"MOVE!".

I rolled clear of her slashing kick, but couldn't quite dodge her chopping right hand. I felt a burning sensation on my cheek as I again rolled clear. I felt the old flavor wake up in me and knew I had to stop it quick.

"Look, Susie! Not yet! I don't know if I can control ... Aaahh!" She closed quickly, unbelievably quickly. I spotted her technique this time, and blocked her side chop while skipping over her swaying leg. I meant to bring my weight to bear on her anchor leg, but her side chop crushed my feeble strength and floored me. I landed hard. I let out a cry and then another as her foot caught me in the upper chest, giving me my first experience at female anatomy pain. Not as bad as male anatomy pain, but not pleasant, either. I landed back near Billy. I tried to rise, but he held me down.

"Just stay down, Abigail! Lendler's a little softer if you stay down. Believe me, I know."

"Thanks, Billy. But that's not how the game is played." It was rising in me, and while part of me wanted to push it away, the rest welcomed it. "How old are you?"

"I'll be nineteen in May."

"Eighteen, huh? Still school age. All right, let me conduct today's cla.s.s." I raised my voice a little, "Get ready to intervene at a moment's notice, okay?" They nodded, probably thinking they'd have to intervene to stop me from bleeding to death. Me, I had different plans.

I stood up. I was helpless now to the beast and let it rouse itself. The beast was why I fought in Recon so long ago. Almost an alter ego, when it woke up, I stopped being John, now Abigail, Wyeth. My men had seen it many times, because I had to call on it frequently during the desert and mountain campaigns of the Kilimanjaro offensive of the Twenty-first Century war. It was a remoteness that took me. Everything else was a situation to be dealt with as quickly and brutally as possible. I didn't fight to win, I fought to survive. I hoped, I prayed, I wouldn't hurt Susie badly. But I knew I'd try to kill her.

It growled at me, demanding the situation. I coolly told it my a.s.sets and limitations. I glanced at my enemy and located her strengths and weakness. The beast selected my best attack for disabling prior to killing. I slapped my hands together, then went down to a crouch, my hands evenly splitting my body weight with my legs.

Susie came at me again. Her slicing left foot was aimed at my head, but I could tell it was a feint, that it would be her anchor foot, planted near my left hand, in about one second, and that the real attack was her trailing right leg, which would bury itself in my chest, a weak attack unless she wore a hardened boot. The counterattack for my weight was obvious and clear. And far more effective.

I crouched further, as if to dodge her left foot. It planted at my left hand and I spun myself to the left, chopping my right hand into her plant, knocking it into her swinging right leg. She fell into a heap and I pounced on her in a second. With cold efficiency, I shot two stiff fingers down to gouge out her eye. She was able to block it, but I managed to break one of her fingers. I felt nothing, nor did I even recognize her. I saw the look of anger in her eyes, and the sheen of pain as the bone snapped.

She made to throw me off. But I was already vaulting free, which made her movement clumsy and ill-timed. She regained her center and twirled around quickly, but I had already antic.i.p.ated that and put a foot to her head. Had I been my original size, it would have snapped her neck, killing her. But I still hadn't adjusted fully, so it only grazed her head, b.l.o.o.d.ying an ear. I looked at her eyes again and saw the anger, and the pain. And now I saw fear, and knew I had won. All that remained was to kill her. I had made the proper adjustments to my weight and had decided first to shatter her right kneecap, then crush her windpipe in the few seconds she would be debilitated by the pain. I went to my attack crouch, antic.i.p.ating her defense, which she took.

"ENOUGH!" I heard Lt. Sanchez's voice cut through my coldness, striking a chord in my heart. I recognized him as an authority. I struggled with the beast and myself, trying to force an end. I prayed Susie made no attack. I could still kill her.

But it was over. I saw her relax, dropping her hands and leaving herself defenseless. It was a sight that settled me very quickly. I felt my own muscles ease and slacken. I sank entirely to my knees and covered my face with my hands. Hot tears came to the surface, and I was crying. I could have killed her.

Susie came to me, also crying. I pushed her away, angry.

"You idiot! I was going to kill you! Why did you do it? Why?"

"Because she was told to, young lady." Lt. Sanchez stepped up to me, but made no effort to help me to my feet. He looked down at us. "Susan. I want both of you cleaned up and in my quarters in half an hour." He turned on his heel and walked off.

Chapter Eight.

It was a very quiet thirty minutes. We went to sickbay to have our wounds attended to. Dr. Barrett didn't say much, which was just as well. The cut on Susie's ear required a couple of st.i.tches, but st.i.tches were gone forever in medicine. Instead of sewing up the still bleeding wound, Dr. Barrett used a type of instrument that both stopped the bleeding and half-completed the healing. Like the inducer, it was based on sound. He used a similar, but more powerful tool on her broken middle fingers; apparently my hit had snapped two bones, not one. Again, it speeded up the healing process enough that she experimentally flexed her finger with little pain after only several minutes of treatment.

The doctor checked me for broken ribs, but found only some bruising. It was slightly painful to breathe, hardly worth noting. I mention it only because after a dose of the sounder, as he called it, I felt no pain at all. I had an idea now why Susie played so rough; all you needed to do was survive, and modern medicine could patch you up pretty quick. The problem Susie had was she hadn't known she was going to survive. I'd been worried about that, too. I wanted to say something, anything, to get her talking, even looking at me again. But I held off, knowing now that she'd been under orders to provoke me. Why, I didn't yet know. That would be changing soon, if I guessed right.

We cleaned up and reported to Lt. Sanchez's room just as the half-hour pa.s.sed. Susie had stayed silent, avoiding my attempts to get her attention. I felt awful at first. Then I was angry, because she was the one who brought this on. Then I felt smug ... oh, I must have gone through a half-dozen different emotions in that thirty minutes, all of them intense and unshakable, until the next one washed over me. I was a very confused girl. Which probably made me normal, I thought glumly. Life, I decided, had been a great deal more straightforward as a guy.

Susie knocked on Lt. Sanchez's door, and he told us to enter. It was similar to Dr. Barrett's office in that it was a combination office and living quarters. He was seated at his desk as we entered. There were two chairs for us to sit in, but when Susie stayed at attention, I figured I should, too.

He went straight to the point.

"Recommendation, Counselor."

Susie snapped even more rigidly to attention and spoke very precisely. "As of this day, November 16, 2676, as counselor of Rescued Ripe 1845, John Wyeth, I recommend and urge continuation. Her new name is Abigail Wyeth."

My ears perked at the sound of my old name, and I looked at her. She kept staring straight ahead, but I saw the corners of her lips curl up a little. Lt. Sanchez noticed it, too.

"That pleases you, Susan?" She relaxed from her attention when he used her first name.

"Of course it does, sir! Any time a counselor can recommend..."

"...the continuation of a Cue," he finished, a trifle impatiently. "Yes, yes. But you've really put more into-Abigail, is it?-you've put more into her than any other Cue, haven't you?"

"Well, she's unique. And fun. And..."

"Uh, hey, people!" I broke in. "I may be unique and fun, but I'm also standing right here. And I'm a little confused, so could we cut to the chase? What's continuation mean? And what was reason for that fight? And why all the-" Sanchez held up a hand.

"I'm sorry, Abigail. We shouldn't talk around you. Let's take care of that now." He looked at Susie. "You're absolutely sure, Susan?" She nodded, openly smiling now. Her whole manner seemed a total reverse from only ten minutes ago. That I was out of my depth would be an understatement. I wasn't in over my head, I was on the ocean floor, tied down with weights and sinking deeper. Sanchez nodded.

"All right. Abigail, come here, please." He stood up as I stepped around the desk. I did it only because I had no idea what else to do.

"Attention!" he barked, and I suddenly became rigid. His authority and ability to command were incredible. "As commander of this, the Third Regiment of the Resistance, I hereby confer onto you the rank of private, second cla.s.s. Welcome aboard, and may G.o.d have mercy on your soul." He tapped me twice on my right shoulder.

I'm not sure what he was expecting me to do or say. I thought about this sudden turn for a few moments, then said, "Uhh ... Don't I have a say in this?"

"You will address me as Lieutenant, Lieutenant Sanchez, or sir. And no, Private, you don't. Now that you're going to be with us for at least the next three months, you are under the same conditions, dangers and restrictions as every other man and woman under my command. If you have to share in our troubles, you may as well share in the authority and benefits. We don't have civilians travel with us, so for the duration of your stay, you're a private. What cla.s.s is up to you."

That made eminent sense. I snapped to attention and said, "Yes, sir!"

He smiled. "Very good. Now, Abigail, let me show you the reason for everything we've done for you, with you, and to you. It's time you saw the puterverse." He swung his chair over to the computer terminal and offered it to me. Hesitantly, I sat down and examined the terminal. It looked almost like the ones of six centuries ago, except that the viewing surface hung flat against the wall, perhaps thirty centimeters square and no thicker than a sheet of onionskin. It was dark. The keyboard had a nearly identical layout as the now ancient QWERTY keyboard, but it also was paper-thin and seemed to be part of the shelf in front of me. I had to admit to a certain disappointment. I would have thought computer interfaces would have come further than this by now. Maybe the Spartan environment and frequent moves pushed this more prosaic type of access onto them. Still, you'd think that...

Lt. Sanchez leaned forward and said, "Access."

And the world disappeared. The thin film monitor quivered and suddenly exploded, coating the walls, the ceiling and floor, even the air, with its version of reality. Sound came from everywhere, yet it wasn't noise. Glowing, human-shaped forms were standing near me. One turned and looked at me. I yelped, jumping from my chair, and the whole thing collapsed and I was suddenly in the room again. I looked quickly at Sanchez and Susie, who seemed to be enjoying my disorientation. I smiled weakly and sat back down, sliding back into the wild reality. Sanchez leaned close to my ear.

"Computer, standard viewing area." Nothing happened from my point of view. "There. Now we're all in here. Normally, the entire room is accessed. I preset the level and viewing area before you and Corporal Lendler arrived, to give you a place to run to, should the puterverse be too overwhelming. Unlikely in your case, to be sure. But the puterverse can have an unpredictable effect on Cues brought forward to our time. But enough of that! I'm sure you would like to go exploring, which you can as soon as I create your puterverse ident.i.ty and access level. Computer! Puterverse authorization initiate for Abigail Wyeth."

"Certainly," a pleasant male voice said, a small echo trailing. "Please initiate voice verification at your convenience." Sanchez nudged me.

"Voice print verify. Wyeth, Abigail." I very nearly slipped and gave out my old authorization code. I knew it would be worthless, though. Even if it still existed after six centuries-a near impossibility-my voice would no longer match.

"Acknowledged. Authorizing user please state level of access."

"Access level for Wyeth, Abigail is set to three limited four," Sanchez said.

"Access level for Wyeth, Abigail is set to three limited four," the computer repeated. "Tethers are engaged."

He clapped me on the shoulder. "The puterverse is waiting, young lady! Feel free to roam where you wish. Unauthorized areas are represented by closed doors like this one." He pointed to a solid expanse of deep blue that had a man-sized red rectangle embedded in it. The red section pulsated slowly. He indicated another such door to our right about thirty meters away. It pulsed green. "Green doors will give you access. And see these large black walls? You can neither access nor breach them, since they represent your current level restriction."

"This is incredible!" I gasped. I looked at myself. My body had become a pale yellow form of energy. I had a basic female form-my own female form-but wore no clothing. But neither was I naked. I looked over at Susie. She had a similar glow, but it was tinged with orange. She saw me staring and laughed. Her laugh was audible, but also made me think of warm marshmallows. It was as though I experienced her laugh with all my senses.

"This takes a little time to get used to, Abigail," she cautioned me. "So go easy."

"How do I move around?" I asked breathlessly, turning toward Lt. Sanchez. He was a glowing, deep blue form, without specific features, yet somehow still looking like himself.

"Access to the puterverse is an almost entirely cognitive activity. Here, stand up." He helped me up from my chair. It disappeared into the ground with a mesmerizing melting action. "You're now standing in the puterverse. In my office, though, we're all in the same position we accessed at: you in my chair, Susan and I standing behind you. Here, though, our puterverse bodies move freely to our mental wishes.

"I understand!" I said excitedly. "Then queries and data access are done entirely with a physical metaphor, correct?"

"Yes. Very good."

"Not really. Just common sense. Can I explore?"

"Certainly. That's why you're on, Abigail. You have the control. Susan and I are along for your benefit."

For the next half hour, I was like a kid in a candy shop. I poked into dozens of things, learning quickly the quirks and protocols of performing queries and moving vast distances with tonal inflection. Doors and access points were everywhere, some in the sides of large mounds, others just standing by themselves. You could see on either side of the door, but stepping through took you to an entirely new area. It was fantastic. The only annoying thing was the constant appearance of those huge black walls. Just as something became particularly interesting, a stupid wall would pop up. The red doors were nearly as frustrating.

But the most exhilarating thing about it was the feel. Not the sensation. The flavor. This was Chris' work, all right! Oh, he'd never taken it to this level of sophistication, at least, not when I knew him, but it had his stamp on it. One of the last things I'd done at NATech was listen to his progress report on accessing a computer via a mental link. He must have hit on the right answer, because that's exactly what we were doing. It was nice to see our work had such long reaching implications.

In the back of my head, a thought came up. I knew most of Chris' backdoor access codes. Backdoor access codes are pa.s.swords inserted by the programmer to allow him admittance to the system at any time. Since the codes are never reported, and nearly impossible to root out, the pa.s.swords had an unlimited and unregulated life span. I wondered if during the ... I let the thought die, not wishing to trigger another attack. But those codes were something worth considering.

I was approaching a large lake with an ice blue shimmer. At least, I thought it was a lake. Upon reaching the sh.o.r.e, however, I noticed there was a constant right to left flow, which made it a river. I stared into the water. The current seemed very quick on top, slower on the bottom. Slivers of glittering gold shot downstream while lines of silver worked upstream. I felt a coolness rising from the surface, though there was no wind. It was indescribably beautiful. It seemed to draw me in, over the railing that bordered it.

"This is the main data stream, isn't it?" I asked breathlessly. I was so taken with it, I needed to say it twice to be heard.

"Yes, it is," Susie replied. She sounded surprised that I knew. "It's called the Quantum Data River . Every instruction of every access pa.s.ses through this primary channel."

Sanchez and Susie exchanged looks. I didn't know if I was intended to see their furtive glance, but I did. Sanchez leaned down. "How did you know that, Abigail?"

They were testing me. "Lieutenant, please don't treat me like a little child." I paused for a second. "Well, not all the time, anyway. My guess is you probably know all about my connection with Chris Young."

Susie laid a hand on my shoulder. I thrilled at her once again soft touch. Much better than getting belted by her.

"Raul's playing the man's game of getting what he wants, Abigail." He shot her a cool look, which she ignored. "Yes, we know. Both from our talk that morning and from your IHAD. What we don't know is how well you know his system. This is the major reason why we've been treating you unfairly at times.

"The puterverse has been around, in one form or another, for hundreds of years. We've expanded and developed it during that time, studying, modifying and trying to fully comprehend it. And while we know it was Young who created it with his webbing techniques, we've never been able to get to the how of it. Young lived before there was riping, so there was no chance of finding out first hand about the puterverse's creator.

"Or so we thought. Then we cued you. You can't imagine the surprise we had when we found out that not only did the two technologies exist about the same time, but that Chris Young had actually worked for you."

She pointed to the far side of the data stream. "Can you see the other sh.o.r.e?"

I peered, but couldn't see anything at first. I called for a stand and the view shifted us up about ten meters into the air. There seemed to be a soft glow.

"There's a slight glimmer, but I can't tell if it's on the far sh.o.r.e. What's over there?"

"We don't know," Susie said. "There's no access. n.o.body has been able to go there. At least, not for the past three hundred years, if ever. We think there's a vast amount of restricted information that is being withheld from the world."

"That's not necessarily a bad thing," I pointed out. "The public's need to know has to be balanced against society's safety and an individual's privacy. Telling everyone how to make an atom bomb may not be a good thing. Telling everyone my credit card numbers is definitely not a good thing."

"Credit card numbers?" Sanchez inquired.

"Never mind. The point is, there are a great many things that the world is better off not knowing, or has no right to know in the first place."

"True enough, Abigail," Susie conceded. "We won't press it. But if it turns out that we do need that information, you may end up being the key."

"You said that my connection to Chris was a major part of my status," I commented, changing the subject. "What was the other?"

Susie smiled, knowing what I was trying to do, but allowing it. "It's probably better that we show you. Now I'm going to play a little game. It's called stirring up your female curiosity. Computer!" Her voice raised. "Access, Susan Lendler. Level five."

Suddenly, the whole place became brighter. The black wall to my left melted away, exposing another one far off in the distance. I turned around, and at least a dozen doors that had been red were now pulsing green, and many other doors appeared. Several platforms raised up from the ground, showing large displays.

"We're now at level five," Susie began explaining. "I can go..."

"How many levels are there?" I asked excitedly, running to several of the nearby doors and looking in. This puterverse was stunning.

"There are sixty-four, but..."

"How high can we go?" I couldn't contain my eagerness, and didn't try. I ran up the steps of the nearest platform and looked out over the landscape. Though not as populated as level three, there were still many other people sharing this area. "Does the access increase steadily, or geometrically?"

"Geometrically. But you can't just..."

"Then why don't we go higher? Say level fifteen? Or twenty?" My fingers flew over the access panel on the platform display, teasing colors and images from it. I was giddy with a sense of adventure and...

"Private Wyeth!" Lieutenant Sanchez barked.

I jerked to a stop and snapped to attention, my body and training overriding and bringing to earth my emotions and mind. If he'd grabbed a two by four and popped me one in the face the effect would have been the same. He walked over to me and inspected me as though I was something unpleasant he'd just run over.

"Are you always so disrespectful of your friends and commanding officer?"

I flushed with shame, only now realizing my rude behavior, and at a loss to understand it. "No, sir!

I'm ... I'm sorry. I was just so overwhelmed..."

"I didn't ask for an explanation, Private. I asked for an answer."

"Yes, sir! That's to say, no, sir. I'm sorry, sir."

He stooped slightly and stared me in the eye. "Then perhaps you would be so kind as to show more

restraint." He paused and summed up the entire episode with, "Young lady." Of course. That was it. I'd become so engrossed with my surroundings that I'd let down my self-discipline. In just the few days I'd been my new self I found it more and more difficult to keep myself in check emotionally, and my maturity was wearing thin in more than a few places. It wasn't a losing battle; it was a lost war. At least one nice thing about this loss of maturity was that I wasn't too worried about it.

"Yes, sir," I replied, somewhat subdued but not much.

He contemplated me for a few seconds longer, then nodded.