Lagash answered. “Tomorrow, Lord Protector Sargon will begin the interrogation. Then the Excellency will decide.”

Then, thankfully, they departed. Asach beamed everything to Renner and Barthes, with a simple request: “Send More. Find us.”

Asach awoke before dawn, surprised to discover the cape draped at the foot of the stone chaise, and Laurel bustling about the room. How it was possible to bustle in an unfurnished space containing nothing save two couches, two chamber pots, and a washbasin was unclear, but that’s what it felt like. Laurel’s outer garments were neatly folded; she was vigorously splashing and rubbing and running fingers through her hair. Asach observed this though half-closed eyes, then pointedly yawned and stood, facing the opposite direction, fumbling about in the cape.

“Here.” Asach proffered a comb, and a sliver of soap, one arm stretched rearward.

“You have soap?”

Asach shrugged. “I travel light, but carry the essentials.”

“Essentials?”

“You’d be surprised how many diseases are prevented by judicious hand-washing.”

“You can turn around, you know.”

“But I thought—”

“I just didn’t want to reveal myself to them. People are all right.”

“So you’re not shy? Embarrassed?”

Laurel snorted. “After twenty years of camp life? Please.”

Asach sat on the chaise while Laurel lathered. “You seem to be feeling better today.”

Laurel nodded.

“Welcome back.”

Laurel paused, mid-froth. “Back?”

“You’ve been sort of on auto-pilot.”

Another scrub; a rinse, her answer bubbling through the water. “Auto-pilot?”

“You know, like—oh, never mind.”

There was nothing to dry with. Casting about, Laurel settled for the back of her tunic. “I just had a lot on my mind.”

“I’d say.”

“But now, I’ve been fed manna by the hands of Angels. Just like the prophesy. So I feel fine.”

Asach groaned inwardly.

“Manna?”

“Yes.”

“That green slime?”

“Yes.” Interestingly, her manner was not in the least defensive.

“Is that what you call it?”

“That’s what it is.”

“I see. Where does it come from?”

Laurel looked at Asach with that aura of incredulity reserved on any world for a rural denizen comprehending the utter stupidity of an urban gobshite. In most cases, this had the odd effect of making the rube look stupid in the city slicker’s eyes. Asach was, however, better attuned to the reality.

“Humor me.”

“Well, what do you think we’ve been walking through for—however long it’s been.”

“Grass of some kind?”

Laurel snorted. “Grass? Grass won’t grow here. Uncle Collie went broke trying.”

“So manna is—?

“Manna. It is what it is. The angels grow it. We cut it for hay when we can, but they don’t like that.”

Asach’s head reeled. Then the Introduction to the Swenson’s Ape report came into focus. Then the lower-case tone of angels registered.

“And where do—angels—come from?”

Laurel gave the I-can’t-believe-a-grown-person-is-this-ignorant look again, then shrugged. “This is the first time they’ve come back to the Outback in my lifetime. I guess from the Way Outback, but I don’t know.”

“The Way Outback.”

Laurel smiled. “Well, this all used to be the Outback, but after the rigs moved in, we had to call everything the other side of those mountains something.”

“The rigs.”

Laurel nodded. “The sand miners. Upriver. They are totally poaching, but there’s not much we can do about it.”

Asach was getting more than a little confused about this chain of revelations, and decided to return to first principles. “OK, so, the angels come from—further east, beyond those mountains, and when they come, they grow manna. Is that about right?”

She nodded. “Or south. From downriver. They didn’t manage to drain it all. There might have been some left along the coast.”

“Some of what? Angels? Manna?”

Exasperated, Laurel sighed. “Both, of course. You don’t get one without the other.”

Asach pondered this for a moment. “And, how long, would you say, the angels have been here?”

“Here? Like I said. A year—two, tops.”

“No, I mean on New Utah.”

“On Heaven? Oh, forever, I guess. Before the Founders.”

Asach had a spinning sensation in the pit of the stomach. “Before the Founders? How would you know that? How would anyone know that?”

“Well, I just know they were here when he got here. That’s what kept him alive?”

Asach was confused by the religious possibilities of this statement. “He? Do you mean he, or do you mean Him?”

Laurel rolled her eyes. “Well, of course He has been here, for all of eternity. But I meant him.”

This did not help. Asach plunged forward. “Him who? Which him?”

“Swenson. John David Swenson. Swenson’s Valley, where we are now. Swenson’s Mountain. Where you saw His Eye.”

Swenson’s Apes, thought Asach. “But before the Founders? How?”

Laurel was dressing now. “Well, duh. He was the surveyor. Came out with Murchison in 2450. I mean, how do you think Founders got here—threw a rock and got lucky? Swenson was the First Colony’s guide.”

“But I thought he was some kind of local suttler. Provisioning settlers; surveying new claims, making records of local fauna along the frontier…” Asach trailed off, as Laurel rolled her eyes again.

“Uh huh. It’s not like he came once and just died.”

Asach was dumbfounded. Days of work, and most of the answers had been sitting right here all along. Stupid, to underestimate the literalness and pragmatism of these people. Find a planet where you can escape open persecution? It’s Heaven. A rock looks like an eye and shoots radiant beams of light into the sky? It’s God’s Eye. Animals arrive and grow food in deserts where nothing can survive? They’re angels growing manna. No further supernatural explanation required.

“Why didn’t you say? Why haven’t you told me any of this before?’

Laurel shrugged again. “You didn’t ask me. And you made fun of me when I tried.”

Asach sighed. It was easy to forget how intimidating even the smallest offhand remark made—or not made—by the middle aged could be to one so young.

“Well, thank-you. For telling me now. I apologize. Please believe me. I never intended to make fun of anyone. I’m sorry for it. I actually hold you in very high regard. You are extremely capable, and you have not had an easy life.”

Laurel nodded once, and handed back the soap and comb in silence.

“So, how do you know all this?”

“Swenson? Everybody knows that. Well, everybody in Bonneville. I couldn’t say for Saint George. And anyway, he was my Great-Something-Great Grandfather. On my mother’s side. Technically, I still own all of this. All of it. Land, water, timber, fish, game, mineral, and near-space rights. Not that any of that gets recognized. Or that I’d do anything much with it if they did.”

Asach nearly choked. On any Imperial world, that big a holding meant—well, a lot. Probably a title. The questions were piling on. “But you’re a Himmist?”

Laurel looked genuinely puzzled. “Yes?”

“And so was your mother.”

“Oh, yes, definitely.”

“But Swenson—”

Laurel laughed. “What, you think no Himmist every married a Sixer? In Bonneville? You think that, you don’t know much about people, what?”

Asach remembered the ecumenical microcosm that was Michael’s household and smiled.

“Religion’s in your heart and mind, not in your genes. Otherwise, why’d a Sixer like you be here as a pilgrim?’

Asach paused. “That’s a big assumption. Is it that obvious?”

Laurel smiled. “Just a guess. It’s nothing you’ve said. But you have a way about you. The way you react to what others say sometimes. The way you put questions. Anyway, I know now.”