Travis Li was frowning. "You realize that as captain, you will be responsible for their conduct and if they betray the Compact, you will bear the consequences?" She nodded.

Then the abbot clapped his hands sharply and everyone turned to him. "This is Compact Law," he said. "She has the right to what she proposes. And since Apophis and Osiris lie along her ring, Captain Cassels must be informed of any actions the Compact takes toward any worlds on that ring. It seems, gentlemen and ladies, that we are at an impasse."

He stood and bowed to Rue. "We will ask your friends if they will forego their citizenship in the Rights Economy to become sons of the Compact. If they do, they may continue to fraternize with you and may be party to our plans. If not, we must ask you to end your association with them, at least for now— lest they should leave Colossus by cycler and communicate what they know to the R.E."

And the meeting broke up, simple as that.

I'VE DONE IT this time, Rue told herself for the tenth time. She was being escorted down a corridor hacked into the ice deep beneath the city. Eight hours had passed since the strange meeting and she'd had just enough time to ponder things and get very depressed. It was late in the shift now, she was tired, and way out in space, Crisler must be laughing himself sick as he and Mallory winged their way toward the Envy.

Two military policemen were escorting Rue to the cells (they called them apartments) where Mike and Herat were being held. Apparently they had been asked the question Rue, in her stupidity, had maneuvered them all into. Give up the R.E.? A world where they could traverse the galaxy in weeks? When both men's lives revolved around the hunt for alien intelligence? No. Why would they voluntarily remain in the halo, when they had that to return to?

This whole fiasco threw her relationship with Michael Bequith into sharp relief. It had been ridiculous for her to hope he might stay with her, she saw now. She hadn't even dared to fantasize that he might— but the hope had been there, underlying all her thoughts and actions these past few weeks.

She was a girl from the stations, after all, her eyes too weak to stand the sunlight of Mike's world. The dark was her home and the cold of the orphan worlds between the stars. He lived in the light and he would be returning to it as soon as he could.

She bit back tears as the MPs barged through one last set of metal doors and into some sort of waiting room. There were benches on the floor and a podium at one end, behind which the infinity symbol of the Compact was etched on the wall. Travis Li was here, seated on one of the benches. To her surprise, so was the abbot. He smiled at her kindly and handed her a thick book.

She stared at it. The abbot coughed politely, so Rue made to sit on one of the back benches. The abbot took her arm, shaking his head and gestured forward. She walked to a front bench and started to sit. He shook his head again; both he and Li were smiling now, damn them. The abbot gestured forward again.

But there was nothing up there except… Oh, the podium. Rue walked up to it hesitantly and laid the heavy book down on it. There was a ribbon bookmark in the center of it, so she opened the book out to that page and made to return to the benches. But the title on the page of the book caught her eye.

Ceremony of Citizenship in the Cycler Compact

"All rise!" shouted one of the marines suddenly. Travis and the abbot stood, grinning, and the doors at the back opened. In stepped Laurent Herat— alone.

Rue felt nauseated. She was sure she would faint at any second, and barely registered Herat's presence as the man came to stand at the front of the room, right before the podium. When she finally did look into his face, she saw the apologetic expression there, and that just made her feel worse.

"Why?" she croaked, almost inaudibly.

Herat shrugged. "My career was in its twilight anyway— the whole Panspermia Institute is on its way out. My wife is dead, my children grown. And my people… you know, years of investigating the ruins of alien civilizations have taught me a lot about what makes a healthy one, and which ones are doomed to fail.

"It's all about time, Rue— a species' attitude to time, I mean. The problem with faster-than-light travel is that it promises instant escape from any problem. The Rights Economy is proof of that: We expand and expand, with no thought to limits or tomorrow. Meanwhile, we rot from within.

"The Envy, and you, and this place have convinced me that there's another way. Maybe that's the secret of the Lasa— maybe they turned their back on FTL and conducted their civilization at a slower rhythm…. Anyway, if you'd asked me twenty years ago which of our cultures had more potential, yours or mine, I'd have said the R.E. But I don't believe that any longer.

"You've allowed me to see what it was we nearly destroyed when we took the lit worlds away from the halo. For that, I'll be eternally grateful to you."

His expression became more sober. "I have the benefit of my years. Bequith… Michael gave me a message for you," he said. "He told me to tell you that he cannot abandon his people— those on Kimpurusha or elsewhere in the Rights Economy. He said that while he is a citizen of the R.E. by conquest, still he can't abandon his world while it's under the kind of threat that Crisler represents. He wishes to find a way to go home as soon as possible, to warn people about Crisler's plans."

You fool! Rue wasn't sure if she was angry at herself or at Mike. She should not have created this dilemma for him. Mike didn't know why she had asked him to take citizenship; as far as he knew, Crisler had cleanly escaped, and even now Rue herself didn't know how the powers of the Compact might catch him. For Mike, this ceremony must seem like an admission of defeat— an attempt by her to get him to abandon the chase, and settle down on Colossus.

She blinked until she could see the words on the page before her, and began speaking past a dry and tight throat:

"Whereas it is in the nature of human beings to grow and accept new conditions; and whereas it is in the nature of our great society to welcome into its bosom those who have embraced our principles and customs…"

THE CALL CAME, as regular as clockwork, one month after the last one. This time, Michael was too busy to even politely decline to speak.

Slow bubbles trailed up from behind his breather. The way they popped up to the ceiling of these flooded tunnels, then skated along the translucent blue ice like quicksilver never ceased to fascinate him. He had swum on many different planets in the years of his service to Herat; swimming through the flooded tunnels of these abandoned Oculus settlements was an experience unlike any other. The ice that made up the walls, ceilings, and floors of the chambers ranged through thousands of shades from emerald green to deep azure. The quality of color changed as the lights on Michael's helmet and helper bots moved. It only took one person to turn their head and his surroundings could change from dark tunnel to jewel-lined hall.

The caller remained on the line for a few moments, her presence visible as a flashing triangle to Michael's upper left. He had instructed his answering service not to take messages from her, so after a minute the triangle faded out. He found himself sighing in relief, though he knew there was no way he would have answered. When the triangle vanished, though, it left a hollow feeling which was all too familiar lately.

"What's up?" Barendts had been forging ahead, as usual, and now he returned, kicking strongly through the icy water. His entourage of jet-driven bots spiralled around him, little lamps darting to and fro like the flashlights of inquisitive fairies.