"Could the healer sisters not ... ?"

"They assure me there is nothing more they can do without killing me. That seems too heroic a measure to effect a cure."

"At least you have been able to take it in good part."

"The hell I have. I resent it. It angers me so much I go into howling rages against the All. They think me quite mad at the Redoriad cloister. But none have yet found the courage to try ousting me from first chair. They think I am dying anyway. They spend their time trying to outmaneuver one another so as to stand at the head of the pack when I go. But I am going to disappoint them. I am going to outlive them all. You look good, Marika. I suspect that a few years beyond the edge of the world were just what you needed. You seem less driven, less saddled by doom."

Marika looked at her sharply, surprised that Kiljar read her so easily.

She suspected one unconscious reason she had isolated herself was because of self-doubt, an inclination, following the destruction of TelleRai, to credit those sisters who called her Jiana and doomstalker. Four sequential destructions of the place she called home, with those who dwelt there, was enough to make anyone ask questions.

"The most senior is approaching, Marika," Barlog said from the doorway.

"Leave it open. Sit somewhere." Barlog still had difficulty getting around, all these years after recovering from the wounds she had suffered at Maksche.

We have all been injured and left crippled, Marika thought. In the heart if not in the flesh.

Bel-Keneke arrived. Marika reached back in time to find greetings appropriate to a most senior of the Reugge. There had been no formalities, no ceremonials, no obsequies, observed at Skiljansrode. Marika held them in contempt because she considered most of them unearned.

Bel-Keneke, too, had changed, though now she seemed more secure in her role than when last Marika had seen her. "You can dispense with the ceremonials, Marika. I know they do not come from the heart. You are looking well." She ignored Bagnel and merely nodded to Kiljar. "You should be seen here more, Marika. There are times when we could use your slant on the world."

"I will be seen more," Marika said. "That is why I have come back."

"Direct as always. So. We are all here. Let us get to it. Tell us about the grand project you want to attempt."

Marika prowled while Bel-Keneke seated herself. Barlog, in the background, in her customary array of weapons, looked increasingly uncomfortable. Marika gestured for her to sit, as she had directed earlier.

She did not sit herself. She could not. She was about to broach the result of many years of thought and felt shy about doing so. It was not the usual sort of Marika idea, full of fire and blood and doom for enemies of the Reugge. She was afraid for its reception.

She moved to the center of the room and stood there with her guests watching from three directions. She ordered her thoughts, ran through calming mental exercises. Finally she attacked it. "I have an idea for stemming the snow and cold."

"What?" That was Bel-Keneke, who was least accustomed to Marika's ways. But the others looked at her askance.

"A major engineering project that might allow us to turn back the ice."

"Major?" Bagnel murmured. "You have a gift for understatement, Marika."

Kiljar said, "If you managed that you would be immortalized with ... "

"It is not possible," Bel-Keneke said. "You are talking about halting a process of such a magnitude that ... "

Bagnel added, "Perhaps we ought to hear her idea before we tell her it is impossible."

Marika gave him a nod of gratitude. "Excuse me, mistresses. I know it would be a large project and extremely difficult, but it is not impossible-except perhaps in that it presumes the cooperation of all the Communities and all the brethren bonds, working toward one end. Achieving that will be more difficult than the actual engineering and construction."

"Go on," Kiljar said before Bel-Keneke could interject negative comments.

"Review: The problem is that insufficient solar energy penetrates the dust and falls upon the planet. The solution-my solution-is to increase incident radiation."

"Do you plan to sweep the dust up?" Bel-Keneke asked. "Or to stoke the fires of the sun?"

"Not at all."

"Why so negative, sister?" Kiljar asked. "Do you feel threatened because your predecessor has come out of hiding?"

Marika ignored the sparks. Those two old arfts never had had much use for one another. She said, "We collect solar energies that are flinging off into the void and redirect them toward the planet. We do that by constructing large mirrors."

"Large mirrors," Bagnel said.

"Very large. Wait. I admit there will be difficulties. The orbital mechanics of our situation, because of the presence of so many moons, will make maintaining stable orbits for the mirrors difficult. But I have been studying this matter for some time. It is not impractical. If we can install the largest mirrors in the planet's leading and trailing solar trojan points and keep them stable ... "

"Pardon me," Bagnel interrupted. "The idea is not original, Marika."

"I did not think it was. I assumed the brethren had thought of it long ago and had not brought it up because it was in their interest to have the weather help destabilize the social structure. It was no coincidence that the inclination to rebellion grew stronger as the cold crept down. I believe the factors behind the planning failed only because they got overeager."

"You are, perhaps, half right. In such an engineering program the brethren would have required the same level of cooperation you already mentioned. We would not have gotten it. There is, too, the sheer magnitude of the thing. I have heard that the necessary mirrors would have to be thousands of miles across. If you mean installing them in the trojan points where the sun's gravity and the world's balance, rather than in the lunar trojans, they would have to be almost unimaginably huge to reflect enough energy to make a difference."

"Those are the points I mean, as I said. The main mirrors would require less stabilization there. But, as you say, they would have to be more huge than anything any meth has imagined. I picture them on the order of five thousand miles in diameter."

"I fear you underestimate considerably."

"Utterly impossible," Bel-Keneke said.

"Let her talk, sister," Kiljar countered. "Marika is no fool. She would not have brought this up had she not worked most of it out already. If she says it can be done, then she has done enough calculation to convince herself."

"Thank you, Kiljar. Yes. The idea first occurred to me while I was still a novice, many years ago. There were too many other demands on my attention then, so I did not pursue it. Later, when I retreated to Skiljansrode, I did have the time. It is the major reason I have remained out of touch so long. I will admit that I have not done all the calculations necessary. The orbitals require calculations all but impossible with pencil and paper. But the brethren once developed a system for rapid calculation, else they could not have orbited their satellites. I am hoping that the system, or at least the knowledge to replace it, survived the bombing of the Cupple Islands. That system, skilled labor, the metals, technology, and such would be required of the brethren. The Communities will have to lift the materials into the void-and contribute the talent where necessary. Skiljansrode will provide the reflecting material."

"A grand stumbling block in the scheme as the brethren worked it out," Bagnel said.

"As I see it, we would need a web of titanium metal-work-or possibly one of golden fleet wood if that proves either impractical or the titanium cannot be produced in sufficient quantities-supporting an aluminized plastic surface no thicker than a hair."