"Very well. And I repeat-everyone here is pleased with your results. Yours and Pak's both. Ghazan out."

"Apraxin out."

She nodded at the savant's attendant, then watched while the young woman spoke the brief formula that brought the savant out of her trance. A matted photo, presumably of Melody Boo'tsa, had been neatly taped to her module. The eyes were pink, the broad white face faintly so. An albino, Apraxin thought. Albinism had become avoidable, and extremely rare. Now Melody Boo'tsa no longer had a face of any color. Just a bottled CNS, a soul, and a unique sort of mind. With the unknown energies, and access to strange dimensions, that enabled two human beings to communicate across scores of parsecs, instantaneously.

"Thank you, Melody," she said quietly, then to the savant's attendant, "and thank you, Sofi. You may not fully appreciate it, but without teams like you two, humankind would have no hope in this war. None at all."

She paused. "I have a personal question for you. I presume your briefing on Melody was much more thorough than my own, and there's something in her file that sparked my curiosity. Either she has a long compound middle name, or several middle names. Can you clarify that for me?"

Even as she asked, it seemed to her a pointless question.

"Yes, Admiral, I do know. I'm her cousin."

The comment startled Apraxin. Sofi's complexion was a rich brown. Hmh. And why not? Any racial stock can have albinos.

Sofi had paused, as if waiting for Apraxin's attention again. When she had it, she continued. "She was named Melody when she was born. But our community is quite traditional. It retains many of the old customs, including giving another name later on. One that tells something about the person."

Sofi's gaze had slid aside and downward. After a moment though, it met the admiral's again, briefly.

"It is not customary to tell it outside the community, but I will tell you. You may find it-significant to our needs."

Apraxin's eyebrows rose slightly.

"Melody didn't speak sentences until she was four. Some of her first clear sentences were about things that hadn't happened yet. But later they would. Most of the family thought they were coincidences, but her aunt-my mother-and also her father, thought they were prophecies. Because when she said them, she spoke better than usual. So Melody was given another name: Naan' voh ti' ta ka. Because she has knowledge of the future.

"It is how she came to be here. She has an uncle who teaches mineralogy at the University of Northern Arizona, and he told the chairman of the parapsychology faculty about her. So she was sent there for study, and I was sent to be with her. To take care of her. And then the war started."

Apraxin exhaled through pursed lips, and nodded slowly. "I am glad you told me, Sofi. If you ask her questions about the future, does she tell you things?"

"I have tried a few times. She never answered. When she predicted in the past, it was always-whatever it was. Not something asked about."

The admiral frowned thoughtfully. "Will you work on it with her, Sofi?"

"Yes, Admiral. You know, sir, most people think of Melody as something empty, with very little mind. But she is-in there, sir. She listens. Hears. She hears what we hear, and she hears things we don't hear. I don't think of her as mentally deficient. I think of her as Naan' voh ti' ta ka."

The admiral stepped back. "Thank you, Sofi. This could be quite important." She started to turn away.

"Admiral?"

"Yes?"

"You said that teams like Melody and myself are all that give humankind hope in this war. But without people like you, there could be no hope at all. It is the people like yourself-the fighting people-who are primary in this time."

When Apraxin left the savant's suite, she headed for the wardroom, and a snack. While thinking about Melody's supposed talent for predictions, and whether they grew out of something like Charley Gordon's vectors.

She'd wait a bit, she decided, let Melody rest, then visit her again. Meanwhile saying nothing about it to War House. Let Sofi work with her, and define the possibilities.

Smoke from Kunming's many fires hung in the air. Stinking smoke, of half-burned, retardant-soaked fabrics, charred wood, melted synthetics. And perhaps burned bodies, though that could have been the product of their poisoned moods.

An hour earlier, when it was still dark, fires could still be seen from the prime minister's balcony. Chang and Peixoto had watched together. They'd been watching, on the telly or from the balcony, since the previous day, when the first fires were reported. Had seen them grow, while the overextended fire department did its best. Sirens had ululated in every part of the city. There had even been fires within the government complex-one in the Palace of Worlds itself-despite the surrounding force shield.

The word was, most had been set in warehouses and retail stores, at least some by small teams of arsonists protected by gunmen, all masked.

Just now the two leaders were closer to arguing than they'd ever been. "We have no choice!" Chang said. "Tirades on the talk channels, demonstrations in the squares, slander and libel of ourselves and others-those could be borne. But arson and murder? They have gone too far now! Martial law is the only answer we have, for the short term!"

Peixoto's bleak eyes scanned the half of the city visible from his balcony. He thought what such a campaign of destruction could have done a thousand years earlier, when so much more was flammable. When every vehicle carried within itself a large quantity of explosively flammable liquid.

And at last report, what had happened here had happened in 137 other cities, to some degree or other. And worse, 183 assassinations and a number of assaults had been reported, mostly on military personnel.

A leak had triggered it, and when he discovered who… Peixoto shook his head. You'd have released it yourself, if the victory had been greater. Big enough to blunt the Wyzhnyny advance.

He'd never imagined the Peace Front would do something like this. What was left of the Peace Front. Probably not more than one percent of the population remained members. But of Kunming's 2.7 million, that came to 27,000. Of which perhaps a thousand had been actively involved in this night of shame.

He looked down at the much shorter president. He'd almost forgotten Chang's demand. Now he shook his head again. "I cannot agree to it. Not yet."

He sensed the almost voiced response: Then I will resign. Unvoiced because Chang Lung-Chi would never abandon him in a dilemma. Never. Instead what the president said was, "When, then?"

"I'm not sure, good friend. But it's what their council wants us to do. We both know that. And we both know why."

A rumor passed through the city later that morning: a counterdemonstration would be held that evening at Wellesley Square, to defend humanity's right to defend itself. By noon the story was on the newscasts, the talk shows; and everywhere in the city you could feel the energy growing, swelling.

It shook the Peace Front's ruling council. They'd expected a public backlash, but this…? Paddy Davies made a call, and Gunther Genovesi's luxurious limo picked them up from the roof of their building.

By nightfall, demonstrators were packed into Wellesley Square and the streets feeding into it, far outnumbering anything the Peace Front had mustered. Among them, carrying a child on his shoulders, was a very tall, strongly built man with the lantern jaw and strong cheekbones common among the Goloks of Tibet. Carrying the child had not been entirely a good idea. The boy's short legs had rubbed off some of the Golok brownness from the man's jaw and ears. But it was night, a man carrying a child was surely benign, and as long as the child remained on his shoulders, the break in his camouflage was unlikely to be noticed. Besides, the crowd's attention was on the top of Martyr's Hill, where a large bonfire lit the night. It would damage the concrete slab on top, but that could be repaired.