Abbot followed t.i.tus's gaze. "The fool! Doesn't he know he can go to a final death in that solar flux?"

"H'lim's more of a tourist here than you, and he doesn't want to see war roll over Earth and leave it a cinder."

"What does that stock breeder, who has never been honest with us, and has often been wrong, and whose knowledge is way out of date, know of current galactic politics? Or of the desperate situation we face on Earth?"

t.i.tus asked, "We? And what of Earth's humans? What will happen to them if we summon the galaxy's-"

"You believe that dreaming c.r.a.p?" Abbot interrupted. "This isn't that planet, if it exists at all."

You didn't see Kylyd's astrogation room! thought t.i.tus. A technology that uses imagination to steer a starship could easily send information via dreams and telepathy, or concoct a law for the conservation of volition. "Listen, Abbot, it doesn't matter whether this is the only planet where people dream. My mission is to prevent you from violating a World Sovereignties decision to prevent the galaxy from discovering Earth's position. So I took the transmitter from the probe, and the other from the observatory.

"I never thought you'd find it before transmitting the ballistics data. If I had, I'd never have involved you in the scheme." There was genuine admiration in Abbot's voice.

"Involved me?" t.i.tus pushed forward. The screen showed the four blockaders approaching the hut, deployed for a fight. H'lim got away! From a distance, the luren's Influence flickered around the men and one fell, the others stopping to help him up. Weakened now, H'lim couldn't hold them, and when they arrived, Abbot wouldn't be able to control everyone and still finish his work. Gotta delay.

Abbot ignited the laser. "When I decided to use the Array, I needed a legitimate signal to cover mine, and I chose your scheme of bringing up cargotainers. It wasn't hard. We have most of the key decision makers controlled. It won't be much more difficult to take over after World Sovereignties is overthrown."

t.i.tus's will flagged. It had all been Abbot's doing! Abbot's grip on him tightened, triumph blossoming.

Off to the side, Inea popped up and hurled something small, bright, and glinting, at t.i.tus. "Catch!"

Abbot swiveled to face her, the glowing laser still pointed at t.i.tus but his Influence freezing her into a statue that tumbled over grotesquely.

Reflexively, t.i.tus's gloved hand intercepted the object. A great, sweet light burst through his nerves. Inaudible sound penetrated his spirit. The silver glint of the crucifix reflected all the colored displays, sparking and whirling deep into t.i.tus's being. It was weaker than before and had a different texture, but there was a sublime energy, collimated and coherent enough to break him free of Abbot's grip.

Inea gasped, "I don't believe it. You can't make me see t.i.tus as a monster! You can't!"

Abbot staggered back from t.i.tus. Never before had he been effectively defied by a human. t.i.tus wanted to grapple for the laser cutter, to jump in and save Inea. Instead, he lunged for the transmitter. His right hand closed on it as Abbot whirled and brandished the cutter at Inea's throat. Influence pounded into her. He spat, "Don't!"

t.i.tus froze, gripping the casing. "Abbot! She's mine!"

"Touch that rig, and you forfeit life and stringer."

It was legal, from Abbot's point of view. He had doc.u.mented proof that t.i.tus might be feral. Only a feral would turn against the Blood and rip out the transmitter.

Inea struggled, exerting an amazing force against Abbot's will, and he had to grab her physically to control her. "What have you taught this one?"

H'lim was right! She can defend herself!

"Inea, remember when I was mad at H'lim for what he told you to do to me, and he told us what you could do because of it?" If only Abbot doesn't catch on!

"Yeah," she gasped, against Abbot's control.

"Now!" shouted t.i.tus. Simultaneously, he yanked the transmitter away from the connections and threw all his might into raising Influence. Then he hurled the transmitter directly at Abbot.

Deep within himself, a blast furnace of power reopened. But this time, it was white hot and focused to a narrow pencil of intent. He used what Abbot had taught him when they had to Influence each other against Biomed's hypnosis check, and cut through Abbot's defenses, inducing Abbot's reflex move to bring the weapon around to ward off the flying object. Now!

The laser came up and flared. Two pieces of transmitter flew onwards, struck Abbot, and bounced to the floor.

With an inarticulate howl he discarded the laser, not caring that its activated tip ate a hole in the stone floor. He sank to his knees over the twin pieces of his last hope.

Inea, released from thrall, picked up the laser, moving at Abbot's exposed back with deadly intent. t.i.tus flung himself across the s.p.a.ce and pinned her arm up. "No!" he said aloud, with no Influence behind it. "He's neutralized. Kill him in cold blood, and you're no better than he is."

He couldn't see her face, but he felt the muscles in her arm tremble with the smoldering need to slice into Abbot. Urgently, t.i.tus demanded, "Would the priest who charged the crucifix approve of killing for revenge?"

She made a sound that was part sob, part laugh, and part shiver of terror. "I charged the crucifix, praying while he had you." She let him pluck the cutter out of her grip.

Awe struck, he flung it haphazardly aside, not noting where it landed. It had been different. Very different. "Come on, we have to help H'lim. He can't handle those four without Influence, and he's going to-"

Deep inside him there was a tearing, rending pain as if someone had ripped his heart out by the roots. H'lim!

The ground danced.

t.i.tus staggered, hanging onto Inea, who didn't have the ma.s.s to hold him upright. They parted. Abbot struggled to his feet. Then a fluid wave of loose rock pushed into the hut, shoving everything before it. The roof majestically folded downwards. The floor jerked sideways.

One of the screens, detached and seemingly floating on nothing, showed the two crawlers sliding down toward the shed amidst a rock avalanche. Then it went dark.

Everything went dark.

The bright tip and the short cutting rod of the laser was clear even through t.i.tus's suitvisor, and so was the dim form of Inea staggering off balance right across its beam.

t.i.tus grabbed her arm, dancing onto the leading edge of flowing rock, and yanked her out of danger. But that sent him stumbling forward, pivoting in freefall. Suddenly, he realized that Newton's laws, the coldest of equations, had now condemned him to death. The laser, its b.u.t.t caught in the moving rocks, would pierce his left eye.

A large, heavy vacuum suit slammed into him. Abbot. Spinning sideways, he landed on his back and bounced. In mid-flight, pain such as he'd never imagined could be endured lanced through him. Paralyzed, he couldn't even scream when a light that had been inside him, disregarded since he'd first crawled from his grave, winked out.

He rolled and turned to find Abbot sprawled, half buried in debris, the back of his helmet severed from the back of his suit, leaking infrared colors like drops of blood. Two polished ends of vertebrae were exposed, the froth of boiling blood hardly obscuring the fact that Abbot had gone to his final death, a fact that lived in ashen darkness within t.i.tus where no other could see. Mixed with that gasping agony was the throb of another mortal wound. And H'lim, too.

Movement of the rocks had almost stopped.

Inea pulled herself out from under a ceiling panel, and shoved aside a piece of the roof camera turret. Bits of shattered sunlight pierced the rents in the rubble over them, though without atmospheric scattering, they didn't illuminate much. One of them outlined Abbot's hand, clutching half a transmitter. Inea waded over to Abbot, knelt, and eased his body into her lap. Short little coughs that might have been astonished sobs came over the suitphones to t.i.tus as he got his knees under him and began to crawl toward them.

"Ti-t.i.tus, did you hear what he said? Did you hear?"

"No." He pulled up and examined the wound. The spinal cord was severed. Fatally.

"He said-he said, "You're still of my blood." I was wrong. He loved you. He was crazy, warped, horrible, but he had enough good in him to love you. I'm glad you didn't let me kill him." And then she cried.

"You can't cry in a s.p.a.cesuit. It's too hard to wipe your nose."

"t.i.tus! How-"

"When we have time, we'll both cry. But for the moment, we've got to-"

"H'lim! My G.o.d! We've got to go get him-" She tried to struggle free of the corpse.

"Inea."

She stopped.

t.i.tus swallowed hard. "He's dead. Not dormant. Dead."

"But how could you-"

"I know. A father knows. When there can be a revival, there's still a-connection. It's gone."

He put a hand on her elbow, remembering all the times he'd helped other fathers rush to the aid of suddenly dormant children. There was no trace of that feeling in him. My first son is dead. "H'lim blew up the convoy when it came close-"

"But why?"

"To keep those four men from getting to us, to keep the convoy from blowing up the Collector and putting the station at the mercy of the blockaders, and probably to distract Abbot as best he could without Influence to help me."

"What do you mean without Influence?"

"He was so hurt from the sun, so exhausted from battling Abbot, he couldn't even divert the blockaders."

"He's dead," she whispered.

He stared at her, savoring the feel of her with all his senses. Her acceptance of the loss somehow let him accept it, too. And I'll never know what kind of science uses a math too difficult for computers.

"Yes, Inea, he's dead. Permanently, this time. Now come on. We've got to see if any of those men survived. There must be first aid supplies in this mess somewhere. And then we have to dispose of Abbot's body, make ourselves a sledge of some kind to carry extra air, and trek back to the station-unless we can fix the radio and signal for help. But meanwhile we have to concoct a plausible story we can both stick to, and see about disarming any compulsions Abbot left you. And we have to do all of those things before we both break down and cry, or run out of oxygen."

t.i.tus laid Abbot's head down on the rocks and shards of console and promised he'd make his father proud, always, even when he disagreed with him.

Chapter twenty-four.

Two days later, exhausted and depleted, t.i.tus and Inea pa.s.sed the last of the painted smiles, the one at the Project Station border, and saluted it as they had all the others that marked the road home.

They were hauling the sledge they had fashioned from wall panels and wiring in order to carry the two injured blockaders they'd found among the wreckage H'lim had made of the caravan. One of them, they were pretty sure, was dead, but the other might still have a chance.

Leaning into the harness they used to pull the thing, they trudged back onto station territory, heads bowed, eyes to the ground. There were still three spare oxygen bottles next to the two lashed-down s.p.a.cesuits.

Inea staggered with exhaustion, and t.i.tus said, "Don't stop. We may never get started again, and we might not be noticed for days." Their suitphones wouldn't necessarily be heard this far away.

"Don't worry about me," rasped Inea. "I could go another day or two. But you must be starving."

"Not-"

"t.i.tus!" The bull roar had an Israeli accent and a joy t.i.tus had heard only when a program ran on the first try.

"Inea!" came another voice. "Shimon, call the ambulance!"

Two suits were sprinting toward them out of the setting sun. t.i.tus could barely force his eyes toward the glare, but made out one form with a portable flood, and another with the whip antenna of a powerful transmitter waving over his helmet. Inea called, "Shimon! Ernie! Ernie Natches!" Her pull on the sledge increased and t.i.tus staggered, trying to keep up with her. But when they were closer, he was certain their rescuers were indeed his own lab's Israeli genius and Inea's electronics mentor.

Twice during their trek, they had seen flyers overhead, but had not known if they were friend or enemy, and so they'd hidden instead of signaling. Now, in a confused babble of questions, answers, and intensive debriefing that lasted through the four hours it took Biomed to clear them through into Carol Colby's office, they found out why they had seen no identifying markings.

Security had found Mirelle's body a few hours after H'lim and t.i.tus had left, and Colby got that news through to Earth. Public opinion of the alien in W. S. controlled territory had instantly turned about. A monster that could masquerade as a friend was worse than an overtly monstrous monster.

World Sovereignties had immediately capitulated with regard to the alien. Earth would no longer seek contact with anything from "out there."

As predicted, all the secessionist support had faded immediately when that proclamation was made. Rhetoric shifted to being ready in case the galaxy ever discovered Earth, and that meant a united Earth.

With the war over and World Sovereignties once again in control, secessionist insignia had already been eradicated, the bombers reconverted to freighters.

As Colby ushered t.i.tus and Inea into her office and installed them in two comfortable chairs before her desk, she said, "I'm sorry to tell you the man you brought in, the one who they thought would survive, died a few minutes ago. He never regained consciousness."

t.i.tus swallowed hard. At least there's no chance now that our story will be contradicted. Then he was instantly ashamed of the thought, and aching with new grieving. All that dying, and only we survived.

Inea buried her face in her hands. No amount of cold water had been able to subdue the puffiness from her long delayed cry._ "It's no reflection on you," Colby hastened to add as she seated herself and tilted her screen so she could read it and see them at the same time. "You're still counted heroes. Ah! Here it comes! Biomed has issued you clean bill of health. No trace left of the hypnotic coercion that monster inflicted on you."

Inea gasped, choked back a sob, then flung her head back, sniffed, and faced Colby. "Even though I don't think he's a monster?"

"You haven't seen what he did to Dr. de Lisle."

"He gave his life to save the Collector and the station's independence from the blockaders."

"The war is over," insisted Colby. "It has been since the W. S. ships came to meet the blockaders attacking the "tainers and announced the cease-fire."

"I understand," said t.i.tus, "that the "tainers arrived safely, and on target."

"Yes." Colby seized the chance to change the subject as she tapped her keyboard. "Your work was perfect, even if my ground crews didn't measure up. Here it is-some spectral grade solvent was sent to your lab. Shimon found it there yesterday, but could find no requisition filed for it. n.o.body can figure out what you'd need solvent for-not in this quant.i.ty, anyway."

Abruptly, he could taste the cloned blood, a vile deadness after Inea's living gift. But perhaps coming off this long a fast, it wouldn't be so bad. "Oh, that solvent wasn't for me," lied t.i.tus, meeting Inea's gaze. "If it's what I think it is, it had to do with a project H'lim had in mind-or maybe Dr. Mihelich-or something H'lim wanted Mihelich to do. I don't recall. I'll look it up- "Never mind. I'll just have it trucked down to storage."

"Oh, no! Don't worry about it. I'll take care of it. You have so much to do, and my department is going to be dead weight around here with the Project sc.r.a.pped. In fact, if s.p.a.ce exploration is to be abandoned, I may never get another job." That hadn't occurred to him before.

"Don't worry. You're both accounted heroes and will be substantially rewarded for everything you've done. I've put you in for hazard pay for the time you spent in the alien's company, and there will be a decorating ceremony when we all return to Earth. Oh, and t.i.tus, a few days ago, the insurance payment on your house came through, full replacement value. You can have it rebuilt before you go home, or wait and supervise it all yourself."

"Someone said the station would remain under quarantine indefinitely," commented Inea, "so we're stuck here."

"Only five years," answered Colby. "It's to be announced in a few hours. A compromise was reached and some biotech people will be coming up to verify Dr. Mihelich's findings. Meanwhile, the nears.p.a.ce program is not being totally abandoned. After the furor dies down, there will be a drive to strengthen Earth's defenses and early-warning network, which is what t.i.tus's department was originally intended to do. You won't be out of work. That is, if you're still interested. Considering what that monster did to you two and Abbot, as well, no one would blame you if you-"

"Oh, no!" objected t.i.tus and Inea in unison.

Their carefully constructed story was turning into a spider web. They had declared that H'lim had used his power to take them to the Eighth, which was true. People a.s.sumed they had been held in thrall, as had Abbot. t.i.tus and Inea insisted that all H'lim had wanted was to go home, and the threat of not being able to call for rescue had driven him to desperation. That was true, too, and also true of Abbot for a different reason. The minor aberrations in Inea's and t.i.tus's physiological responses under questioning were attributed to the horror of their ordeal, so nothing more than a routine investigation was planned. Abbot's clandestine software had protected t.i.tus during the hypnotic deconditioning session, and now security was satisfied.

t.i.tus told Colby, "Nonhuman people are out there.

Pretending they're not there won't protect Earth. Now more than ever, we have to learn about the galaxy, and about the principles that drove Kylyd. We just have to do it without attracting attention. Maybe, by our grandchildren's day, the galactic situation will have changed. Maybe there can be peaceful contact eventually. We have to hope and pray and prepare for any eventuality."

Colby c.o.c.ked her head to one side, smiling. "That's exactly what I told them, almost word for word. You know, you may end up with my job."