"It was the worst place I could find. The worst place where I could survive by myself, without the burden of having to lug around special gear. See, I wanted to be free, but I also wanted to be ignored."

Imam turned toward the voice. He knew that if its owner had wanted him dead, he would already be lying on the floor, a test-drive for decomposing bacteria. Or perhaps, he thought fearfully, his visitor was only taking his time.

There were any number of depilatory sprays on the market, as well as a plethora of advanced hair-removal gadgets. Disdaining them all, honoring selfsufficiency or possibly some unknown tradition, the big man leaning over the small hallway fountain was using the blade he held to shave his head in a manner that was as time-honored as it was currently unfashionable. As he spoke, he concentrated on what he was doing. Imam might have been in the room, or it might have been empty. The delegate knew one thing for certain. If he tried to flee before his visitor had finished whatever it was he had entered to say and do, he would not make it as far as the nearest doorway.

"Where?" he heard himself asking.

"Some frozen heap," Ridd.i.c.k was murmuring as he worked. The blade slid smoothly over his increasingly bare skull; long, thick locks dropping like dead mambas into the small basin. "No real name, no real sun. Just scientific designations. No need for real names for a place n.o.body would want to go. Chose it just to get away from all the brightness. All the- temptation. Glare from snow and ice, but funny light. Thought it would put certain people off. Did, for a while. Just hoping to exist in the shadows of nowhere." Straightening, he studied his handiwork in the mirror, almost as if he could see in the darkness that enveloped the anteroom. Except that, as Imam knew, there was no "almost" about it.

Ridd.i.c.k turned to the silent Imam. "But someone wouldn't let me do it. Somebody couldn't leave bad enough alone. Suppose I shouldn't have been surprised. People have always been a disappointment to me."

In the poor light, eye contact was made. Imam said nothing. There was no point, until commentary was required, and he particularly did not want to do or say anything that might upset his uninvited guest. From experience, he knew that it might not take very much to do so. Without thinking he cast a glance upstairs. As soon as he did, he was sorry he had done it.

It didn't matter. His visitor knew anyway. "She's in the shower."

Blade in hand, Ridd.i.c.k walked slowly toward Imam. "I told one one person where I might go. Trusted person where I might go. Trusted one one man when I left this place. After what we had been through together, I thought I could do that much. Was I wrong? Did I make a mistake?" man when I left this place. After what we had been through together, I thought I could do that much. Was I wrong? Did I make a mistake?"

Imam swallowed hard and gathered himself. He did not want to stammer. Normally, that was not a potentially fatal condition. But in the presence of this man, there was simply no predicting what might const.i.tute such. He needed to sound more confident than he felt.

"Honest and true, I say to you that there is no simple answer."

At about the exact instant the last syllable was formed by his lips, the blade was resting on his neck. He never saw it move. One moment it was dangling from the big man's hand; the next, the razor edge was resting against the delegate's throat.

"Did I make," Ridd.i.c.k repeated with deceptive softness, "a mistake."

Despite Imam's determination, there was a noticeable quaver in his voice as he replied, "I give you my word, Ridd.i.c.k. As a delegate to the government of Helion Prime-" The big man made a small noise that some listeners, had there been any, might have construed as unflattering. "-and as a friend, that whatever has been said was meant to give us a chance, a fighting fighting chance. Were it not for the events of the past few months, events without precedent in the entire history not only of Helion Prime but of this entire sector, things might-" chance. Were it not for the events of the past few months, events without precedent in the entire history not only of Helion Prime but of this entire sector, things might-"

He broke off as a third presence established itself in the room. Ridd.i.c.k noticed it, too. The attention of both had shifted to the stairway mezzanine, where a slim, bright-eyed young girl was watching both of them keenly. While Ridd.i.c.k's gaze shifted, the blade did not.

The girl was nothing if not perceptive. "Ridd.i.c.k?" she whispered, clearly in awe. Emerging from such a young throat, and such an innocent one, somehow made it sound less intimidating. She was not afraid. Her wide eyes suggested wonder, not fear.

The emotions of the woman who stepped up behind her, still wet from the shower, were considerably more confused. "Ridd.i.c.k," she said, echoing the girl. Her tone was neither so innocent nor so indifferent. Her head was coc.o.o.ned in a setting wrap. When she removed it, her hair would be set in the style she had chosen prior to entering the shower. Ridd.i.c.k guessed her to be somewhere in her mid-thirties, the girl five or maybe a little older.

He had never met either of them, but they clearly knew him well enough to recognize him, even in the shadowy light. If they knew him by sight, it followed that they also knew his reputation. It did not appear to bother the girl. But the look in the woman's eyes . . .

Making a decision for reasons only he could fathom, Ridd.i.c.k drew the knife away from Imam's throat. Advancing, he examined the woman. She did not back away, but neither did she feel comfortable under the stare. It hinted at all sorts of experiences, all manner of knowledge. It made her feel undressed without knowing why.

Having turned his back on the delegate without so much as a care, Ridd.i.c.k now glanced at him. "A wife."

Imam nodded. "Lajjun. We were married not long after . . ." His voice trailed away. He didn't need to explain to Ridd.i.c.k. Ridd.i.c.k had been there for all the "after."

Ridd.i.c.k looked at the woman, down to the girl, then at the woman again. "You know," he said finally, "it's been a long time since 'beautiful' entered my brain. I'd pretty much forgotten what it meant, what it could apply to. It's been even longer since I was able to apply it human beings. How long has it been, Imam?"

"Five. Five years."

It became very quiet in the room. Imam thought he could hear his own heart beating. To her credit, Lajjun held her poise. She would not back down for anyone, he knew. It was one of the reasons he had fallen in love with her, one of the reasons he had married her. But he would not have thought any the less of her if she had backed away, or fled upstairs, or started screaming. There was an exception to every rule, and right now that exception was standing in the room directly in front of her.

She moved to shepherd the girl out of the antechamber. As she did, Ridd.i.c.k took a step forward. Imam tensed, but their visitor only gestured inoffensively at the child. "And a daughter. Named?"

Imam licked his lips. Now more than ever, it was important to do and say the right thing. Other lives than his were at stake. He had traveled with this man, had suffered tragedy beside him, but he did not know him. He doubted anyone did.

A wise man once observed that in attempting to determine whether a bomb was a dud or not, it was best not to try and find out by hammering on the detonator.

"If you have issue with me," he finally responded, "let it be with me alone. You have no quarrel with anyone else in this house."

"Named?" Ridd.i.c.k repeated softly, his tone unchanged.

Stubbornness would gain nothing here, Imam knew. His visitor was a master of patience. "Ziza. Her name is Ziza."

At the sound of her name the girl c.o.c.ked her head slightly and met the big man's gaze without flinching, armored with the bravery of innocence. "Did you really kill the monsters? The ones that were gonna hurt my father? On the dark planet, where the sun went away and the nightmares came to life?"

Instead of replying, Ridd.i.c.k shot a look at the man he had come to see. Without saying a word, his expression clearly conveyed his query: She knows about She knows about that? that?

Imam shrugged slightly. "Such are our bedtime stories. You know children. They want to know everything, especially about their parents. Ziza is very mature for her age."

Like magic, the blade in Ridd.i.c.k's hand vanished from sight. Imam did not quite breathe a sigh of relief. He knew the knife could reappear just as quickly.

It was as if a signal had been given to Lajjun to leave and take the girl with her. She complied, despite Ziza's desire to remain. The child was fascinated by their visitor. She was not the first to be so.

"Who did you tell?" Ridd.i.c.k asked resignedly. "Who do I now gotta put on a slab just to get this rancid payday offa my head? You should've kept your mouth shut, Imam."

"Events conspire." His host had relaxed a little since his wife and child had been allowed to leave the room. "You wouldn't find them. Even if you looked."

The big man almost, but not quite, grinned. "Why would I look? When you can bring them right to me?"

"It is not so easy as you think."

The shadow of a smile vanished immediately. "Don't talk to me about what isn't easy. My whole life has been about surviving what isn't easy." He gestured slightly with his right hand. It remained empty. "If communications still function on this overlit ball of dirt, it's time to use them."

IV.

They waited together on the small veranda of the upper floor: two men who had been through a difficult time together, surviving when all around them had perished. It was all they had in common, but it was enough for the moment, Imam knew. How long the bond would hold he did not know. Long enough, he hoped. Long enough to give him time to at least explain himself.

For now, though, they pa.s.sed the time in contemplation of the night sky. The glow of the great beacons made it impossible to see more than a star or two. Still, by focusing on a chosen corner of sky, it was possible to observe a small section of the universe in all its nocturnal splendor. Growing up, and for most of his life, Imam had regarded it with a mixture of wonder and antic.i.p.ation. Now it had become home to something dreadful. Perhaps the end of everything he had known. Much depended, perhaps, on the man standing nearby. Knowing what he did of his guest, it seemed a terrible risk to settle so much hope on so unpredictable an individual.

A comet was crossing the sky, high in the east. Some things, at least, would not be affected by what was rumored to be out there. The thought helped to calm him.

"Nero died, the Roman empire lapsed into civil war, a new Caesar came to power, and Old Earth was forever changed. All under the watchful eye of a comet. Throughout human history, comets have been considered auguries of violent change." He gazed out over the rooftops of the old residential quarter.

"Just one more omen in a season of omens-all of them bad." Turning away from the nocturnal vista, he regarded his visitor. "Do you know what's been happening in the civilized galaxy?"

Ridd.i.c.k's expression twisted slightly. "Sorry. I've kinda been out of touch. When trying to stay alive and find enough to eat becomes a full-time occupation, you tend to give the news a pa.s.s."

Imam nodded, not needing to know the details. "Coalsack is gone. Dead and silent. The Aquilian system, gone quiet too. Helion Prime shares its bounty with several less naturally endowed worlds nearby. If we fall, they fall. And after that . . ."

He stopped talking. Ridd.i.c.k was at a table, playing with a knife. As Imam looked on, his guest pa.s.sed the blade through a pair of decorative metal candle-sticks, severing them cleanly. His expression said unambiguously, "Nice edge."

Imam risked the sound of impatience. "Have you heard anything I've said? Or are you always focused on-business."

Ridd.i.c.k put the knife up. "Yeah, I heard you. Said it's all circlin' the drain. Whole galaxy. Civilization local, nearby, distant."

"That's right."

His guest shrugged. Imam might as well have been describing the loss of a garden to weeds. "Had to end sometime."

The three clerics drew their robes tighter around them. A wind was rising, whistling through the streets of the upper-cla.s.s residential quarter. Picking up dust and pollen, the breeze carried it along, flinging it in the faces of those who were too slow to turn away. No casual conversation pa.s.sed between the men. Though they were confident in their purpose, they were not sure of the outcome of their visit. These days, it was hard to be sure of anything. But a respected member of their own had bid them come, and they had complied. Willingly, if not happily.

Reaching the house, one of them whispered toward the pickup set beside the entrance. Ancient bells, beloved antiques, jangled in response. It was a sound from humanity's past, cheerful and rea.s.suring. Characteristic also, they knew, of the owner of the house. An unusual man, who had been through things they could only imagine. It was another reason they had come.

The door was opened by a woman in the full flower of her maturity. There was no need to speak. She recognized each of them and, more important, so had the door's security system. In response to her gesture, the shrouded trio headed for the stairs. Behind them, Lajjun moved to close the door. Something outside made her hesitate. Staring into the darkness, she saw nothing. Just the wind and what it carried. The door closed with a rea.s.suring electronic snap.

As the three clerics emerged onto the upper-floor veranda, Imam turned to greet them with a gesture. Though they responded in kind, no one was looking at him. Their attention was reserved for the visitor nearby.

Imam turned to him. "The one you want is now here."

Ridd.i.c.k moved forward, seeming to cross the intervening s.p.a.ce between himself and the clerics with barely a step. One by one, he pushed back hoods and examined faces. He had no divining equipment with him, needed none. He knew men better than any machine.

Expecting to recognize the culprit, he was momentarily taken aback when none of the three faces proved familiar. No question: they were all strangers to him. His thoughts churned. Was this some kind of test? Was he being played? And if so, to what purpose? He turned to his host. Imam's face was devoid of duplicity. What was going on here? If these holy men had not been brought here for him to inspect, then why had Imam called them? So they they could examine could examine him him? What could be the reason for that? Or was there something more? A second glance in his host's direction suggested as much. But what?

"'Even if I looked,'" he murmured, echoing what Imam had told him earlier.

A twitch drew his attention to one of the clerics. The first one was nervous, unable to meet Ridd.i.c.k's eyes. Though he fought hard against doing so, he kept glancing over the big man's shoulder. Had his first impression been wrong? Ridd.i.c.k mused. Was this increasingly edgy individual the one he sought? Or was he only fighting hard not to look at . . .

Ridd.i.c.k whirled. His blade was out and ready before he finished turning. It halted less than a millimeter from the neck of a fourth visitor. He stared.

"Whose throat is this this?"

The woman standing under the knife was smooth and supple despite her evident age. Her attire, like her visage, was new to him. She did not seem strong enough to throw words with any skill, much less a knife. She did not show fear, exactly, but neither was she utterly indifferent to the proximity of the sharp-edged tool to her jugular vein. Verging on the maternal, her expression was disarming, yet Ridd.i.c.k sensed this female creature was anything but ingenuous.

He felt Imam coming up behind him, let the man approach. "This is Aereon. An envoy from the Elementals." Tentatively, he reached up to lay a calming hand on Ridd.i.c.k's shoulder. What he felt was more stone than flesh. "She means you no harm."

Ridd.i.c.k listened, but the blade did not relent.

Aereon's voice was notably less ethereal than her appearance. "If you cut my throat, I'll not be able to rescind the offer that brought you here. Nor tell you why it's so vital that you came. There is much more at stake here, Richard Ridd.i.c.k, than trivialities like bounties and personal revenge."

"I make my own definition of what's trivial, thanks. And I'll take the blade off when the bounty comes off."

"I see that additional explanation is in order," she told him.

"I'd say long overdue," he growled softly.

She smiled-just before pirouetting away from him, and vanishing. The knife moved, but too late.

"There are very few of us who have met a Necromonger n.o.ble and lived unconverted to speak of it. So when I choose to speak of it, you should choose to listen."

"'Necromonger,'" he murmured thoughtfully. He listened-but he did not put away the knife.

"Be familiar with it," she told him forcefully. "It is the name that will convert or kill every last human life-unless the universe can rebalance itself." In response to his questioning stare she added, "Balance is everything to Elementals. Water to fire, earth to air. We have thirty-three different words for this balance, but today, here, now, we have time to speak only of the Balance of Opposites."

Ridd.i.c.k was one of those rare individuals who was smart enough to know and recognize the extent of his ignorance. "Maybe you should pretend like you're talkin' to someone who's been educated in the general penal system. Places where notions like 'rehabilitation' have too many syllables for the guards to p.r.o.nounce. Fact, don't pretend. I hear what you're saying, but I ain't following where you're going with it."

"There is a story . . . ," she began. Blade at the ready, arm extended, Ridd.i.c.k whirled repeatedly as he tried to track the voice. The three clerics had withdrawn to the comparative safety of a wall. Imam held his ground, watching Ridd.i.c.k as closely as the Elemental.

She seemed to be everywhere on the veranda without alighting anywhere in particular. Wherever and whenever she materialized, it was well clear of the big man's blade.

Imam took up the tale. "A story, about young male Furyans who, feared for whatever reason, were strangled at birth. Strangled with their own umbilical cords. When Aereon told this story to the leaders of Helion-I told her of you." The way he said it made it sound as if that was intended to explain everything.

The big man's brow furrowed. "Furyans?"

Aereon felt confident enough to move a little closer. The clerics watched her movements in awe. Not Ridd.i.c.k. Always calculating, always thinking ahead of his opponent, he had little time to spare on awe.

"The one race, we calculate, that may be able to slow the spread of the Necromongers." She was eyeing him intently.

It dawned on Ridd.i.c.k why he had been drawn to Helion. Out of touch and glad of it, he had clearly missed hearing about some kind of ominous ongoing conflict. They believed him to be some player in their local drama, some kind of hoodoo hero. He chuckled grimly. He had been called many things in his life, but never a hero. Yet there was no mistaking the intensity with which everyone on the veranda regarded him: clerics, host, and dodgy female visitor alike. Well, whatever. Far be it from him to disabuse the misguided of their consoling delusions.

Sensing his indifference, Imam tried to sh.o.r.e up the Elemental's somewhat distanced commentary. "What do you know of your early years, Ridd.i.c.k? Of your upbringing, your childhood? Of parents and playtimes? What else was told you besides-"

Aereon interrupted impatiently. There was no time to waste, and she sensed that any attempt at nurturing this man would be just that. "Do you remember your home world? Its name, appearance, climate? Where it was?"

"Have you met any others?" Imam pressed him with particular urgency.

"Others like yourself?" the Elemental added.

Many questions, meaningless in the context of his present existence. Why ask such things of him? He had always focused on tomorrow, with little thought for yesterday. What was past was done, dead as he would one day be. His sole undertaking was to prevent that from happening. Each day he survived was another accomplishment. What did it matter where he was from? If he didn't much care, why should anyone else? Yet there was no mistaking the zeal behind their questioning.

You want something from me; give me something first, first, he mused. He was not the kind to offer up anything freely-not even information. That he did not have the answers to their questions made it that much easier for him to deny them. he mused. He was not the kind to offer up anything freely-not even information. That he did not have the answers to their questions made it that much easier for him to deny them.

"Sister, they don't know what to do with one one of me." of me."

"If you were to try," Imam persisted, "to think back as far as you can, it's possible that . . . what is it?"

Ignoring his host's entreaties, Ridd.i.c.k had moved to the edge of the veranda and was peering guardedly over the side. The dark street below was no longer empty. Nor did he think the armored and heavily armed figures moving around below were commuters returning from working overtime at their jobs in the commercial sector of the city. Engaged in an active door-to-door search, they were moving swiftly and watchfully. Two would demand attention at a door while their companions covered them with weapons at the ready. Loud, impatient, and insistent, their voices drifted up to him as clearly as he saw them in the dark. A moment later, and they were crowding around the entrance to Imam's house.

Lajjun appeared at the entrance to the veranda. Her eyes went first to Ridd.i.c.k, then to her husband. "They look for a man who came here today. They think he might be . . . uh, what is the local word . . . 'ghesu'?"

"'Spy,'" Imam murmured. Clearly distressed, he turned to the big man. "They must think you're a spy for the-"

His wife interrupted him, speaking sharply to their guest. "Did someone see you come here? Did they?"

The sound of fists pounding on door floated up from below. It was a decidedly low-tech way of gaining attention, but it worked. Imam spoke to Ridd.i.c.k as he started toward the bal.u.s.trade. "I'll send them away, but please-one minute more of your time. Will you wait just one minute more to help save worlds?"

Ridd.i.c.k had vaulted onto the railing of the veranda. Now he paused there, like some mythological creature of the night, a muscular gargoyle balancing effortlessly on a narrow perch, ready to depart at his leisure. Though the nearest building was no easy distance away, Imam had no doubt that his guest could leap the gap.

"Or will you leave us to our fate? Just as you left her?"

Not much of a word-"her." In the lexicon of admonitions, a feeble one. But it was sufficient to halt Ridd.i.c.k. He stared long and hard at his host, and then without a word he hopped back down onto the veranda.