Edeard pushed his empty plate away and downed the last of his tea. "I'd better get to it, then-Master."

"I also fail anyone who shows disrespect."

Edeard pulled on a woolly hat against the chilly air and went out into the guild compound's main courtyard. It was unusual in that it had nine sides: seven made of stable blocks, then a large barn and the hatchery. None of them was the same size or height. When he first had moved in, Edeard had been impressed. The Eggshaper Guild compound was the largest collection of buildings in the village; to someone who had been brought up in a small cottage with a leaky thatch roof, it was a palatial castle. Back then he'd never noticed the deep cloak of kimoss staining every roof a vivid purple or how pervasive and tangled the gurkvine was, covering the dark stone walls of the courtyard with its ragged pale-yellow leaves while its roots wormed their way into the mortar between the blocks, weakening the structure. This morning he just sighed at the sight, wondering if he'd ever get around to directing the ge-monkeys on a cleanup mission. This would be a good time; the gurkvine leaves had all fallen to gather in the corners of the courtyard in great moldering piles, and the moss was soaking up the season's moisture, turning into great spongy mats that would be easy to peel off. Like everything else in his life, it would have to wait. If only Akeem could find another apprentice, he thought wistfully. We spend our whole lives running to catch up. Just one extra person in the guild would make so much difference.

It would take a miracle granted by the Lady, he acknowledged grudgingly. The village families were reluctant to allow their children to train at the Eggshaper Guild. They appreciated how dependent they were on genistars, but they couldn't afford to lose able hands. The guild was just like the rest of Ashwell, struggling to keep going.

Edeard hurried across the courtyard to the tanks where his new reshaped cats were kept, silently asking the Lady why he bothered to stay in this backward place on the edge of the wilds. To his right were the largest stables, where the defaults shuffled around their stalls. They were simple beasts, unshaped egg-laying genistars the same size as terrestrial ponies, with six legs supporting a bulbous body. The six upper limbs were vestigial, producing bumps along the creature's back; in the female over thirty percent of the internal organs were ovaries, producing an egg every fifteen days. The males, of which there were three, lumbered around in a big pen at one end, and the females were kept in a row of fifteen separate stalls. For the first time since Akeem had taken him in, the stalls were all occupied; that was a source of considerable satisfaction to Edeard. Not even a master as accomplished as Akeem-and despite his age he was a singular talent-could manage fifteen defaults by himself. Shaping an egg took a long time, and Edeard had had as many grotesque failures as he'd had successes. First of all, the timing had to be right. An egg needed to be shaped no earlier than ten hours after fertilization and no later than twenty-five. How long it took depended on the nature of the genus required.

Edeard often had spent half the night sitting in a stall's deep-cushioned shaper chair with his mind focused on the egg. Eggshaping, as Akeem so often had described it, was like sculpting intangible clay with invisible hands. The ability was a gentle combination of farsight and telekinesis. His mind could see inside the egg, and only those who could do that with perfect clarity could become shapers. Not that he liked to boast, but Edeard's mental vision was the most acute in the village. What he saw within the shell was like a small exemplar of a default genistar made of gray shadow substance. His telekinesis would reach out and begin to shape it into the form he wanted, but slowly, so frustratingly slowly. There were limits; he could not give a genistar anything extra: seven arms, two heads...What the process did was activate the nascent structures inherent within the default physiology. He also could define size, though that was determined partially by what type of genus he was shaping. Then there were subfamilies within each standard genus, chimps as well as monkeys, a multitude of horse types-big, small, powerful, fast, slow. A long list that had to be memorized perfectly.

Shaping was inordinately difficult, requiring immense concentration. Shapers had to have a lot more than eldritch vision and manipulation; they had to have the feel of what they were doing, know instinctively if what they were doing was right, see potential in the embryonic genistar. In the smaller creatures there would be no room for reproductive organs, so they had to be disengaged; other organs, too, had to be selected where appropriate. But which ones? Small wonder even a Grand Master produced a large percentage of invalid eggs.

Edeard walked past the default stables, his farsight flashing through the building, checking that the ge-monkeys were getting on with their jobs of mucking out and feeding. Several were becoming negligent and disorderly, so he refreshed their instructions with a quick longtalk message. A slightly deeper scan with his farsight showed him the state of the gestating eggs inside the defaults. Of the eleven that had been shaped, three were showing signs that indicated that problems were developing. He gave a resigned sigh; two of them were his.

After the defaults came the horse stables. There were nine foals currently accommodated, seven of which were growing up into large sturdy brutes that would pull plows and carts on the surrounding farms. Most of the commissions given to Ashwell's Eggshaper Guild were for genistars that could be used in agriculture. The custom of using domestic ge-monkeys and chimps was in decline; Edeard knew that had happened because people didn't take the time to learn how to instruct them properly. Not that they were going to come here and take lessons from a fourteen-year-old boy. It annoyed him immensely; he was certain the village economy could be improved fourfold at least if they just listened to him.

"Patience," Akeem always counseled when he raged against the shortsighted fools who were their neighbors. "Often to do what's right you first have to do what's wrong. There will come a time when your words will be heeded."

Edeard didn't know when that would be. Even if today was successful, he did not expect a rush of people to congratulate him and seek his advice. He was sure he was destined to remain forever the freaky boy who lived alone with batty old Akeem. A well-matched pair, they all said when they thought he couldn't farsight them.

The monkey and chimp pen was on the other side of the horses. It had only a couple of infant monkeys inside, curled up in their nest. The rest were all out and about, performing their duties around the guild compound. They didn't have any commissions for ge-monkeys on their books; even the smithy who worked five did not want any extras. Perhaps I should bring people to the guild buildings, Edeard thought, show them what the ge-monkeys can do if they're ordered correctly. Or Akeem could show them, at least. Just something that would break the cycle, make people more adventurous. The freaky boy's daydream.

After the monkey pen came the kennels. Ge-dogs remained in high demand, especially the kind used for herding cattle and sheep. Eight pups were nursing from the two milk-bitches he'd shaped himself. They allowed the defaults to go straight back to egg production without an extended nursing period. It had taken twelve invalid eggs before he had succeeded in shaping the first. The innovation was one he had introduced after reading about the milk-bitch in an ancient guild text. Now he was keen to try to extend it across all the genistar types. Akeem had been supportive when the first one had hatched, impressed as much by Edeard's tenacity as by his shaping skill.

The compound's main gateway was wedged between the dog kennels and the wolf kennels. There were six of the fierce creatures maturing. Always useful outside the village walls, the wolves were deployed as guards for Ashwell and all its outlying farmhouses; they also were taken on hunts through the forests, helping to clear out Querencia's native predators as well as the occasional bandit group. Edeard stopped and looked in. The ge-wolves were lean creatures with dark gray fur that blended in with most landscapes; their long snouts were equipped with sharp fangs that could bite clean through a medium-size branch, let alone a limb of meat and bone. The large pups mewled excitedly as he hung over the door and patted them. His hand was licked by hot serpentine tongues. Two of them had a pair of arms. It was another of his innovations; he wanted to see if they could carry knives or clubs. That was something else he had found in an old text, another idea the villagers had shaken their heads in despair at.

Out of the whole courtyard, he liked the aviary best. It was a squat circular cote with arched openings twenty feet above the ground, just below the eaves. There was a single doorway at the base. Inside, the open space was crisscrossed by broad martoz beams. Over the years the wood had been heavily scarred by talons, so much so that the original square cut was now rounded out on top. There was only a single ge-eagle left, as big as Edeard's torso. The bird had a double-wing arrangement, with two limbs supporting the large front wing and giving it remarkable flexibility; the rear wing was a simple triangle for stability. Its gold and emerald feathers cloaked a streamlined body with a long slender jaw where the teeth had merged into a single serrated edge very similar to a beak.

Trisegment eyes blinked down at Edeard as he smiled up. He so envied the ge-eagle, how it could soar free and clear of the village and all its earthbound drudgery and irrelevance. It had an unusually strong telepathic ability, allowing Edeard to experience wings spread wide and the wind slipping past. Often, whole afternoons would pass with an enthralled Edeard twinned with the ge-eagle's mind as it swooped and glided over the forests and valleys outside, providing an intoxicating taste of the freedom that existed beyond the village.

It rustled its wings, enthused by Edeard's appearance and the prospect of flight. Not yet, Edeard had to tell it reluctantly. Its snout was shaken in disgust, and the eyes shut, returning it to an aloof posture.

The hatchery came between the aviary and the cattery. It was a low circular building, like a half-size aviary. Its broad iron-bound wooden door was closed and bolted. It was the one place in the compound where ge-monkeys were not permitted to go. Edeard had the task of keeping it clean and tidy. A sheltered stone shelf to the right of the door had nine thick candles alight, traditionally one for each egg inside. He swept his farsight across them all, happy to confirm that the embryos were growing satisfactorily. After they had been laid, the eggs took about ten days to hatch, cosseted in cradles that in winter months were warmed by slowly smoldering charcoal in a massive iron stove. He would have to rake out the ashes and add some more lumps before midday. One of the eggs was due to hatch tomorrow, he judged, another horse.

Finally, he went into the cattery, the smallest of the buildings walling the courtyard. Standard genistar cats were small semiaquatic creatures with dark oily fur and broad webbed feet, devoid of upper limbs. Guild convention had them as one of the seven standard genera, though nobody outside the capital, Makkathran, ever found much use for them. It was the gondoliers who kept a couple on each boat, using them to keep the city's canals clean of weeds and rodents.

The cattery was a rectangular room taken up by big knee-high stone tables. Light came in through windows set into the roof. As a testament to how prolifically the kimoss had spread, Edeard now always supplemented his ordinary sight with farsight as he shuffled along the narrow aisles between the tables. From inside, the windows had been reduced to narrow slits that provided a meager amethyst radiance.

Glass tanks sat along the tables. They were ancient basins the size of bulky coffins, dating back to when the whole compound had been built. Half of them had cracked sides, with dried and dead algae staining the glass; the bottoms were filled with gravel and desiccated flakes of mud. Edeard had refurbished five to hold his reshaped cats, with another three modified to act as crude reservoirs. The pipes he used to test their ability were strewn across the floor in a tangled mess. All five reshaped cats lay on the gravel bed of the tanks, with just a few inches of water rippling sluggishly around them. They resembled fat lozenges of glistening ebony flesh, half the size of a human. There were no limbs of any kind, just a row of six circular gills along their flanks dangling loose tubes of thick skin. The head was so small, it looked undeveloped to the point of being misshapen; there were no eyes or ears. It was all Edeard's farsight could do to detect any sparkle of thought within the tiny brain.

He grinned down cheerily at the unmoving lumps, searching through them for any sign of malady. When he was satisfied that their health was as good as possible, he stood perfectly still, taking calm measured breaths they way Akeem had taught him. He focused his telekinesis-the "third hand," as most villagers called it-on the first cat. He could feel the black flesh within his incorporeal grip and lifted it off the bed of mucky gravel.

Half an hour later, when Barakka the village cartwright drove his wagon into the courtyard, he found Edeard and Akeem standing beside five tarpaulins with the reshaped cats lying on them. He wrinkled his face in disgust at the bizarre creatures and shot the old Guild Master a questioning look.

"Are you sure about this?" he asked as he swung himself off the bench. The cartwright was a squat man, made even broader by eight decades of hard physical labor. He had a thick, unruly ginger beard that made his gray eyes seem even more sunken. His hand scratched at his buried chin as he surveyed the ge-cats, doubt swirling openly in his mind for Edeard to see. Barakka didn't care much about the feelings of young apprentices.

"If they work, they will bring a large benefit to Ashwell," Akeem said smoothly. "Surely it's worth a try."

"Whatever you say," Barakka conceded. He gave Edeard a sly grin. "Are you aiming to be our Mayor, boy? If this works, you'll get my blessing. I've been washing in horse muck these last three months. 'Course, old Geepalt will have his nose right out of joint."

Geepalt, the village carpenter, was in charge of the existing well's pump and by rights should have built a new pump for the freshly dug well. He was the chief naysayer on allowing Edeard to try his innovation; it didn't help that Obron was his apprentice.

"There are worse things in life than an annoyed Geepalt," Akeem said. "Besides, when this works, he'll have more time for profitable commissions."

Barakka laughed. "You old rogue; it is your tongue, not your mind, which shapes words against their true meaning."

Akeem gave a small, pleased bow. "Thank you. Shall we begin loading?"

"If Melzar's team is ready," Barakka said.

Edeard's farsight flashed out, surveying the new well and the crowd gathering around it. "They are. Wedard has called the ge-monkey digging team out."

Barakka gave him a calculating stare. The new well was being dug on the other side of the village from the Eggshaper Guild compound. His own farsight could not reach that far. "Very well, we'll put them on the wagon. Can you manage a third of the weight, boy?"

Edeard was very pleased that he managed to stop any irony from showing amid his surface thoughts. "I think so, sir." He caught Akeem's small private smile; the master's mind remained calm and demure.

Barakka gave the reshaped cats another doubting look and scratched his beard once more. "All right, then. On my call. Three. Two. One."

Edeard exerted his third hand, careful not to boost more than he was supposed to. With the three of them lifting, the reshaped cat rose smoothly into the air and floated into the back of the open wagon.

"They're not small, are they?" Barakka said. His smile was somewhat forced. "Good thing you're helping, Akeem."

Edeard did not know if he should protest or laugh.

"We all play our part," Akeem said, giving Edeard a warning stare.

"Second one, then," Barakka said.

Ten minutes later they were rolling through the village, Barakka and Akeem sitting on the wagon's bench while Edeard made do with the rear, one arm resting protectively over a cat. Ashwell was a cluster of buildings in the lee of a modest stone cliff that had sheared out of the side of a gentle slope. Almost impossible to climb, the cliff formed a good defense, with a semicircular walled rampart of earth and stone completing their protection from any malign forces that might ride in from the wild lands to the northeast. Most of the buildings were simple stone cottages with thatch roofs and slatted shutters. Some larger buildings had windows with glass panes that had been brought in from the western towns. Only the broad main street running parallel to the cliff was cobbled; the lanes running off it were little more than muddy ruts worn down to the stone by wheels and feet. Although the Eggshaper compound was the biggest collection of buildings, the tallest was the church of the Empyrean Lady, with its conical spire rising out of the north side of the low dome. Once upon a time the stone church had been a uniform white, but many seasons of neglect had seen the lightest sections molder to a drab gray, with kimoss pullulating in the slim gaps between the big blocks.

The road down to the village gate branched off midway along the main street. Edeard looked along it, seeing the short brick-lined tunnel that cut through the sloping rampart; at the far end the massive doors were open to the outside world. On the top of the wall, twin watchtowers stood on either side of the door, with big iron bells on top. They would be rung by the guards at any sign of trouble approaching. Edeard had never heard them. Some of the older villagers claimed to remember their sound when bandit gangs had been spotted crossing the farmlands bordering the village.

As Edeard looked at the top of the rampart wall with its uneven line and many different materials, he wondered how hard it actually would be to overcome their fortifications. There were places where crumbling gaps had been plugged by thick timbers, which themselves were rotting beneath swaths of kimoss. Even if every man and woman in the village carried arms, they could not stretch along more than a third of the length. In reality, their safety depended on the illusion of strength.

A sharp prick of pain in his left shin made him wince. It was a telekinetic pinch, which he warded off with a strong shield over his flesh. Obron and two of his cronies were flanking the wagon, mingling with the other villagers who were heading up to the new well. There was a sense of carnival in the air as the wagon made its slow procession through Ashwell, with people abandoning their normal work to tag along and see the innovation.

Now that Edeard had been jerked away from his daydreaming, he picked up on the bustle of amusement and interest filling the ether through the village. Very few people were expecting his reshaped cats to work, but they were looking forward to witnessing the failure. Typical, he thought. This village always expects the worst. It's exactly the attitude that's responsible for our decline; not everything can be blamed on bad weather, poor crops, and more bandits.

"Hey, Egg-Boy," Obron jeered. "What are those abortions? And where are your pump genistars?" He laughed derisively, a cackling that quickly was duplicated by his friends.

"These are-" Edeard began crossly. He stopped as their laughter rose, wishing the wagon could travel faster. There were smiles on the faces of the adults walking alongside as they witnessed typical apprentice rivalry, remembering what it had been like when they were young. Obron's thoughts were vivid and mocking. Edeard managed to keep his temper. Revenge would come as soon as the cats were in place. There would be respect for the Eggshaper Guild, with a corresponding loss of status for the carpenters.

He was clinging smugly to that knowledge when the wagon rolled up beside the new well. It had been four months since the village's old well had collapsed partially. Rubble and silt had been sucked up into the pump, a large contraption assembled by the carpentry guild, with big cogwheels and leather bladders that were compressed and expanded by three ge-horses harnessed to a broad-axle wheel. They walked around and around in a circle all day long, producing gulps of water that slopped out of the pipe into a reservoir trough for everyone to use. As no one had noticed the sludge at first, the ge-horses kept walking until the pump started to creak and shudder. It had been badly damaged.

Once the extent of the damage to the well had been assessed, the elder council had decreed that a new well should be dug. This time it was at the top of the village, close to the cliff where the water percolating down from the slopes above should be plentiful. There were also ideas that a simple network of pipes could carry fresh water into each house. That would have required an even larger pump to be built. At that point Akeem had brought his apprentice's idea to the council.

The crowd that had gathered around the head of the new well was good-natured enough when the wagon stopped. Melzar, who listed Water Master among many other village titles, was standing beside the open hole, talking to Wedard, the stonemason who had overseen the team of ge-monkeys that had performed the actual digging. They both gave the reshaped cats an intrigued look. Edeard was not really aware of them; he could hear a lot of sniggering. It came mostly from the gang of apprentices centered on Obron. His cheeks flushed red as he struggled to keep the anger from showing in his surface thoughts.

"Have faith in yourself," someone whispered into his mind, a skillfully directed longtalk voice directed at him alone. The sentiment was threaded with a rosy glow of approval.

He looked around to see Salrana smiling warmly at him. She was only twelve, dressed in the blue and white robe of a Lady's novice. A sweet, good-natured child, she had never wanted to do anything other than join the church. The Lady's Mother of Ashwell, Lorellan, had been happy to start her instructions. Attendance was never high in the village church apart from the usual festival services. Like Edeard, Salrana never quite fit into the mainstream of village life. It made them feel kindred. She was like a younger sister. He grinned back at her as he clambered down from the wagon. Lorellan, who was standing protectively to one side of her, gave him a bland smile.

Melzar came over to the back of the wagon. "This should be interesting."

"Why, thank you," Akeem said. The cold air was turning the blood vessels on his nose and cheeks an even darker shade than normal.

Melzar inclined his head surreptitiously toward the surrounding crowd. Edeard did not turn around; his farsight revealed Geepalt standing in the front row, feet apart and arms folded, a glower on his thin features. Contempt scudded across his surface thoughts, plain for everyone to sense. Edeard was adept enough to detect the currents of concern underneath.

"What's the water like?" Barakka asked.

"Cold but very clear," Melzar said contentedly. "Digging the well this close to the cliff is a boon. There is a lot of water filtering through the rock from above us, and it's wonderfully pure. No need to boil it before we make beer, eh? Got to be good news."

Edeard shuffled closer to the hole, half expecting Obron's third hand to shove at him. His feet squelched on the semifrozen mud around the flagstones, and he peered over the rim. Wedard had done a good job of lining the circular shaft; the stones were perfectly cut and were fixed better than a lot of cottage walls. This well would not crumble and collapse as the last one had. Darkness lurked ten feet below the rim like an impenetrable mist. His farsight probed down, reaching the water over thirty feet below ground level.

"Are you ready?" Melzar asked. His voice was sympathetic. Without the Water Master's support, the council never would have allowed Edeard to try the cats.

"Yes, sir."

Edeard, Akeem, Melzar, Barakka, and Wedard extended their third hands to lift the first cat off the wagon. All the people in the crowd used their farsight to follow it into the gloomy shaft. Just as it reached the water, Edeard tensed. Suppose it sinks?

"And release," Akeem said so smoothly and confidently that Edeard had no alternative but to let go. The cat bobbed about, completely unperturbed. Edeard realized he had been holding his breath, anxiety scribbled across his mind for everyone to sense, especially Obron. His relief was equally discernible to the villagers.

It was not long before all five cats were floating on the water. Melzar lowered the thick rubber hose, unwinding it slowly from the cylinder it was spooled around. The end was remarkably complicated, branching many times as if it had sprouted roots. Edeard lay flat on the flagstones around the rim, heedless of the freezing mud soaking into his sweater. Warm air gusted up from the shaft to tickle his face. He closed his eyes, allowing himself to concentrate solely on his third hand as it connected the hose ends to the cats' gills. Simple muscle lips closed around the rubber tubes on his command, forming a tight seal. A standard genistar cat had three big flotation bladders, giving it complete control over its own buoyancy as it swam, allowing it to float peacefully or dive down several yards. It was those bladders which Edeard had shaped the new cats around, expanding them to occupy eighty percent of the total body volume, surrounding them with muscle so that they were crude pumps, like a heart for water. His longtalk ordered them to start the muscle squeeze sequence, building up an elementary rhythm.

Everyone fell silent as he stood up. Eyes and farsight were focused on the giant stone trough that had been set up next to the well. The hose end curved over it. For an achingly long minute nothing happened, and then it emitted a gurgling sound. Droplets of water spit out, the prelude to a foaming torrent that poured into the trough. It began to fill up remarkably quickly.

Edeard remembered the flow of water from the old well pump; this had several times the pressure. Melzar dipped a cup into the water and tasted it. "Fresh and pure," he announced in a loud voice. "And better than that: abundant." He stood in front of Edeard and started clapping, his eyes ranging around the crowd, encouraging them. Others joined in. Soon Edeard was at the center of a storm of applause. His cheeks were burning again, but this time he didn't care. Akeem's arm went around his shoulder, his mind aglow with pride. Even Geepalt was acknowledging the success, albeit grudgingly. Of Obron and his cronies there was no sign.

There was the tidying up, of course. Sacks of the oily vegetable mush that the cats digested were filled and positioned beside the well, valves adjusted so that they dripped a steady supply down slender tubes. Edeard connected the far end of each tube to the mouth of a cat, instructing them to suckle slowly. Wedard and his apprentices fastened the hose to the side of the well. The ground was cleared. Finally, the huge stone capping slab was moved over the shaft, sealing the cats into their agreeable new milieu. By that time apprentices and household ge-monkeys were lining up at the trough with large pitchers.

"You have a rare talent, my boy," Melzar said as he watched the water lapping close to the top of the trough. "I see we're going to have to dig a drain to cope with the overspill. Then no doubt the council will soon be demanding that mad pipe scheme to supply the houses. Quite a revolution you've started. Akeem, I'd be honored if you and your apprentice would join us for our evening meal."

"I will be happy to liberate some of the wine you hold prisoner," Akeem said. "I've heard there are whole dungeons full under your guild hall."

"Ha!" Melzar turned to Edeard. "Do you like wine, my boy?"

Edeard realized that the question was actually genuine; for once he wasn't simply being humored. "I'm not sure, sir."

"Best find out, then."

The crowd had departed, creating a rare atmosphere of satisfaction pervading the village. It was a good way to start the new spring season, ran the feeling, a good omen that times were getting better. Edeard stayed close to the trough as the apprentices filled their pitchers. He wasn't sure if he was imagining it, but they seemed to be treating him with a tad more approbation than before. Several even congratulated him.

"Haunting the site of your victory?"

It was Salrana. He grinned at her. "Actually, just making sure the cats don't keel over from exhaustion or the hoses don't tear free. Stuff like that. There's a lot that can go wrong yet."

"Poor Edeard; always the pessimist."

"Not today. Today was..."

"Glorious."

He eyed the low clouds that were blocking the sun from view.

"Helpful. For me and the village."

"I'm really pleased for you," she exclaimed. "It takes so much courage to stand up for your own convictions, especially in a place like this. Melzar was right; this is a revolution."

"You were eavesdropping! What would the Lady say?"

"She would say: 'Well done, young man. This will make everyone's life a little better. Ashwell has one less thing to worry about now.' The people need that. Life is so hard here. From small foundations of hope, empires can be built."

"That has to be a quote," he teased.

"If you attended church, you'd know."

"I'm sorry. I don't get much time."

"The Lady knows and understands."

"You're such a good person, Salrana. One day you'll be the Pythia."

"And you'll be Mayor of Makkathran. What a grand time we'll have together, making all of Querencia a happy place."

"No more bandits. No more drudgery-especially not for apprentices."

"Or novices."

"They'll talk about our reign until the Skylords return to carry us all into the Heart."

"Oh, look," she squealed, and pointed excitedly at the trough. "It's overflowing! You've given us too much water, Edeard."

He watched as the water began to spill over the lip of the trough. Within seconds it had become a small stream frothing across the mud toward their feet. They both ran aside, laughing.

JUSTINE BURNELLI EXAMINED her body closely before she put it on. After all, it had been over two centuries since she'd last worn it. During the intervening years it had been stored in an exotic matter cage that generated a temporal suspension zone so that barely half a second had passed inside.

The cage looked like a simple sphere of violet light in ANA's New York reception facility, a building that extended a hundred fifty stories below Manhattan's streets. Her cage was housed on the ninety-fifth floor, along with several thousand identical radiant bubbles. ANA normally maintained a body for five years after the personality downloaded out of it in case there were compatibility problems. Such an issue was unusual; only about one in eleven million rejected a life inside ANA and returned to the physical realm. Once those five years were up, the body was discontinued. After all, if a personality really wanted to leave ANA after that, a simple clone could be grown, a process not dissimilar to the old-fashioned re-life procedure that was still available in the External worlds.

However, ANA: Governance considered it useful to have physical representatives walking the Greater Commonwealth in certain circumstances. Justine was one of them. It was partly her own fault. She had been over eight hundred years old when Earth had built its repository for Advanced Neural Activity, the ultimate virtual universe where everyone supposedly was equal in the end. After so much life she was very reluctant to see her body "discontinued" in much the same way she'd never quite acknowledged that re-life was true continuation. For her, clones force-fed on a dead person's memories were not the same person, no matter that there was no discernible difference. That early twenty-first-century upbringing of hers was too hard to shake off, even for someone as mature and controlled as she had become.

The violet haze faded away to reveal a blond girl in her biological mid-twenties. Rather attractive, Justine noted with a little tweak of pride, and very little of that had come from genetic manipulation down the centuries. The face she was looking at was still recognizable as the brattish party It girl of the early twenty-first century who had spent a decade on the gossip channels as she dated her way through East Coast society and soap actors. Her nose had been reduced, admittedly, and pointed slightly. Now that she regarded it critically, it was possibly a little too cutesy, especially with cheekbones that looked like they were made from avian bone, they were so sharp yet delicate. Her eyes had been modified to a pale blue, matching Nordic white skin that tanned to honey gold and hair that was thick white-blond, falling below her shoulders. Her height was greater than her friends from the twenty-first century would have remembered; she'd surreptitiously added four inches during various rejuvenation treatments. Despite the temptation, she had not gained all that length only in her legs; she had made sure her torso was in proportion, with a nicely flat abdomen that was easy to maintain thanks to a slightly accelerated digestive system. Happily, she'd never gone for ridiculous boobs-well, except that one time when she was rejuving for her two hundredth birthday and did it to find out what it was like having a Grand Canyon cleavage. And yes, men did gape and come out with even more stupid opening lines, but as she could always have whoever she wanted anyway, there was no real advantage and it wasn't really her, so she'd gotten rid of them at the next rejuvenation session.

So there she was, in the flesh and still in good shape, just lacking a mind. With the monitor program confirming her visual review, she poured her consciousness back into her brain. The memory reduction was phenomenal, as was the loss of all the advanced thought routines that comprised her true personality these days. Her old biological neuron structure simply did not have the capacity to hold what she had become in ANA. It was like being lobotomized, actually feeling one's mind wither away to some primitive insect faculty. But only temporary, she told herself-so sluggishly.

Justine drew her first breath in two hundred years, her chest jerking down air as if she were waking from a nightmare. Her heart started racing. For a moment she did nothing-not actually remembering what to do-then the reliable old automatic reflexes kicked in. She drew another breath, getting a grip on her panic, overriding the old Neanderthal instincts with pure rationality. Another regular breath. Exoimages flickered into her peripheral vision, bringing up rows of default symbols from her enrichments. She opened her eyes. Long ranks of violet bubbles stretched out in all directions around her like a bizarre artwork sculpture. Somehow her meat-based mind was convinced she could see the shapes of people inside. That was preposterous. Inside ANA she'd obviously allowed herself to discard the memory of how fallible and hormone-susceptible a human brain was.

A slow smile revealed perfect white teeth. At least I'll get to have some real sex before I download again.