A trashed system would do him no good, however. Dread needed to know how far he could go, and also whether there were any alternatives in place, just in case he pushed the operating system too far and the whole thing collapsed. He might have tired of virtual destruction, but the Grail network was still the ultimate country without extradition. Even if his other plans went awry, he could always disappear into the Grail worlds, spend the rest of eternity there, just as Jongleur and his cronies had planned to do. At least, he could if Jongleur's immortality program really worked. He himself had interfered with its first moment of truth by his attack on the operating system, but it would be instructional to find and examine the Brotherhood's Ricardo Klement, who seemed to have been the only one actually to survive the process.

So the virtual universe still had its attractions—not least of which was the knowledge that his former companions, little blind Martine and the Sulaweyo woman and the rest, still hid from him there, awaiting capture and suitable punishment.

But the powers of Jongleur's worldwide corporate holdings and the Grail operating system's nearly limitless ability to manipulate information now presented an even larger field of opportunity. How would it feel to start a war, simply to amuse himself.? Force a great city to evacuate in the face of a biological weapon release? Bomb the great monuments of the world?

And as for his own particular urges, why not indulge them as well? There were several small, troubled nation-states in Africa and Asia where he could use Jongleur's power and money to buy himself a hundred thousand acres and total privacy. He could arrange for women to be brought there in any quantity he wanted—the bride-markets of the Indian subcontinent alone could serve everything except his need for variety.

The thought was so pleasurable that Dread actually squirmed a little in his column of semisolid air. I could just fence the perimeter and then let them go. A free-range hunting preserve, all mine.

The little stabs of musical misery washed over him. The godlike feeling had returned—in a weaker mind and spirit it might have seemed like madness, but Dread knew better. There was no one like him. No one.

And, as a god should, even when he soared to the outer limits of his own glory, he did not forget the little things.

Dulcie. So after I get her to finish the operating system research, shall I take her on a little camping trip out to the Bush? He considered this for a moment, lazily, until a mote of irritation fluttered up. But I didn't plan for it, and I let her arrive in a taxi. There's probably a record. If it looks like murder, there will be questions, and no matter how many layers there are between me and the lease on this place, I still don't need that kind of aggro, do I? Not now. So it will have to look like an accident.

Which doesn't mean I can't have fun with her first.

He decided to give his employee forty-eight hours to complete her work. Then, seized by a magnanimous urge, upped it to seventy-two.

Three days. Then some terrible thing will happen to the poor tourist girl from New York.

It would be fun deciding how it would happen, when he could pull himself away from the pressing business of the prisoners from the Circle and a few other projects within the network. But he would leave some of it to the final moment, of course—let it be spontaneous.

Otherwise, where was the art?

NETFEED/NEWS: Another Killing Mars Utah Peace

(visual: wreckage of Eltrim car, Salt Lake City, Utah)

VO: The car-bombing that ended the life of Joachim Eltrim, an attorney who worked for the mayor of Salt Lake City, also threatens to end the shaky peace established between the state of Utah and the radical Mormon separatist group known as the Deseret Covenant. The mayor's office and the Salt Lake City police say the finger of suspicion points straight at the separatists, who have denied responsibility.

(visual: Deseret spokesman Edgar Riley)

RILEY: "I'm not saying there aren't a lot of our people who want Eltrim and all other interfering, treacherous lawyers like him dead, I'm just saying we didn't have anything to do with it. . . ."

The bramble-choked streets of More Very Bush were alive with pale, skittering shapes. Even seeing them from of the middle of the stone bridge, Renie felt such powerful terror and disgust wash over her that she swayed and almost tumbled into the swiftly moving river.

"I . . . have to go there," Renie said, although everything in her screamed otherwise. "The strangers that are trapped—those might be my friends."

The Stone Girl could only sob and hide her face behind her stubby hands.

It was like the Jinnears on the hillside all over again—worse, because of the sheer numbers of the things. Only the knowledge that !Xabbu and the rest might be in that tower near the center of town, under siege by the ugly things swarming like giant termites, kept her standing. That and the little girl kneeling on the stone beside her, who was clearly even more frightened than she was.

"I can't leave you here," Renie told her. "And I can't go away and leave my friends by themselves. Can you make it back across on your own?" The Stone Girl's shoulders heaved. Renie reached down to lay her hand on the girl's back. "I promise I'll wait until I see you make it to the riverbank."

"I can't!" the Stone Girl wailed. "I said the King's Daughter words! I can't go back."

So many incomprehensible rules! It seemed pretty obvious by now that teaching fairy tales to an AI might not be the most efficient way to program it. "But if we can't go back, we have to go on," Renie said as gently as she could, hiding her own terror for the child's sake. "We have to."

The Stone Girl could not stop crying. Renie looked up at the darkening sky. "Come on." She tugged at the girl's arm, trying desperately to remember what she used to do when she couldn't get Stephen to move. "Just . . . just do what I do. I'm going to sing a song. You just do what I do every time I sing a verse, okay? Just watch and step when I step, okay?" God knows, it ought to be a nursery rhyme, she thought, but could not for the life of her summon anything suitable. Desperate, she snatched at the first tune that came to her mind, the theme from some Asian game show her mother had liked to watch:

"If you are a know-it-all,"

she chanted,

"Come on down to Sprootie Hall. . . .

"Yes, you can do it," she encouraged the Stone Girl. "See, just keep moving, like this." She sang slowly, emphasizing the beats, "If you are a know-it-all. . . ."

The little girl finally looked up, face full of misery . . . and something else. She was silently begging Renie, in the way children did, to be right. To make the impossible happen. To make all the little lies true.

Renie swallowed hard and started again.

"If you are a know-it-all,

Come on down to Sprootie Hall!

Can you survive the Knowledge Kniche?

Then you will soon be Sprootie Rich!"

Slowly, as though she waded through air as viscous as melted caramel, the Stone Girl matched her steps to Renie's cracked, almost tuneless singing.

"If you have a thirst for cash,

Come on down and have a bash!

If your brain is extra healthy,

You will soon be Sprootie Wealthy!

Eduformative!

Infotacular!

Sprootie Smart is brainiacular. . . !"

She sang it through six more times to get them across the bridge, getting more and more quiet as they neared the last stone pier, even though the nearest of the pale things was still a hundred meters away and had shown no sign of interest. Renie scrambled down onto the grassy bank and reached up to take the Stone Girl's small, cool hands and let her swing down. It was only when the girl had landed beside her that Renie saw that the child's eyes were pinched tightly shut with fright.