He shuddered, and left them to their hypertechnologi-cal tomb.

"They refused to leave," the Government was saying. Livia knelt next to one of the human refugees who huddled inside the ruins. Ovals of light like spotlights from holes far overhead picked out one or two of the young-looking people. They sat listlessly, not apparently in distress, but not speaking either.

There were about thirty of them. Sixteen had gray patches where skin had been replaced by some substitute; one had an all-gray arm. Choronzon had healed their physical wounds with this stuff, according to the Government. Their psychic state was another matter.

"What am I supposed to do?" Livia asked. "I'm a stranger here, I don't know these people or what they've gone through ... " She heard the rising note in her voice and stopped herself. She shook her head and looked down.

"It's all right," said the Government gently. "You're already doing what we brought you here to do. Look."

She looked up. The refugees were staring at her — not angrily, or with hope, but intently, almost with fascination. "What is it?" she murmured. "What do they see?"

The Government sighed. "They see something they may never have seen before: a normal human reacting normally to a traumatic situation. Livia, these people have been insulated within inscape their whole lives. They have lived in a world where their merest whim could be granted with a thought. Reality has always conformed to their desires — never the other way around. Now they find themselves in a world that obstinately refuses to change itself to fit their imaginations. They literally have no idea how to respond."

Livia remembered her conversation with Lady Ellis — it seemed like years ago now. Livia was special, the founder said, because she had gone through the crash, seen people die, and learned that nothing good came of it. For that very reason she was stronger.

Of course these ruins resonated with memory. Livia could remember huddling under broken eaves with Aaron, watching rain she could do nothing to dispel. After inscape crashed here, these poor people must have undergone just what she had.

She shook her head. "But I come from a world very like this one," she said. "With inscape ... and all." Even as she said it she knew it wasn't quite true. On Teven, the tech locks anchored the reality of each manifold. Inscape was not a means to wish-fulfilment there.

"There's something different about your home," confirmed the Government. "I'd love to know what it is. Meanwhile, you have a useful role to play here. As an example to these people of how to feel." "Surely there's other, uh, baseline people around." "Oh, millions," said the Government. "Whole coronals of people who'd qualify, in fact. But I've had to disable long-range inscape, and none of those people are within a week's journey of mis place. We need you now, Livia." "All right," she said. "But I still don't understand." "Just do what you do," said the Government Livia thought for a while. Then she began to walk among the refugees, and she sang for them an ancient song she'd learned as a girl, but never understood: "The Dark Night of the Soul."

As always, she came to feel the emotions of the song as she sang it The words were uplifting, a benediction that had weathered the test of centuries. By the time she left, there were tears on the cheeks of several of the Omegans, though they neither smiled nor spoke; but the Government smiled.

Exhausted, Livia let her feet guide her in the direction of Morss's ship. She had talked to a number of the refugees. Jn different ways, she had asked them all the same question: Did the evangelists of Omega Point come to you? Did they promise you the things you'd always dreamed of?

They had not answered the way she'd expected. The cultists only had one name for themselves and they never promised anything other than a merging of all identities in the Omega Point. Unlike 3340's agents, who adapted themselves to every person's vulnerabilities, Omega Point were charmlessly direct.

She couldn't prove it, but it seemed that Omega Point had not been 3340.

Evening had fallen, but as she walked she could hear no crickets or night birds, just the slow exhalation of a breeze through the gap-toothed buildings. As she neared the ship, though, Livia could make out voices.

"Do you know how an eschatus machine works, Do-ran?" It was the self-made god, Choronzon. He and Morss stood on the opposite side of the ship; she could see their feet underneath it. Livia paused to listen.

"It's basically a hydrogen bomb," continued the god, his voice silky and calming. "But a bomb so finely made that every atom in it has been carefully placed. When it explodes and the pulse of energy comes from its heart, the energy is filtered and modulated down to an angstrom's-width as it surges outward. It's a controlled burn, you might say, turning what would normally be chaotic and destructive energy into creative power. In a millisecond you go from having a bomb to having ... well, what, do you suppose?"

"I have no idea," said Morss. He sounded irritated — nothing unusual in that.

"Well, a newborn god is one possibility. A coronal might be another. But I think I can guess which might interest you more."

"I have no idea what you're talking about."

"Of course not. Certainly I wouldn't be talking about the fact that you fought us every step of the way on whether we should shut down Omega Point. You — the most vocally anti-god human in the Archipelago, defending them? Strange.

"Of course, strange behavior might be explained if one knew about the eschatus machine that the Omegans designed before their hasty departure from this mortal coil — the machine whose plans you downloaded earlier today."

There was a brief silence. Then Morss said, very quietly, "What do you want?"

"Nothing. I'm just intrigued by your change of heart, that's all.

"You know I was once a human being, too, Doran. I remember how hard it was to marshal all the resources I needed to cure myself of the affliction. I also remember, quite clearly, how I always told people I had no interest in self-deification. It was a useful and sometimes necessary shield against interference."

"Blow off," said Doran. "Unless you have some specific threat you want to use on me."

Choronzon laughed. "Not a threat. Just curiosity as to why someone so violently opposed to improving on the human model should decide to go against all his principles."

"Sometimes," said Doran icily, "mature people do things they don't want to do. It's called following higher principles. But someone without mortal concerns, say, like yourself, wouldn't understand that."

"I know you blame me for not doing enough — " began Choronzon. Morss cut him off.

"I do. These people needed a champion. I didn't have the power to stop them destroying themselves. So yes, I took their side, because I saw a chance to get that power — too late for them, but maybe not the next Omega Point."

There was a brief silence. Then Choronzon said, "You'll make a fine god, then — you already have the necessary urge to meddle."

Livia heard the god's footsteps crackling away over the paper landscape.

Livia made sure her own footfalls were audible as she walked around the ship. Doran stood there, staring off into the evening gloom with an unreadable expression on his face. As she approached he snapped, "Where've you been?"

"Working," she said. "What have you been doing?"