"Not necessarily." Miriam sounded thoughtful. "If there's been an army running wild through the countryside in a civil war, it could take a long time for things to get back to normal. Look at Iraq: They went in weeks ago and it's still a mess, whether or not the President declared 'Mission Accomplished.'" She paused. "Egon could be down, but what about the rest of his vassals? The Duke of Niejwein, this that and the other baron or earl or whatever. It's not over until the council hammers out a settlement that ends the fighting." She rubbed her belly thoughtfully, then paused. "And I need to see a doctor." The test kit had been unequivocal, but the uncertainty over the sex of the fetus remained. "Then get a seat at the table before they decide I'm just one of the chess pieces."

"A chess piece with a posse!" Elena giggled.

"Not funny," Huw chided her.

Her moue mirrored Brill's, for an entirely different reason. "I suppose not," she said. "I was just joking."

"Bored now," Yul mocked, having woken up in the preceding minute or two. "Are we there yet?" he squeaked in a falsetto imitation.

"Bastard!" Elena thumped him over the head with a travel pillow.

"Children!…" Huw shook his head. "I'm sorry," he mouthed at Miriam by way of the mirror.

Miriam glanced sidelong at Brill. "How long have you known these reprobates?"

"Long enough to know they're just acting out because they're over here for the first time." She braced her arms across the steering wheel, slumping forward in evident boredom. "They get dizzy."

"Don't tell me you weren't like this on your first time out?" Miriam thought back to the first time she'd brought Brill over to Boston (her version of Boston-not the curious retarded twin in New Britain). She'd thought Brill was a naive ingenue and a scion of the outer families, not able to world-walk for herself, not realizing Angbard would never have turned her loose in Niejwein without planting one or more of his valkyries on her as spy and bodyguard.

"My first time out was"-Brill looked pensive-"I was twelve, I think. But I had a false identity in my own name by the time I was fourteen. Thanks to the duke. He believed in starting them early."

"Lucky cow." Elena giggled again.

I am trapped on a school bus in the middle of flyover country with a bunch of overarmed and undersocialized postadolescents, Miriam realized, and there's no way out. She sighed. "Starting what early?"

"Starting the doppelganger identities. It's only sensible, you know. He wanted to put as many of us as possible through the right kind of finishing school-Harvard, Yale, the Marine Corps-in case we ever have to evacuate."

"Evacuate." The gears whirred in Miriam's head. "Evacuate the Gruinmarkt?" If that was even on the menu-"Why hasn't it already happened?"

"Would you voluntarily abandon your home? Your world?" Brill looked at her oddly.

"Urn. It's home, right?" The idea resonated with her own experience. "But there are no decent roads, no indoor plumbing, hedge-lords with pigs in their halls, a social setup out of the dark ages-why would you stay?"

"Home is where everyone you know is," said Brill. "That doesn't mean you've got to love it-you know my thoughts, my lady! What you can't do is ignore it."

Miriam fell silent for a couple of minutes, thinking. She'd had a taste of living another life in another world-but it had strings attached, and not ones to her liking, in Baron Henryk's captivity. Then she'd escaped during the debacle at the betrothal, and considered making a run for it when she was in New Britain; thought hard about going native, dropping out, leaving everything behind for a false identity. New Britain had big drawbacks, especially compared to home, but at least it was free of reactionary aristocrats who wanted to turn her into a dynastic slave. And if she'd done it, it would have been through her own choice. But I decided to come back, she realized. I've got a family and while I was busy being independent they got their claws into me.

"What do you need a doppelganger identity for, then?" She paused. "I mean, if all it's for is to maintain a toehold identity in this world…"

"Identity is a lever," Huw said gnomically. "The fulcrum is world-walking."

"But what do you want a lever for?" Miriam persisted.

"So we can move the world!" Brill straightened her back, looking straight ahead.

Then Elena chirped up again: "Are we nearly there, yet?"

In the end, it took them eighty-five hours to make a journey that would have taken a day if they'd been able to fly direct. Eighty-five hours and two changes of vehicle and three changes of plates, driving licenses, and other ID documents-care of certain arrangements the Clan maintained with local contractors.

With five drivers available they could have shaved a couple of hours off if they hadn't changed vehicles and taken certain other precautions, and a whole eight hours if Miriam hadn't insisted on stopping for the night at a motel outside Syracuse. "I am going to visit the duke tomorrow," she pointed out. "I need to sleep properly, I need a shower, and I need to not look like I've been sleeping in a van for a week, because I don't know who else will be visiting the duke. This is politics. Do you have a problem with that?"

"No," Brill agreed meekly-and the morning after the motel stop they lost another two hours in a strip mall, hunting suitable shoes, a business suit, and some spray to keep Miriam's bleached hair from going in all directions.

"How do I look?" asked Miriam.

"Scary," Brill admitted after a pause. "But it'll do."

"You think so?"

"Stop worrying. If any knave denigrates your topiary, I'll shoot him."

Miriam gave her an old-fashioned look as she climbed in the cab of the new van, but Brilliana was obviously in high spirits-probably in anticipation of their arrival. It's alright for her, she's not the one who has to confront them, Miriam reminded herself. She's not the one with the unwanted pregnancy. Her stomach burned with acid indigestion, product of stress and too much Diet Pepsi. "Let's go," she told Huw (for it was his turn behind the wheel). "I want to get this over with."

Cerebrovascular incidents were a familiar and unpleasant problem for the Clan: World-walking induced abrupt blood-pressure spikes, and far too many of their number died of strokes. But Miriam still had to grapple with her disbelief as Huw pulled up outside a discreet, shrub-fronted clinic in the outskirts of Springfield. "Forty beds? All of them?"

"Yes, milady." Huw reached for the parking brake. "It's the price of doing business."

She glanced at him sharply, but his expression was deadly serious. "Nobody knows why, I suppose?"

"Indeed." The engine stopped. "It's on my research list. A way down." He swallowed. "I suppose you're going to say, because I'm young."

"No, it's more like I was thinking, it might tell us something about the family talent," Miriam replied. She dabbed at a stray wisp of hair in the mirror, split ends mocking her. "I knew it was a problem. I didn't realize it was this big a problem, though. There's too much to do, isn't there?"

"I'm working on it," Huw said soberly. "It's just that my to-do list is eight years long."

"I beg your pardon, Miriam." Brill sounded as tense as she felt. "Visitors hours…"

"Alright." Miriam opened her door and carefully climbed down from the van. She pulled a face as she caught her reflection in the mirror: Appearances counted for a lot when dealing with the elders and the formal Clan hierarchy. "I look a mess. Let's get on with this."

Behind her, Yul and Elena were dismounting. "With your permission, I'll take point, my lady." Elena winked at her as she swung a sports bag over her shoulder. "I think you look just fine."