“Yes, very good,” a helpful underling allowed himself to say. All else ignored him, of course.

“Within five more sleep intervals, their mood shifted. Disputes began, often in their talk during meals. This, too, fits classical theory—eating brings food to the front of their minds, their hunger drives competition, then disagreement.”

“You broke down their social code? Their solidarity?”

“In part,” Memor said, hoping this would come over as modesty. In fact, though, she was unsure that she had. Hurrying on, she said, “They were obviously crew on a distant voyage, so we cannot expect to break them down quickly. Time is our friend here.”

“Any signs of the early stages of Adoption?”

“I believe so. They often brightened when one of my team gave them a bit of food, or allowed a small favor.”

“Your analysis of their minds suggests they can be Adopted?”

“In time, yes.”

This gained her shuffling fan-gestures of approval, and the air eased.

In the end it came down to a vote. Memor suffered through the moments as each voter consulted her Undermind and finally cast an electronic signal. Asenath displayed the results, and—a shocked hush.

“You have survived in your office,” Asenath said, letting a pitch of reluctance skate among her words. “But I shall monitor you, and report you to this assembly when needed.”

Memor allowed herself a relieved bow. There came hoots of derision, and a background soft melody of approval, expressed in sighs and foot-claps of applause.

In the great vault the gathered began a rhythmic chanting. The Protocols called for some group expression, and the momentum of the moment gave it forth. The chant called out an ancient rhythm. It spoke of what the Essence is not, instead of what it is. This set the Citadel into a great rolling call, amid hooting songs and vibrant bass notes. Joyful joined we are, eternal.…

This was clearly a rebuke of Memor, a reminder of what the Universe of Essences demanded of all the Folk.

She felt grateful to escape with a mere reproach. She even roared and stomped and joined in with the chorus. The humming calls grew and she began to enjoy it all. Release.

But the memory of the Pit, then the Garden—these remained long after.

TWENTY-EIGHT

Cliff awoke to feel the ground trembling. Blinking, eyes gritty, he looked around at the small copse of ellipsoidal ferns they had sheltered under. Nothing visible in the shadows. No odd scuttlings.

But he could make out a faint, ominous rumble from below. There was no actual geology here, so it had to be machinery moving on the outer face of the Bowl. He got up and walked barefoot, feeling the vibration. It seemed louder in one direction and as he moved, the ground trembled a bit more. Birds rustled and chirruped in response to it.

Then it began to fade, though he kept walking, and by the time he reached a slab of fused rock, he could feel nothing. The source must have passed, so maybe it was a moving platform on the other side, an elevator or similar.

Then he noticed he was out of the trees. Feeling vulnerable alone, he glanced at the mercifully empty sky and quickly sought the canopy cover. Like a terrified rodent, he thought ruefully.

But he couldn’t get back to sleep. He had been deep in a softly erotic dream of Beth. Their biggest problem was the unending day. They all had trouble sleeping because there was always something up and active, rustling through foliage, setting off their apprehensions. Now, though, the others were snuffling and snoring and he envied them. At least he could use the time to think, to plan.

He lay back and looked through the canopy at the dim presence of the star. The jet was a scratch across the sky, flexing with whorls and tendrils. Near the star little flashes of brilliance lit the base. He was getting used to this sky, to this place—and that was dangerous.

So much here had a familiar feel—the sudden sizzle of lightning splintering a sky, a patter of rain, moaning breezes—but the tremor just now gave him an important warning. Here they all lived with a strangeness made all the more discomforting by its deceptive likeness to a world they all knew, and would never see again.

So they had to use everything, especially deception. They were torn between the need to stay out of sight and the drive to explore. They had disguised their craft, making it sand colored. From a distance, the sand ship made no impression, but close up it did move and attract the eye. The fixed wing aerial surveys they occasionally saw in the distance had missed them. Cliff hoped their pursuers were losing interest, because the fliers were getting spotty. Luckily, no intelligent aliens seemed to live in this vast desert.

But his gang of five was getting surly and hungry. They had learned to spot and shoot the large, savage lizards that lived in the rock outcroppings. The meat was nearly as leathery as the brown hide, but over a roaring fire of hardwood that did not give off smoke, it supplied protein they badly needed. No talk; they ate eagerly. Carbohydrates were harder to find, and water always an issue.

He had tried to forage for edibles, but the problem was tough. Not only was this an alien ecology, but it was also one that worked without night. What did that do to plant evolution? What kind of defenses did plants have here? On Earth, poisons were defenses against predators—tobacco was a particularly effective one in the tropics, where there was no winter to kill off the insects.

But in this Bowl, no winter saved plants or animals from constant predation. So Cliff expected to find plenty of poisons, deceptions, disguises. He had already seen plants that looked like rocks or even skeletons. The leathery lizards could bound sideways, because they had two forelegs and one hindleg designed to give them startling leaps. What hunted the lizards? He expected that the evolutionary arms race meant that a big predator was around, but he saw none. Maybe the lizards ruled this region, the top predators.

Humans were new here, so creatures mostly took no notice of them. But big birds smacked them in the head, or dived for their eyes, apparently mistaking them for some easier game—but what creature was that?

They had all lost weight. Howard, who was always recovering from some accident or injury, was now downright pallid and scrawny. They all leaned on Cliff to find more edible foods, and he had some successes—but was running out of ideas.

He heard some movement nearby and turned, automatically reaching for his laser. “You woke me up,” Irma said, sitting down beside him.

“Spotty sleep is better than none,” Cliff said, holding out a piece of the odd fruit they’d found. It looked like a puffer fish with spokes of purple hair, but tasted sweet and dark.

“Good call on this one. Better than mangoes, even.”

“Sliced it, smelled it, tip of the tongue—that’s all we’ve got to go by. I wish I had some testing gear to use on candidate food.”

Irma nodded. “Those woodlands we first went into, the soil was more acidic and moist. The soil here, though, seems alkaline and dry.”

“Like most Earthside deserts.”

“Right, so we can use our intuition from what works there. Look there—”

Within a few meters were fernlike plants, thorny bushes, prickly globes dangling temptingly from enormous trees. “Okay.”

They climbed partway up the crusty bark of the tree and brought down two of the large oval fruit. “Funny,” Irma said. “They trail these coarse leafy strands, look more like tendrils.”

He cut into one. “There’s this fuzzy red tinge to the skin, like blister rust on Earth. But what’s that mean here?”

He sniffed the rosy skin and found no stink of decay, but again, what would rot smell like here? So he sliced off a chunk, bit in—and found a gusher of warm soft sweet succulence burst in his mouth. “Maybe poison, sure, but soooo good…”