"So you discover the new neighbor is unwholesome. Basically his lifestyle involves poisoning swamp land and eating the sludge produced. That's an annoyance: it smells and it hurts a lot of harmless animals. But, after investigating, it's clear the damage will not affect your own property, and you get the neighbor to take measures to reduce the stink. In any case, eating toxic sludge is a self-defeating lifestyle." He paused. "As analogies go, I think this one's pretty good. After some initial mystery, Old One has determined that this Perversion is one of the common patterns, so petty and banal that even creatures like you and I can see it's evil. In one form or another, it's been drifting up from Beyonder archives for a hundred million years."

"Damn it! I'd get my neighbors together, and run the pervert out of town."

"That's been talked about, but it would be expensive… and real people might get hurt." Pham Nuwen came smoothly to his feet, and smiled dismissingly at her. "Well, that's about all we had to say to you." He walk out from under the trees. Ravna hopped up to pursue.

"My personal advice: don't take this so hard, Ravna. I've seen it all, you know. From the Bottom of the Slowness to the inside of a Transcendent Power, each Zone has its own special unpleasantness. The whole basis of the Perversion — thermodynamic, economic, however you want to picture it — is the high quality of thought and communication at the Top of the Beyond. The Perversion hasn't touched a single civilization in the Middle Beyond. Down here, the comm lags and expense are too great, and even the best equipment is mindless. To run things here you'd need standing navies, secret police, clumsy transceivers — it would be almost as awkward as any other Beyonder empire, and of no profit to a Power." He turned and saw her dark expression. "Hey, I'm saying your pretty ass is safe." He reached down to pat her rear.

Ravna brushed the hand away and stepped back. She'd been working on some clever argument that might set the guy to thinking; there were cases where Emissary Devices had changed their principal's decision. Now the half-formed ideas were blown away, and all she could think to say was — "So how safe is your own tail, hmm? You say Old One is about ready to pack it in, go wherever overage Powers wander off to. Is he going to take you along, or maybe just put you away, a pet that's now inconvenient?"

It was a silly shot, and Pham Nuwen just laughed. "More analogies? No

… most likely he'll just leave me behind. You know, like a robot probe flying free after its last use." Another analogy, but one to his liking. "In fact, if it happens soon enough, I might even be willing to take on this rescue expedition. It looks like Jefri Olsndot is in a medieval civlization. I'll wager there's no one in the Org who understands such a place better than I. And down at the Bottom, your crew could scarcely ask for a better mate than an old Qeng Ho type." He spoke breezily, as though courage and experience were givens for him — even if other people were cowardly scuts.

"Oh, yeah?" Ravna's arms went akimbo, and she cocked her head to one side. It was just a bit too much, when his whole existence was a fraud. "You're the little prince who grew up with intrigue and assassination, and then flew away to the stars with the Qeng Ho… Do you ever really think about that past, Pham Nuwen? Or is that something Old One tactfully blocks you from doing? After our charming evening at The Wandering Company, I did think about it. You know what? There's only a few things you can know for sure: You really were a Slow Zone spacer — probably two or three spacers, since none of the corpses was complete. Somehow you and your buddies got yourselves killed down at the nether end of the Slowness. What else? Well, your ship had no recoverable memory. The only hardcopy we found seemed to be written in some Earth Asian language. That's all, all, that Old One had to go on when he put together the fraud."

Pham's smile seemed a little frozen. Ravna went on before he could speak. "But don't blame Old One. He was a little rushed, right? He had to convince Vrinimi and me that you were real. He rummaged around in the archives, slapped together a mishmash reality for you. Maybe it took him an afternoon — are you grateful for the effort? A snip from here and a snip from there. There really was a Qeng Ho, you know. On Earth, a thousand years before space flight. And there must have been Asia-descended colonies, though that's an obvious extrapolation on his part. Old One really has a nice sense of humor. He made your whole life a fantastic romance, right down to the last tragic expedition. That should have tipped me off, by the way. It's a combination of several pre-Nyjoran legends."

She caught her breath and rushed on. "I feel sorry for you, Pham Nuwen. As long as you don't think about yourself too hard, you can be the most confident fellow in space. But all the skill, all the achievement — do you ever look at it up close? I'll bet not. Being a great warrior or an expert pilot — those involve a million subskills, all the way down to kinesthetic things below the level of conscious thought. The Old One's fraud needed just the top level recollections, and a brash personality. Look under the surface, Pham. I think you'll find a whole lot of nothing." A dream of competence, too closely confronted.

The redhead had crossed his arms and was tapping his sleeve with a finger. When she finally ran out of words, his smile grew broad and patronizing. "Ah, silly Ravna. Even now you don't understand how far superior the Powers are. Old One is not some Middle Beyond tyranny, brainwashing its victims with superficial memories. Even a Transcendent fraud has more depth than the image of reality in a human mind. And how can you know this really is a fraud? So you looked through the Relay archives, and didn't find my Qeng Ho." My Qeng Ho. He paused. Remembering? Trying to remember? For an instant Ravna saw a gleam of panic on his face. Then it was gone, and there was just the lazy smile. "Can any of us imagine the archives of the Transcend, all the things Old One must know about humanity? Vrinimi Org should be grateful to Old One for explaining my origins; they could never have learned that by themselves.

"Look. I am truly sorry I can't help. Even if it's otherwise a fool's errand, I'd like to see those kids rescued. But don't worry about the Blight. It's near maximum expansion now. Even if you could destroy it, you wouldn't make things better for the poor wights who've been absorbed." He laughed, a little too loudly. "Well, I have to go; Old One has some other errands for me this afternoon. He wasn't happy about this being face-to-face, but I insisted. The perks of detached duty, y'know. You and I

… you and I had some good times, and I thought it would be nice to chat. I didn't mean to make you mad."

Pham cut in his agrav and floated off the sand. He waved a laconic salute. Staring up, Ravna lifted her hand to wave back. His figure dwindled, acquired a faint nimbus as he left the Docks' breathable atmosphere and his space suit cut in.

Ravna watched a few moments more, till the figure became one more commuter in the indigo sky. Damn. Damn. Damn.

Behind her there was the sound of wheels crunching across sand. Blueshell and Greenstalk had rolled out of the water. Wetness glistened on the sides of their skrodes, transforming their cosmetic stripes into jagged rainbows. Ravna walked down to meet them. How do I tell them there's no help coming?

With someone like Pham Nuwen fronting for it, Old One had seemed so different from what she imagined in her classes back at Sjandra Kei. She'd almost thought she could make a difference just by talking. What a joke. She had caught a glimpse just now, behind the front: of a being who could play with souls the way a programmer plays with a clever graphic, a being so far beyond her that only its indifference could protect her. Be happy, little Ravna moth. You were only dazzled by the flame.