene had told you something in confidence."

Scott's face went crimson. He might have known it was not that easy to get around the security cams in Marlene's cell. "She hasn't told me anything," Scott muttered, eyes averted from the table.

Nichols made a dismissive motion. "All the more reason for communicating with Haydon IV, then."

"If we only knew more about the descendants of Haydon," Jean said.