The link to Sellars still blew nothing into her ear but the ghosts of electrons, the phantom voices of quanta. She tried to imagine a life spent that way, a life spent listening to a void like that, not even knowing that you were human. That it should be her son—that she, of all the mothers who had ever lived, should have been singled out for such horror. . . .

The light had changed. Through the cracks between her fingers Olga saw a spill of blue, the broad black band of a moving shadow. Her heart flip-flopped, threatened to stop entirely.

Did Sellars bring him here? After all? It was only a instant's thought as she turned, a flare of panic and hope that she knew was ridiculous, but it made the immense, dripping thing shuffling toward her all the more incomprehensible.

"Heh-woh." It smiled, showing its big teeth. "Heh-woh, wih-uh way-ee."

The words came out in a gargling slur—the fat man's massive jaws did not seem to be working properly. He trailed fiberlink and medical cables like some deep-sea monster twined in kelp. The mounds of his pale skin were slick with some shiny, fluorescent grease.

Behind him, the lid of his black sarcophagus stood open. On the far side of Jongleur's huge central pod another lid was also up. Bony hands scrabbled at the rim as whoever or whatever was inside tried to climb out.

The fat man took another dragging step, raising a huge, meaty arm. Olga stumbled backward. He was slow but getting faster. Even in the somber light she could see slimy footprints on the carpet behind him like the track of a monstrous snail. "Non't wun away," he said. His speech was improving, but not much. "We've min in vose muckets a wong, wong nime. We've min missing owah vun. Vinney? Wheah ah you?"

Another figure now stood upright in the other pod—a naked man, painfully thin, but much more normal-looking. He turned and stared blearily at the fat man. "I g–g–gan't zee . . ." the thin man complained. "Where . . . my . . . glazzez. . . ?"

The fat man laughed. A smear of blue froth gleamed on his lips and chin. "Non't worry, Vinney—you ahways worry noo much. Yoo woahn neen 'em. I'll hoad her nown, you noo . . . you do . . . whatever you wanna do. . . ."

Olga turned and ran across the carpet.

She reached the elevator in moments but the door was closed. She screamed for Ramsey and his agent friend, then remembered she had turned off his line so she could listen for Sellars' return.

"Ramsey!" she said when she had activated it. "Open the elevator door!"

"It's coming," he shouted, as frightened as she was. "I sent it already. I've been screaming at you! You didn't hear me!"

The elevator hissed open. She jumped in and waved her hand over the door-closing sensor. The two men were lurching toward her across the carpet, the fat man waving his hands in the air, roaring gleefully. "Come back! Come back, little lady! We just want to have some fun!"

"This elevator will only take you down to the security station," Ramsey warned her as the door finally slid shut. "Then you'll have to change to another that descends to the lobby. At least I think so—is that right, Beezle?"

"Far as I know, but who pays attention to me?" said the cartoon voice.

Something smashed against the door of the elevator so hard Olga saw the metal doors flex inward a little.

"Up," she said. "Up!"

"What are you talking about? There's only one floor above you. You'll be trapped. . . !"

"I'm not going down. Fine, then, I will do it myself." She waved her badge and touched the up light, but the car didn't move.

"It needs a special clearance, remember?" Ramsey said. "Beezle had to work hard on that one."

"Just do it," she begged. Another smashing blow wrinkled the door in half an inch. She could hear the fat man outside shouting unpleasant invitations. "Do it, for the love of God!"

"You got it, lady," said Beezle. The elevator began to rise.

"Even with all those trees, that crazy forest, you can't hide up there for long, Olga," Ramsey told her. "I don't get it."

"I won't need to hide very long," she said.

Sam could only stare down into the gulf as the thing with the dead eyes and gleaming teeth rose toward them. Her chest was frozen with terror, a slab of ice where her heart and guts should be. She had watched helplessly as Paul Jonas was burned and cast down. She was too frightened even to cry out.

On the ledge beside her Martine breathed in short, painful gulps like a woman giving birth. Orlando was holding the blind woman's head. Florimel, T4b, and the others were all silent with shock and helpless anguish. A whirl of tiny shadows settled on Orlando and a few made their way onto Sam.

"It coming, Freddicks," something whispered miserably. She could feel the little monkey fingers pulling at her hair, trying to find a good hold. "Gotta get out of this place!"

"Nowhere to go," she said.

Martine gasped and sat up, eyes wide but unfocused. "I feel it! The Other—it is horrible! It has no body—it is only a brain, a huge brain!"

Sam reached back and took her hand, trying not to scream as Martine squeezed her fingers until she felt the bones would crack.

Won't matter long, Sam told herself. She felt Orlando take her other hand. The grinning shadow-shape drifted up toward them like a black leaf on a warm, lazy wind.

"They did not bother to keep a body," Sellars' voice sighed from a million miles away. Cho-Cho's mouth was barely moving now. "Easier . . . just to keep . . . the brain itself." The voice grew ever more distant, a fading signal. "Engineered cells replicating . . . to replace . . . dying . . . miscalculated . . . it filled the . . . satellite."

Martine's breathing sped again, a chain of rasping grunts that did not sound like anything human. The shadow floated up.

"Bye-bye," Sam said—not to anyone, even Orlando. Perhaps to herself. "Over," she whispered. "I'm sorry."

The moon had faded to a shadow of white in the sky. Even the brilliant desert stars were all but gone. Renie held !Xabbu's head in her lap. He was barely conscious, his breathing a low, vibrating rasp like nothing she had heard. Even after he had stopped speaking aloud his hands had traced the shapes of string-figures for long minutes. Now they no longer moved.

"Don't leave me, !Xabbu. Not after all this. I don't want you to go first."

Something flickered. She looked down, blearily certain that the bottom of the pit was even farther away than it had been. Light gleamed again.

The river was beginning to glow.

The faint sparkles of light began to thicken, became streaks that sent flaring, rippling light all along the sides of the pit, but the shadowy child-shape beside the river did not move or even open its eyes. Only when the whole of the watercourse was ablaze with coruscating brilliance did the small figure stir and raise its head.

Two little children, a girl and a boy, stood in the middle of the river as though they had walked there along the surface of the water. Renie had never seen them before, or at least she did not recognize them: the light surged and leaped so brightly around them that they almost disappeared in the glare of cold fire.

The little girl held out her hand to the huddled shape.

She looked like a dream-creature, but her voice was shaky, the words those of a real and frightened child. "Come with us. It's okay. You can."

The shadow-child looked at the ones bathed in light. It did not say anything, did not even shake its head, but the river suddenly leaped higher, rose to breast-high on the two children. They did not move, but Renie could see their eyes open wide.

"No, don't be afraid," the little girl said. "We came to take you to your mommy."