He longed for time to speed up, for the rendezvous to occur, for anythingto happen that was significant and not theoretical.

* * *

Rosa's storytelling improved.

The races were concluded, with Hans pitting himself against the fastest of ten trials, Rex Live Oak, and winning by two seconds, the races being run nose to tail within the ship. Hans was inordinately proud of the victory, and took two Wendys to his quarters after for a private free-for-all, the first partners he had taken since becoming Pan.

Martin did not notice who the Wendy's were; he had tired of the growing reliance on gossip for excitement. He did not care who Hans was slicking, or whether Hans had stolen Harpal's love interest, or who was going to attempt Rosa soon.

Rosa, thinner by five kilos, face austere and happy at once, was becoming, for Martin, the most interesting and at the same time the most disturbing person aboard Dawn Treader.

Martin came to the nose when it was empty and collapsed the star sphere to see the outside universe without interpretation. The stars ahead had not yet changed noticeably; bright, frozen forever against measureless black.

Jennifer's theories had upset him on some deep level. He had dreamed about enemies they could not see, malevolent beings confusing and perverting them from a distance like puppetmasters.

"What the hell are we doing here?" he asked. He had come to the nose to pray, but he could not conceive of anything or anyone to pray to. Nothing touched him; nothing felt for him, or knew that he was in the nose, that he was alone. Nothing knew that he was confused and needed help, that Martin son of Arthur Gordon had lost whatever path he had ever known, and that merely doing the Job seemed a highly inadequate reason for living.

His father might have thought this view of deep space the most spectacular and beautiful thing one could wish for; Martin could not see it as anything but scattered light impinging on exhausted eyes.

He had fought the end of his pain for many tendays now, but his grief followed its natural course like a healing wound. Finally even the itch would be gone and Theresa would truly be dead—and William—

He groaned softly, for he owed William so much more than he could give emotionally, now or ever.

With his grief knitting its torn edges, there would be nothing left to define him but the dreary nothingness at his core, more blank than any black between stars, a comfortable emptiness to fall into, a gentle negation and dissolution.

He thought he would gladly die if death were an end in itself and not something more.

What he would pray to, then, was a weak candle of hope: that in these horrible spans of contesting civilizations, there was something, somewhere, that oversaw and judged and sympathized; that was wise in a way they could not conceive of; that might, given a chance, intervene, however mysteriously.

Something that cradled and nurtured his dead loves in its bosom; but something that would also acknowledge his unworthiness and allow him a finality, an end.

He thought of the powerful orgasm with Paola, stronger by many degrees than he remembered experiencing with Theresa.

Confusion and stars. What a combination, he thought.

He encouraged the pain to return and let depression settle over him, until his heart seemed to slow, his eyelids drooped, and he was surrounded by a comfortable blanket of despair, so much more palpable than memory or responsibility or the day-to-day dreariness of shipboard life.

Nothing intervened.

Nothing cared.

In a way, that was reassuring. There could be an end to the universe's complexity, an end to the strife and confusion of intelligence.

In the middle of the sports and competitions, in the middle of Martin's despair, Rosa Sequoia disappeared.

Kimberly Quartz and Jeanette Snap Dragon found her naked and half-dead from thirst five days later. They brought her to the schoolroom. Ariel kneeled on the floor and gripped her hair, pulling her head back and forcing her to drink water. Her eyes wandered to fix on points between the people in the room. "What the hell are you doing?" Ariel asked.

Rosa smiled up at her, water leaking from her mouth, cracked lips bleeding sluggish drops. Her face was smeared with dried blood. She had bitten her lower lip. "It came again and touched me," she said. "I was dangerous. I might have hurt somebody."

Hans entered the schoolroom already in a rage and brushed Ariel aside. "Get up, damn you," he said. Rosa stood unsteadily, smelling sour, drips of dried blood on her breasts.

"Are you nuts?" Hans asked.

She shook her head, her shy smile opening the bites. They bled more freely.

Hans grabbed Rosa's arm, looked around the room for someone to come forward of the ten crew that had gathered. Ariel stepped up again, and Hans transferred the unresisting arm to her hands, as if passing a dog's leash. "Feed her and clean her up. She's confined to quarters. Jeanette, guard her door and make sure she doesn't come out."

"I should be telling stories later today," Rosa said meekly. "That's why I came back."

"You won't talk to anybody," Hans said. He brushed past them all, ridding himself of the mess with a backward wave of his hands.

Martin followed him from the schoolroom, anger piercing his gloom. "She's sick," he told Hans. "She's not responsible."

"I'm sick, too," Hans said. "We're all sick. But she's slicking crazy. What about you?" He whirled on Martin. "Christ, you mope like a goddamned snail. Harpal's no better. What in hell is going on?"

Martin said, "We've fallen into a hole."

"Then let's climb out of it, by God!"

"There is no god. I hope. No one listening to us."

Hans gave him a withering, pitying glare. "Rosa would disagree," he said sharply. "I'll bet she has God's business card in her overalls right now. Wherever her overalls are. " Hans shook his head vigorously. "Of all the women on this ship, shehas to shed her clothes when she feels a fit coming on." He stopped a few meters down the corridor, shoulders hunched as if Martin were about to throw something at him.

Martin had not moved, wrapped in a wonderfully thick and protective melancholy, feeling very little beyond the fixed anger at Hans.

Hans turned, frowning. "You say we're in a hole. We're losing it, aren't we?" he asked. "By damn, I will not let us lose it." He tipped an almost jaunty wave to Martin, and skipped up the corridor, whistling tunelessly.

Martin shivered as if with cold. He returned to the schoolroom. Rosa talked freely with the five who remained. Ariel had brought her a pair of overalls that did not fit. She looked ridiculous but she did not care.

"I'm sorry," she said. "I apologize for my condition. I couldn't even think. I was wired to a big generator. I wasn't human. My body didn't matter." She faced Martin, large powerful arms held out as if she might try to fly. "I felt so ugly before this. Now it just isn't important." The light went suddenly from her eyes and she seemed to collapse a couple of inches. "I'm really tired," she whispered, chin dropping to her chest. "Jeanette, please take me to my room. Hans is right. Don't let me out for a while, and don't let anybody but you—or Ariel—in to see me." She raised a hand and pointed at the three, including Martin. "You are my friends," she said.

"It's a very weak signal," Hakim said. He unveiled the analysis for Hans, Harpal, and Martin, all gathered in the Dawn Treader'snose. "With our remotes out, we could have picked it up months ago… Maybe even when we were orbiting Wormwood. But we weren't focusing in this direction…"