She took several deep breaths, and felt the mists begin to recede. That wasn't Jeeves-or any AI. It was a human being . . . sort of . . . and too dumb to be a servant. And why was he in a p-suit when there was plenty of air in here? Something was badly wrong.

She played back memory. The last thing she could recall was asking Fat Humphrey what he wanted from Room Service. She looked around. This was not part of Fat's suite-or anywhere in the Shimizu. It looked more like a construction barracks, unpainted metal and visible joins. She and this Cantonese thug were alone here. There didn't appear to be even any potential furniture-not so much as a sleepsack. No wonder her neck ached so badly: she had been nodding in time with her breathing for . . . G.o.d knew how long. Hours, at least. Her chest hurt too. In fact, her everything hurt.

Well, some phrases she knew in over a dozen languages. "Where am I? Where are my friends?"

"Lady, this one is too ignorant to be questioned. His instructions are to offer you nourishment, and then convey you to his master."

"Who is your master? You can't bethat ignorant."

"That is not for this one to say, gracious Lady."

She decided asking him his name would be a waste of time. A tagline from an ancient comedy series flitted through her mind:He's from Barcelona, you know. "Skip the nourishment. Can you show me to the washroom?" That turned out to be something he could handle, thank G.o.d. It was down a short corridor from what she was getting through her head was her cell. The Cantonese minder never took his eyes from her, and though he wore no visible weapons something about his bearing said he didn't really need any. She understood now that he wore a p-suit so that he could use sleepy gas on her if he felt he needed to.

As soon as the door sealed behind her, she tried to empty her mind of everything but the question,Reb, are you alive? Are you here?

Nothing came back. She thought she might have detected something like a carrier wave, a power hum, but there was no signal. And it might have been wishful thinking. Reb had only been tutoring her in this empathic sensitivity stuff for a couple of months, and her progress had been frustratingly slow. She tried "tuning in on" Meiya and then Humphrey, but was unsurprised to achieve no better results. She was on her own.

Well, she had a century and more of practice.

Bladder empty and face washed, she looked about the horrid little cubical for a useful weapon. The facecloth seemed to exhaust the possibilities. She gave up and left. Her self-effacing jailer was a discreet distance down the pa.s.sageway, and quite alert.

"All right, Marmaduke: take me to your leader." She spoke in English, but he seemed to take her meaning. He led the way-but jaunted backwards, so that his eyes rarely left her.

She memorized the route, and kept her eyes open along the way. This pressure feltbigger than a ship, somehow. Indefinable subconscious clues told her it was something more like the Shimizu or Top Step: a ma.s.sive habitat. More like Top Step in the old days: thrown together, rough carpentry, baldly functional.

She also got the impression he was taking her by the back way. They pa.s.sed few people, and once when they did, he and the others had bristled at each other like challenging cats in pa.s.sing. She filed the observation away.

The room he led her to reminded her a little of her own suite in the Shimizu. Spartan simplicity-but expensive simplicity. She grew a chair and shaped it to suit her. "You may leave me," she said.

He grimaced. "This one regrets that he cannot, Lady. But he will cease to intrude." With that, he . . .

became a piece of furniture. It was like a robot powering down; suddenly he wasn't there anymore, except in potential. She tried to catch him breathing, but to her wry amus.e.m.e.nt she found she could not keep her eyes on him for more than a few seconds; they slid off. She gave up, studied the right arm of her chair, and ordered strong black tea.

She was intrigued to notice that it appeared to arrive under its own power, herded not by microbots but by invisible nan.o.bots. Rough carpentry, yes . . . but state of the art technology.

As she took the first sip, the door sighed open and Chen Ling Ho entered. The Cantonese powered back up and came to attention.

"You could have just asked," she said. "Two of my marriages were elopements."

Chen smiled. It struck her that that was his only response. Almost any other man she had ever known would have felt obliged to make a clever comeback. He made some signal she didn't quite catch, and the guard left, in a wide, fuel-wasting arc to avoid pa.s.sing between them. When the door had slid shut behind him, Chen spoke in Mandarin. "Sun Tzu-privacy!"

"Yes, Highness," his AI replied in the same language.

"There," Chen continued in English. "We now have total privacy. But very little time." A chair came to him and enfolded him, and a globe of water found his hand. "I am sorry you were caught up in this, Eva. I would have had it otherwise."

"Where are Reb and the others? For that matter, where the h.e.l.l arewe ?"

"TenshinHawkins and his friends are sleeping presently." He sipped his water delicately, and pursed his lips in approval. "Your second question has many answers. We are in an elongated polar orbit, high above the ecliptic, in a region of s.p.a.ce where neither the United Nations nor the Starmind could find us, even if they were looking. This pressure itself is many things. Fortress. Laboratory. School. Flagship. My home away from home."

"Is 'prison' in there somewhere?" she asked. "Or can I go home now?"

He failed to hear the question. "Specifically, we are in my quarters, which I invite you to share."

"d.a.m.ned rude invitation. I hurt all over. Don't you know any better than to subject s.p.a.cers to high gees?"

"There was a regrettable need for speed and stealth," he said. "All possible care was taken: military antiacceleration technology was employed. Happily, you all survived."

"But in what condition? The others should have woken before me; they're all younger."

"But they left Terra behind much longer ago. Their journey was actually more arduous than yours. But do not worry: I am told that their health is excellent."

"Then when will they wake up?"

He sighed. "I do not envision that occurring, I'm afraid."

She set her jaw. "Ling, quit dancing and spit it out. What's going on?"

"You will recall the economic summit conference in the Shimizu last month?"

"Let me see . . . the one we almost got killed during, or am I thinking of some other one?"

He ignored the sarcasm. "We five have managed to repair our relationship . . . for the time being, at least . . . and are now about to destroy the Starmind and overthrow the United Nations."

Eva Hoffman had known more than a few power-mad men and women in her lifetime, including some who were quite successful at it. Had any of them made such a statement, she would have laughed, or at least wanted to. From the lips of Chen Ling Ho the words were blood-curdling. No flip response was thinkable. "My G.o.d . . . ," she whispered, horror-struck.

"We hope to create the first rational planetary government," Chen went on conversationally. "Rather along lines K'ung Fu-Tzu might have approved of, I think. But it scarcely matters. The point is that oncethe Starmind is annihilated, any mistakes humanity makes will be its own."

REB! For G.o.d's sake, WAKE UP!

Just the barest hint of response, like a man turning restlessly in a deep sleep.

"Ling, for the love of Christ, humanity can'tmake it without the Starmind, not anymore, you know that!"

"Precisely why the Starmind must die. The riches it showers on us are like welfare checks: they demean, and degrade, and diminish us. Stardancer benevolence has already devolved us from wolves to sheep, from roaring killer apes to chattering monkeys, in three generations. This trendmust be reversed, before the inevitable day comes when the Fireflies return. The transition will be painful-but we will make it by our own efforts, as free human beings, or die trying."

"You really think you can kill every Stardancer in the Solar System?How?"

He frowned, and chose his words carefully. "Before I can answer that, Eva, I must ascertain your status.

I have stated my intentions. Three options are open to you: you can be friend, foe or neutral."

"Nice of you to offer the third choice," she said.

"Yes, it is. But if you choose it, I cannot answer your question, or any other of a strategic or tactical nature. In that event I will sequester you here, in reasonable comfort but complete ignorance, and release you in your own custody when events have resolved. On the order of three months from now."

She noticed that he did not say, " . . . on theclose order of . . ." and grimaced. "I a.s.sume foes don't get briefed either."

"On the contrary," he said. "If you tell me that you oppose me, I will answer any questions you have.

You have been an intimate companion to me, Eva: I would wish your death to be as agreeable as possible."

Reb, wake UP! Rise and shine! Dammit, you're gonna wet the bed!

"I see. And if I claim friendship?"

"You get it," he said simply. "After this is over, you can have the Shimizu for a gift if you like. It lies within my fief."

"And you'll take my word."

"Eva, I know when you are lying."

"How long do I have to think it over?"

"As long as you wish. But in ten minutes I must leave here to begin the attack, and I will be unable to return for at least twenty-four hours. If you wish to witness history as it is happening, at my side, you must choose to be my friend before I leave this room." He swiveled his chair away from her and began scanning a readout of figures in no alphabet she knew, politely giving her s.p.a.ce to think it through.

* * *The trouble was, she thought, the canny little son of a b.i.t.c.h probablywould know if she lied. That was bad, very bad, for she had to oppose him-had to-and dared not even hint why. After a hundred and sixteen weary years and countless flirtations, death had come for her at last, was a matter of minutes away. She was shocked by how much that realization hurt-but even a newfound fear of extinction was of less importance than the awful responsibility shemust now discharge before she died.

Why me?she thought-and smothered the thought savagely. That was exactly the kind of self-indulgence she could no longer afford. Instead she made her limbs relax, took control of her breathing, and forced herself to remember the words Reb had once told her.

"It's state of mind more than anything else, Eva. Telepathic sensitivity is largely a matter of sweeping the trash out of the communications room. Try and remember what it was like when one of your babies cried in the night and woke you. There is no 'you' at such a moment, no ego, no ident.i.ty, no fear, no viewpoint . . . only the need, and the feeling of it, and the will to serve it, to soothe the pain at all costs."

She kept measuring her breath, felt her anxiety begin to diminish. She had not meditated with any regularity since the 1970s, but it seemed to be one of those riding-a-bicycle things. Perhaps it is true that it becomes easier to surrender the ego at the point of death, when you finally admit that you cannot keep it forever anyway. Eva soon felt herself going further away from the world than usual, or perhaps closer to it-climbing to a higher place or perhaps it was descending to a deeper level, though neither term meant anything in zero gravity-wentbeyond, achieving a selflessness she had only been granted a few times in all her years, for fleeting moments.

With it came a wordless clarity, a focused four-dimensional seeing. Dualities of all kinds became as obsolete as up and down: within/without, self/not-self, good/bad, life/death.

She now knew exactly where Reb and Meiya and Fat Humphrey were: how far away, and in which directions. There was another sleeping adept here in this pressure, too, one she did not know. Their consciousnesses were like fireflies-not the mighty aliens but the feeble terrestrial kind, glowing like embers and dancing mindlessly in the dark. She called out to them. Each resonated to her mental touch, but none responded. They could not "hear" her, and she could not wake them.

There was no help here. She must cope alone.

She let herself return to her body.

She had forgotten how weary and frightened and angry it was. From a purely selfish point of view, dying didn't seem like such a terrible idea. Chen was still scanning what looked like the same screenful of gibberish.

"How long have I got?" she asked.

He checked the time. "Another six minutes before I must leave."

No more time at all. "Chen Ling Ho, I oppose you with all my heart."

He closed his eyes for a moment, and inhaled sharply through his nose. "That is regrettable," he said sadly. "As you wish. I will tell you as much as I can before I must go; any questions you still have can be answered by Sun Tzu." "How can you possibly kill a quarter of a million indetectable people in free s.p.a.ce?"

"Do you remember the terrorist bombing of a shipment of Symbiote from t.i.tan, some forty-five years ago?"

"Sure-your father did it. But that was a traveling ocean, constantly announcing its position. What's that got to-"

"This will go faster if you reserve your objections. My esteemed father Chen Hsi Feng was acting in accordance with a plan devised by his n.o.ble father, Chen Ten Li. His intent was not merely to destroy Symbiote, but to discreetly secure a large sample of it for a.n.a.lysis. Fine control of the explosive caused the Symbiote ma.s.s to calve in a predictable pattern. While all eyes fixed in horror on the destruction, then turned Earthward in search of its source, a stealthed ship was waiting quietly in the path of one of the largest fragments.

"My father was a.s.sa.s.sinated by a Stardancer trainee, but the conspiracy he had dedicated his life to lives on. That sample has been studied intensively ever since. We now know how to grow a pale white variant which does everything Symbiote does.e.xcept confer telepathy. It has been further altered so that it requires regular large doses of a chemical which does not occur naturally in s.p.a.ce to stay alive. One as astute as yourself will immediately appreciate that it is therefore now possible for the first time to create a Symbiote-equipped army which will stay loyal. Starhunters, we call them. Among other things, this base we're in now is to Starhunters what Top Step is to Stardancers."

In spite of herself, Eva objected. "You can't possibly have raised up an army large enough to threaten the Starmind, not in secret. The head start they've had, the way they breed, the motivations you can't possibly offer a recruit-I just don't believe it."

He was nodding. "And since our troops must use radio or laser, limited to lightspeed, our communications and coordination are inherently inferior to telepathy, a crippling disadvantage. You are quite correct: we could never seriously threaten the Starmind with infantry, even though Starhunters are heavily armed and Stardancers are not. The Starhunters are not intended to kill the Starmind. They are chiefly intended to conquer the United Nations s.p.a.ce Command, and thus the world. He who rules High Orbit rules Terra."

"And what is the Starmind going to be doing at the time?"

"Running for their lives, the few left alive. If they are intelligent enough to keep running right out of the Solar System, a handful of them may live to circle some other star-and good riddance to them, for they can never return. Do you recall how the Symbiote ma.s.s was bombed?"

She thought hard. Forty years ago, she had read an eyewitness account by a Stardancer named Rain M'Cloud, who before entering Symbiosis had killed Ling Ho's father to avenge the bombing. Eva seemed to recall there'd been something uniquely horrid about the method of delivery . . .

She felt a thrill of horror as the memory surfaced. "A nan.o.bomb. Concealed in a kiss."

"It worked well-and close study of Symbiote has suggested many improvements. For the last forty-five years, we have been seeding the entire Solar System with similar bombs, self-replicating at viral speed, self-powered, absolutely undetectable. They ride the solar wind, seek out red Symbiote, home in, burrow in and hide. They've been spreading through s.p.a.ce like a fine mist for forty-five years.

Stardancers breed like rabbits. Statistical a.n.a.lysis indicates that by now, some ninety to ninety-fivepercent of the Starmind has come into physical contact with either a bomb-spore, or another infected Stardancer."

For a moment she thought her old heart would literally stop. This was what she had always imagined that would feel like. "Radio trigger?" she managed to say.

"Relays all over the System," he agreed. "About an hour from now I will broadcast a master triggering signal from here. At the moment named in that signal, some six hours later, every relay will begin sending the destruct code at once. Maximum possible warning due to lightspeed lag should not exceed one minute anywhere in the System."

"Trillions of dollars," she murmured dizzily. "To murder angels."

"It could not have been done undetected in anything but the wild-growth economy the Starmind gave us," he admitted. "So in the end they have served a useful purpose."

"Some of them will survive," she said fiercely, and felt something tear in her chest. She ignored the pain.

"They'll come for you-they're good at nanotech, they'll find a way."

"Quite possibly," he agreed. "That is why we have kidnappedTenshin Hawkins and his friends, and every other human telepathic adept we could locate. Enslaved by drugs, I believe they will function as excellent Stardancer detectors. Is there anything else you wish to know, Eva?"

She was silent, concentrating on listening to her heart, willing it to keep beating.

"Is there any other last favor I can grant you, in the name of our friendship? I fear time is short."

Was there any chance at all that the truth might change his mind? She had no other cards to play.

No, none. She remembered a fictional G.o.d she had read of once, called Crazy Eddie, worshipped with awe because in times of crisis he invariably incarnated in a position of responsibility and did the worst possible thing from the best motives. There were usually just enough survivors to perpetuate his memory.

It was proverbially pointless to reason with Crazy Eddie . . .

"I . . . I'd like an hour alone to compose myself," she said.

"Done," he said. "Sun Tzu!"

"Yes, Highness?"

"Ms. Hoffman is not to leave that chair, nor this room." The chair's seatbelt locked with an audible click.