"Forget about looking around the people," Livia was telling Esther, "and look at them." She could tell who was important by the actions of the people around them. It was a trick Esther would have to learn.

Esther frowned, staring at the Oceanans. "Th — that man, he's the leader?"

"Good, you're getting it." Oceanus was one of the nearest neighbors of Westerhaven, both geographically and in worldview. Still, this manifold was a kind of idealized oceanic paradise whose citizens often lived their whole lives without setting foot on land. Technologically, they prohibited air travel, Societies, and animas, and Esther wasn't the only one having difficulty with the fact. About half the refugees were still clinging to Westerhaven; when Livia flipped her perspective to Oceanus's, these stragglers faded like ghosts.

Oceanus had agreed to host the wounded, but not the healthy gamers-turned-soldiers or any weapon more advanced than swords. The gamers vanished whenever Livia entered Oceanus's realities. Qiingi, on the other hand, loved it here. Water was sacred to him, so the idea that the Oceanans lived entirely on it appealed to him. He was helping dig a latrine at the lower end of the field where the soil was still thick enough; up here it was already thinning, and a few kilometers higher the naked black substance of the cable began to predominate. Once, its surface had been festooned with life all the way up to the clouds; the crash that had traumatized Livia and Aaron had caused the coronal's cables to vibrate like plucked harp strings, and (Livia had heard) a rain of trees and whole hillsides had fallen from them for days. It would take centuries for them to regain their coating of verdure.

Livia had no time to contemplate the view; people kept asking her questions about what to do, where to put things. She was exhausted. The remaining leaders of the peers were away, trying to explain the situation to Oceanus's founders. So far they were being met with complete disbelief. The locals thought Westerhaven had decided to war with Raven, and could not comprehend that this was not an agreed-upon conflict. Invasion was a word that had long ago become a storytelling term here, unattached to reality.

Rene was organizing a makeshift kitchen in the shadow of a giant oak tree. He had adapted quickly to the technological matrix of Oceanus — no, the usual agencies of inscape weren't available; yes, human labor was valued; no, people were not entirely free to choose what kind of labor they performed. Even now he was distributing money cards to bewildered refugees so that they could "pay" for their food, a concept that was giving them a lot of trouble.

Livia herself was bone weary and emotionally drained. All she wanted to do now was find a cot in one of the tents and collapse on it for twelve hours. She was wending her way in that direction when a half-familiar voice said, "Livia Kodaly?"

She turned, expecting one of the peers. A young woman her own age stood several meters away. Her costume was all Oceanus, voluminous and colorful; but she looked familiar.

"Livia, it's me, Alison Haver."

"Alison!" Her face was that of a young adult, but still recognizable as the girl she had been when Livia last saw her — years ago, now. And they had not parted on good terms. Livia hesitated, realized she had no anima here to hide her reactions, and made herself smile. "How are you?" She held out her hand, and Alison shook it.

"So," continued Livia awkwardly, "you live in Oceanus now."

"Yes, I moved ... a little while after we, uh, broke up." Alison looked down. "It wasn't you — well, not just you. I decided Westerhaven wasn't for me. The masks, the deceptions ... "

Livia winced. For some time after her rescue from the crash, Livia had plunged herself into the shifting perspectives of adolescence. She had tried on different roles and identities, often presenting herself as several people at once at social gatherings. At one of these Alison had met a male persona of Livia's, and the two had hit it off. In her need to explore, Livia had let the relationship go on too long; Alison had fallen for the man she thought lay behind the mask. When she finally learned the truth she was devastated — not by the fact that her beloved was actually female, but because of the deception. After the painful evening when Livia revealed her true nature, she never saw Alison again. Livia had believed that Alison still lived in Westerhaven, maybe even next door, and had simply edited herself out of Livia's Society. It was a blow to think that Livia might have driven her out of Wester-haven entirely.

24

"It's good to see you," said Alison. "Hey, if you need a native guide, just call on me any time."

"Thanks," she said, genuinely grateful. "But I'm not sure we're going to be staying here long."

Alison nodded. "I understand. You want this war over right away. There's some people I know who might be able to help."

Livia shook her head in frustrated anger. "The peers are talking to your founders, I mean government, now. There's nothing more we could ... "

"This is somebody else. Don't think about it now. Get some rest! You look like you're going to collapse right here. I'll come by tomorrow morning and we'll talk about stuff, how's that?"

The mention of rest made Livia aware that she was, quite literally, swaying on her feet. "Yes. Find me in the morning," she said. Then she stumbled away to her tent, sparing no time to wonder at this strange meeting.

The hour before dawn was cold and scented with ocean spray. For some reason, the opening bars of "The Thieving Magpie" kept running through livia's head. She huddled under her blankets for a long time before venturing out; it was a shame this manifold was not one of those that permitted personal climate control. When she finally climbed out of her cot, she avoided anything more than polite hellos to the others who were up. Instead, she walked away from the tent to watch the dawn. The lands to the east had been bright with sunlight for an hour now. The line of lit terrain rolled down toward Livia, apparently faster and faster. The moment that line crossed you was always startling. A vast wave of sunlit air leapt forward, clouds catching fire under it in flickers of purest blinding white. Livia looked straight up in time to see two narrow lines of brilliance appear at the zenith. In seconds they burgeoned into twin suns: one the ancient sun of humanity, the other a local starlette called Miranda. Of the two, Miranda was by far the brighter.

Now the lands shone in full daylit glory. To the east they swept away and up, forests, plains of gold and green, glittering brooks and lakes merging together in the distance into a white haze. Beyond that, seemingly at infinity, a vast sweeping spire was etched on the sky itself: half of an arch bigger than the world, its surface painted with clouds and land that rose to the zenith and vanished behind the suns. Continuing the circle, its distorted reflection curved back down the western sky and disappeared in the dark hazy quarters where night still reigned.

Livia strapped on her sword, visited Qiingi's new outhouse, then stalked through tall wet grass to the mess tent. Taking her plate with her she retreated to an upthrust of broken cable material in the corner of the clearing and sat down to eat. In the distance, a knot of white sails dotted the horizon — an Oceanan floating town.

She was sitting hunched over her breakfast, heedless of the evaporating dew scenting the air, when inscape chimed. She flinched. The last thing she wanted to do right now was confront her Society, with its terrible gaps. But duty demanded it. She took a deep breath and let the call come through.

Aaron Varese appeared before her — in projected form, not as an anima. Livia blew out her held breath. "Aaron! You're ... Where have you been? I've been trying to find you for days. What — where ... " Why did you abandon me?