When the Rights Economy burst into the galaxy, visitations from the lit worlds had dwindled. It took as much to maintain one cycler as it did to maintain ten thousand FTL ships. Kimpurusha, once the spiritual capital of the halo, had turned its back on Erythrion and the rest of the unlit worlds. Rue had seen the former Permanence monastery at Treya; it was now a sports facility.

She was surprised that she felt so strongly about a decline that had begun before she was born. But then, this whole trip had been a series of revelations about just how much of a halo-worlder she really was.

"Good morning!" Blair waved her to sit. Max was already tucking into his food; he acknowledged her indifferently. Corinna sat herself next to Blair, just as Rebecca entered the room and looked around. Rue waved vigorously; Rebecca grinned and headed over. She seldom ate breakfast.

Max had focused his attention back on his meal and would probably not participate in the upcoming discussion; he was Bad Max again, after briefly being Good Max while they were on Chandaka. At times like these, Rue leaned heavily on Rebecca for support.

Evan was the last to arrive, which was typical. It was hard for him to drag himself out of bed; she had come to realize that he had horrible self-esteem. Rue wasn't surprised that he'd signed on again after loudly protesting that he couldn't. The crew of the Envy gave him the only meaning in his life right now.

"Sorry I'm late," he said, in exactly the tone he always used.

"Let's get down to business," said Rue. "The EVA's in an hour. First things first. Did you guys find the cache?"

Evan nodded. "It's right where we left it. Seems intact, from what I could see in the telescope."

"Good. Blair?"

"They don't know it's there. I checked the logs and talked to some of the techs. Like we predicted, the plow sail hasn't gone into ramjet mode since we left, so there's been no significant radiation on it. Parking it right next to the sail was a stroke of genius."

"We'll leave it where it is for now. What Crisler's people don't know can't hurt us. Are they still doing the radar survey of the habitats?"

Blair nodded. "It's supposed to wrap up tomorrow, though. Then they'll just do an occasional ping to make sure things don't move unexpectedly."

"Crisler will lose it completely when he finds out we're holding out on him," said Rebecca.

"Crisler is in charge of the Banshee, not the Envy," Rue said, with as much confidence as she could muster. "Leave him to me."

They nodded. Everyone was looking alert, with an undercurrent of excitement— except for Bad Max, who was indifferently stuffing his face. Rue had to smile.

"We're back!" she said. Everybody laughed; even Max grinned.

"We're back and we're going to find out how to control the Envy," she continued. "We'll handle this bunch of space marines and mad scientists and send Envy on her way back 'round to Erythrion. Then we go home and we're going to be heroes. Is everybody up to that?"

They all raised their glasses and cheered; the rest of the people in the galley turned to look. Rue laughed again.

She was thinking, though, that she had told a little story to them: Capture the flag and return as heroes. It worked, it was a goal to shoot for.

She couldn't help remembering that they'd had no script to follow the first time they explored this place. Staring at the tiny dark crescent of an alien habitat through the scope, she had felt cold terror at facing a complete unknown. They had all felt it.

In talking to Crisler's people about their first trip out here, Rue had not revealed that they had huddled inside their shuttle for a week, debating and staring at that little crescent, before they'd summoned the courage to explore the lake.

It was so different this time around. But was it different only because, in bringing the Banshee, they had brought a comforting new set of stories to use in relating to this place?

The idea was too abstract to hold her attention; she turned back to her grinning crew and set about discussing plans.

MICHAEL HAD TRIED five times to compose a letter to his scattered brothers; he had deleted each one before sending it and now that they were at the Envy he couldn't hope to send an encrypted message out. Nonetheless, this morning he had felt compelled to write, so after breakfast, but before suiting up for his first trip to Lake Flaccid, he sat down in his tiny wedge-shaped room to compose.

He was more restless and unhappy than ever. Herat had forbidden him from performing any of the domestic duties he had always given himself. Those duties had been a kind of devotion for Michael— a palpable form of Service. Herat, the old bastard, knew that Michael needed to confront his demons, so had taken Michael out of his safe routines. Michael spent long hours in the gym and when he wasn't doing that he was getting to know the Banshee's crew and Crisler's staff. He was now on a first-name basis with everyone except the enigmatic halo-worlders, who mostly kept to themselves. Michael could joke with the highest and the lowest and everybody thought he was a nice guy.

When he sat by himself in his cabin, he felt a black depression he'd not felt since the insurrection on Kimpurusha. It was as if the past five years had not happened.

He moved a private inscape window to easy view and subvocalized words: a greeting, a short summary of his expedition to Kadesh. He would not speak of Jentry's Envy here; it wasn't yet time and the risk was too great even if this message was encrypted.

"I have told you that something happened to me on Dis, but have not answered your inquiries as to what it was. I won't describe the actual events here, because they wouldn't convey to you the magnitude of the experience. Our goal has always been to become one with our environment— to absorb its particular character, which we call the kami or spirit of a place. That experience is always an experience of union, of joining with the world that we're otherwise alienated from. I've experienced it on a hundred worlds, in places humans can only timidly tread. On Dis, though… On Dis I experienced not union but annihilation: my consciousness expanded and at first it was ecstatic, but the kami of the place were too alien and too strong. I could see myself, infinitely small and vulnerable, a stranger to this place and then even that was gone; I was swept away, becoming one with Dis and lost to my Self.

"I tried frantically to find my way back, but I was lost in the vision. Dr. Herat found me and shook me awake, but the kami were still there, like a ringing in my ears, denying me my own reality.

"We have always believed that our religion was a real union of the transient individual soul with the eternal Absolute of the universe. But the kami of Dis are dying, slowly, in a paroxysm that will take a trillion years. Their light is fading; all light will fade, they tell me, and no one can hold back the darkness of individual and species extinction for long.

"What I am saying to you is that on Dis, I became one with the world and remained in that vision and am there still. And the vision is not what we thought it was; I am lost in it. I am truly lost."

He closed the window and rubbed his eyes. Beyond his little cabin, he could hear people moving up the stairs nearby; the Banshee's balloon habitat was so small that the whole place bounced whenever anyone took a step. Michael knew he should be getting ready for the upcoming EVA, but he was so weary; all he wanted to do was sleep.

He popped the window open and reviewed what he had written. His brothers might understand his imagery, but to anyone else it would sound crazy— wacko, his friends back home would call it. Bitterly, he snapped the window closed. Enough self-indulgence. There was work to do. He stood and stretched and began to inventory his tools for the EVA.