"These people aren't at fault. They are victims, too," she said, looking down at all those bodies. "Will the families be allowed to have funerals for their loved ones?"

"We will give them wrapped effigies. They will have their ceremony and their time of grieving, but we won't make a spectacle of what their people did...." He dropped his voice and said much more quietly, "It is my fault. I let them down. I allowed the weakness to seep inside."

Nira turned to face him. "The Shana Rei did this, not you."

"But they may have used me to do this." He straightened. "What if I am the weak point that makes our race vulnerable? I am the heart of the thism, and I must be the first line of defense."

She took his hand. "Then I'll make you stronger."

All the reflection plates, lasers, and prisms from the mirror ballet had been commandeered. Illumination physicists retooled them, intensified the parabolic lenses, used laser tracers to map out the full carpet of cremation. Every component had been tested. Jora'h insisted on incinerating all the bodies at once, fearing that if they did one at a time, the shadows might have time to retaliate.

The cremation workers finished covering the bodies with the thick gray paste, and they scurried away. Jora'h stared down at the corpses.

A messenger rushed into the box. "Liege, the illumination physicists are prepared. The dome can be opened."

"Then bring down the light," Jora'h said.

"We need to bring down a great deal of it," Nira added quietly.

They both applied filmgoggles and adjusted them to the densest settings. The louvered awnings in the arena ceiling tilted downward to reveal polished rectangular mirrors. The mirrors gathered sunlight from every portion of the Ildiran sky, reflected it, and flashed it down into collector bowls. Lenses intensified the searing light, and it gained strength and brightness in a flash.

Solar light poured onto the covered bodies, activating the photothermal cream, which blazed for an instant with a brightness more powerful than the core of a star. The flame incinerated every vestige of the bodies, vaporizing them so swiftly that the black taint trapped inside them was also boiled into bright nothingness....

Nira was glad to know that the Shana Rei had been defeated at Theroc by the faeros as well as Ildiran sun bombs. Adar Zan'nh was on his way back, more than victorious, and confident that the Solar Navy weapons would have some effect against the creatures of darkness. The Confederation Defense Forces would also be building many of the weapons.

But even as these contaminated bodies were flash-cremated, and knowing the nightshade had been destroyed above Theroc, Nira could not feel relieved. "We may have hurt them, Jora'h, but the Shana Rei will be back."

He continued to watch the light bombardment until it was finally over. The louvered mirrors tilted again, closing off the ceiling and reflecting the sunlight back into the sky. He removed his eye protection and stared at the still-smoking ground of the mirror ballet arena. Only a smear of soot remained, shaped in vaguely humanoid forms ... like permanent shadows of the fallen.

"You're right. You said they may already be here," Jora'h said.

"Your people can fight them if they are strong," she said. Jora'h looked uncertain, but she wouldn't back down; she pressed him again. "And they will be strong if you tell them to be strong. They'll be hopeful if you tell them to be hopeful."

"Yes, I can tell them that." He squared his shoulders and stood tall and strong-the powerful Mage-Imperator she had fallen in love with so many years ago. "I can tell them that, and they may even believe it." Then his voice dropped. "But the darkness is still closing in."

CHAPTER.

138.

GARRISON REEVES.

Even from a distance, Garrison could see that Orli was very near death from the ravages of the alien plague that had killed the rest of his clan. Aelin's suggestion for a miracle cure seemed ridiculous, but Orli obviously needed a miracle.

After Orli plunged through the bloater membrane as the green priest had directed, her compy detached the Proud Mary and flew it to a safe distance above the ekti-extraction operations. Garrison anxiously watched for some kind of signal from the dying woman. He could sense that no one really expected her to survive, though Aelin smiled with eager fascination. Garrison wished he had the same confidence.

He wanted to go retrieve her himself, but Lee Iswander sent Alec Pannebaker instead. Pannebaker flew the inspection pod over to the drifting nodule. He arrived just as a thin, spacesuited form pulled herself back out through the bloater wall similar to a child being born, then floated like driftwood in the vacuum.

Pannebaker transmitted, "I'll fetch her-and I just saw her move. Hard to believe, but she's still alive!"

Garrison's heart skipped a beat.

Then, unexpectedly, the Proud Mary exploded. The fireball expanded, flared brighter, and vanished. All traces of the plague-ridden ship were gone.

Seth began to cry. "DD was aboard!"

Garrison put his arm around his son's shoulder, sad for the loss of the compy, though he could not tear his gaze away from Orli's rescue. His joy at learning she was still alive was entirely out of proportion given that he barely knew her.

Pannebaker snagged the spacesuited form with the pod's manipulator arms, spun the vessel, and raced back to the cluster of modules. "What are your instructions, Chief? We still have to follow quarantine measures."

"That will not be necessary," Aelin said. "She is cleansed, healthy ... restored. The plague will be gone from her." His eyes had a strange sheen of utter conviction like a fanatic. Unfortunately, fanatics could be wrong.

"We're not taking any chances," Iswander said. "Set up an isolated module so that we can observe her. We'll keep her completely separate from any other workers until we can confirm that all signs of the disease are gone."

"We need to be quick about it, Chief," Pannebaker replied. "I don't dare take her aboard my pod, and she's got limited air in her suit."

Iswander ordered a small group of workers to move out of a new habitation module, which was then sealed off. Pannebaker raced the pod to the designated hatch and deposited Orli's suited form in the makeshift quarantine module.

"She'll be all alone," Garrison said. "She'll have to take care of herself."

"She was doing that already," Iswander pointed out.

Just then the station's comm received a faint signal. "Per the instructions of my master, Orli Covitz, I am requesting a retrieval. I am just drifting in space. If anyone is listening, I would sincerely appreciate your assistance."

Seth brightened and looked at his father. "DD's still alive!"

The compy continued. "Before self-destructing the Proud Mary, I subjected my body to four full levels of decontamination. Now after several hours in hard vacuum, I am confident that all traces of the microorganism have been destroyed." The compy paused. "I will understand, however, if you still wish to disintegrate me. Just to be certain."

"No!" Seth cried.

Pannebaker was still out in his inspection pod. "What do you want me to do, Chief?"

Iswander looked at Elisa, then at Seth. "Bring the compy back and put him in quarantine with the woman."

Pannebaker sped off to pick up DD.

Once inside the newly evacuated module, Orli removed her helmet and heaved great breaths. She wore an astonished, disbelieving look-and Garrison immediately saw on the screen that her face was free of the discolorations and blemishes that had been so prominent before. Stripping out of her environment suit, Orli looked drained but strangely rejuvenated. Her shipclothes were drenched with perspiration.

Inside the admin module, Aelin beamed. "I told you. The blood of the cosmos purged the disease and left her fresh and whole."

During the next day, DD nursed her back to health. Orli was ravenous, and made a remarkable recovery.

While in quarantine, she also spent a great deal of time face-to-face on the comm with Garrison. They talked about their lives, the chain of events that had brought them to this wasteland on the outskirts of an unnamed star system. Orli regaled him with her adventures growing up, and Garrison talked about the Retroamers and the impossible dream of rebuilding Rendezvous.

Meanwhile, Iswander increased his ekti-extraction operations to a frenzy, worried that the shadow cloud might reappear at any time. His workers had already drained two-thirds of the bloaters, filling numerous surplus silos with stardrive fuel to be sold through their new arrangement with Kett Shipping. Meanwhile, the cluster floated closer to the bright white star.

After the regular crew, including Elisa, went back to work, Garrison had more time alone with Orli, face-to-face on the screen. Iswander still didn't want to risk direct exposure. She talked about Matthew and how her life path had not gone the direction she expected. Hesitantly, Garrison talked about Elisa and said the same thing. And they talked about nothing at all.

He wanted to know Orli. He had so many questions for her, about her. Despite her ordeal, she appeared strengthened by it. She seemed lost-not aimless, but searching-and glad to have him to talk to.

Garrison realized he was in a similar situation. Ever since the Shana Rei's inexplicable withdrawal from the bloater field, followed by Orli's unexpected arrival in the plague ship, he had set aside the questions of where he and Seth should go-or if they should go.

When at last even the most skeptical doctor agreed that Orli was cured, that all symptoms were gone, that her blood tests were negative, and that she and the compy posed no further threat, Garrison was allowed to go into the module. He had Seth remain outside, and safe, for now.

It was their first meeting in person, although Garrison felt as if he had known her for a long time. Inside the quiet module, he came forward and gave Orli a hug. Oddly, he felt closer to her than he'd felt to Elisa in a long time.

Aelin joined them, eager to share his experience. Orli seemed energetic and alert now, but she did not have the intense euphoria that the green priest exhibited after his exposure. "The conduit of telink allowed me to receive so much more," he said, sounding disappointed. "All the glory and wonder were not available to you. I knew it wouldn't be the same, and I'm sorry for you."

Orli did not seem disturbed, however. "I'm alive, thanks to you. I never expected that to happen. That's all I could ask for."

Her attention, though, was on Garrison. "I thought about what you said-about the importance of my work with the compies. The Spiral Arm has plenty of traders and spaceship pilots, but not everyone can do what I do. I should have focused my efforts and skills on doing what I do best ... my skills, not just as a shadow of Matthew's."

DD piped up, "That is my opinion as well. Most of the compies we distributed from Relleker have been transferred to a new colony on Ikbir."

"Never heard of the place," Garrison said. "What's it like?"

Orli flushed. "I have no idea."

He laughed. "Sounds like a well-considered plan then."

"We could go there," DD said. "I am sure they'd be glad to have her. Orli Covitz is a very useful person. And she can continue her work there."

Now she frowned. "I don't know how I'd get there, though. I seem to have lost my ship."

DD swiveled his head. "You gave me instructions to destroy the Proud Mary, Orli. Perhaps you don't recall-"

"I remember, DD. Just trying to solve a problem."

To Garrison, going with Orli to a Confederation colony sounded like a much better idea than staying at the ekti-extraction operations or even going back to the LOC-better for him, and better for Seth to be in a place where there were colonist children his age. Or maybe the boy would go back to Academ. And of course there would be DD. The boy had grown quite fond of the Friendly compy in a very short time.

And Orli would be there too.

He said, "I could give you and DD a lift in the Prodigal Son." On the comm, he asked, "Seth, would you like to go to Ikbir, at least to have a look around?" The boy couldn't agree quickly enough.

Now all they had to do was convince Elisa.

In the admin module, Elisa was preparing the manifest for a large shipment of ekti to the Ulio transfer station. She planned to be gone for several weeks, negotiating to buy salvage vessels that could be shipped out to the bloater cluster and reconfigured as pumping and filtering barges. She simply assumed Garrison would take care of their son whenever she went away.

But he had to focus on what was best for the boy, not let himself be buffeted by Elisa's capricious priorities. He announced, "Seth and I are going to check out a colony called Ikbir, maybe settle there if it looks good. I'll leave the coordinates, and you'll be able to contact me anytime you like."

Elisa's eyes flashed. "I didn't agree to that. My son is staying here where he's safe."

"Safe?" Garrison said.

Even Lee Iswander gave her a sidelong look. "Perhaps it's best if he takes the boy to a stable settlement, Ms. Enturi-this family squabble needs to end."

She visibly fought to contain her anger. "Custody is not just a squabble, sir."

"Indeed not, but I'm thinking of everyone's best interests. What if I were to expand your duties here? Your responsibility to Iswander Industries would require your time and attention ... but if you prefer, I can give you a less stressful job, so you have more spare time to manage your personal life. Mr. Pannebaker is my alternate choice."

Elisa's face hardened. She looked at Seth and Garrison, as if she were being pulled by an intense gravitational force, but it took her little time to make up her mind. "You can count on me, sir. You've always known my reliability and my dedication to Iswander Industries." She glanced back at Garrison, as if she didn't even see Seth standing there. "He's still my son."

"He's still our son."

They were interrupted when Aelin entered the admin module, looking ecstatic. He spread his arms and tilted his chin. "Can you feel it? It'll happen soon now!"

One of Iswander's techs frowned at her readings, refreshed the screen, then stared out at the bloater cluster. The nodules were pulling away from the extraction operations. "The cluster is accelerating, Mr. Iswander."

The drifting bloaters had been picking up speed as they approached the nearby star, but the industrial operations had kept pace. Now, though, the remnants of the cluster-still hundreds of bloaters, despite the wreckage the ekti operations had deposited in their wake-drew ahead and left the complex behind.

The green priest closed his eyes, lifted his hands palms up, splayed his fingers. "Can you feel it? Something beautiful is happening!"

Flashes sparked through the bloater nuclei like fireworks, a random pattern that increased in intensity and speed as the bloaters plunged toward the star.

"All those flashes-it's like they're communicating," Garrison said.

Orli stood beside him, watching intently. "Or a chain reaction."

Inside the admin module, monitoring screens switched to higher magnification as the bloaters drew farther and farther away. The huge nodules shifted, flattened, and then swelled. Their elastic shapes contracted in the middle and began to spread out. Still swelling and stretching, the nodules fissioned, each sphere dividing into two bloaters.

Orli's voice was husky with awe. "It's like mitosis-cells dividing."

Each new sphere inflated to the size of the original nodule, until there were twice as many of them. The bloaters continued to shimmer, flashing signals, pulsing, squirming, swelling.

Within an hour, before the Iswander operations managed to catch up with them, the bloaters fissioned once more, restoring the numbers in the strange cluster to more than they were before.

Tears streamed down Aelin's face. "And they're not finished yet!"

The metamorphosis continued. The newborn bloaters squashed and expanded, becoming disklike and elongated until broad fleshy wings with membranous surfaces extended from their body cores, making the nodules look like huge space mantas.

The broad wings gathered the bright light of the nearby star, absorbing energy, and they swooped forward, accelerating until they circled the white sun. The transformed bloaters reveled in their new forms like butterflies emerging from a chrysalis. Their body cores sparkled, as if their flickering conversation had increased in intensity.

Everyone inside the admin module stared, struck dumb with wonder. The glorious creatures moved like a single flock, riding the solar wind. Picking up speed, they came back around and soared out past the Iswander extraction operations.

Then the bloaters flashed away, heading out into empty untracked space.

CHAPTER.