They had brought a little of home with them, murky lighting, odd furnishings, the smell that was mostly just of themselves, a chill to the air. Their only concession to her comfort was humanlike appearance. Jo realized she'd never seen them in their true shape.

Those who carry wickedness across the Web, who have made themselves the enemies of my people, which has not known violence since before yours evolved, have begun to move in more dangerous directions. They have found new weapons.

Jo pictured the Outsiders armed with Hellspinners. She did not take into account the imprecision with which her brain rendered what it received. She rubbed the tears away, tried to breathe shallowly. That did no good.

Time is a luxury no more, Jo Klass. They are planning moves. They are sufficiently pressed that they are not discussing those moves across the Web. They are afraid. Those who fear are doubly dangerous, and those who serve them nurture their fears, for they have a broader investment in their philosophical symbiosis.

"Wait a minute. Those methane breathers can read each other's thoughts clear across the Web?"

Yes.

"And your people can tap into that? And you never told us?" Maybe Seeker had, she reflected, back when he'd had his first interview with WarAvocat. The implication had been there.

We are old as a species and as individuals. Our young are rare and precious, as is our solitude. Once we had our hour on the galactic stage, our time of exploration and adventure, but ages ago we turned away and returned home to contemplate what we had learned. We knew the Web well. It continued to be a source of news. We let the players on the galactic stage be. Most have been perceptive enough not to trouble the aged. Till your kind sprang up here and there, inexplicably, like fungi, and as often as not faded as quickly.

You excited a small, renewed outward interest because you were so absurd.

You came from nowhere, headed nowhere. You do not have one unique quality but the qualities you do have exist in paradoxical juxtaposition. You are capable of rejecting the evidence of science and reason in order to believe the impossible, yet you are so curious about hows and whys that you keep picking at a scab concealing a secret even knowing that it will devour you. You are lawless, predatory, capable of eating your own young in the search for profit, yet you created something unprecedentedly lawful in the Guardship fleet. That is flawed, skewed, even internally aberrant, but it is evolving toward what it should be. At the moment the messengers of shadow believe the Guardships are invincible. But soon they will be shown the truth.

I must find your WarAvocat and make him see. Amber Soul and I must make available the wisdom of our kind while the Guardships remain capable of becoming what they should be.

Jo did not know if something was getting lost or if she was just stupid. That had been Seeker's longest and most revelatory communication ever and, she suspected, his most carefully rehearsed, but she did not think she had gotten the true sense of what he wanted to convey. She sensed his disappointment. She said, "If it's that critical why waste time looking for VII Gemina? Go to Starbase."

The warning must be presented to someone with the capacity, even the inclination, to listen. Will I find such a person at Starbase?

"Probably not."

Then we must find the man who will listen. There is not much time. You must tell the other one.

What she had expected. Telling them to get their butts in gear. "I will."

When AnyKaat came back, Jo figured it would be just to gather whatever she wanted to take with her. She went to the lounge to make up her mind if she would put herself through a farewell scene or just let it slide.

She had a drink. It did not help. She concocted another with twice the firepower, but then just sat there nursing it.

"There you are. I thought you'd disappeared."

The moment had come. But AnyKaat did not look like she was going anywhere. Looked ragged as hell, in fact. "Hi." Glumly. "Got a message for you from Seeker."

"He wants to get moving. Don't take much genius to guess that." She sat down.

"You got it. How'd it go?"

"It didn't. Jo, I can't talk to my own mother. She doesn't have the slightest idea what I'm telling her. The things she tells me all seem shallow and trivial after Merod Schene. And my son doesn't know who the hell I am and doesn't trust me enough to want to find out. My old friends are scared of me. Degas's people aren't the least bit shy about telling me it's all my fault he isn't here. Era's people aren't talking at all. The department is in a tizzy because the back pay they owe us, with the interest setup we had, will screw the budget for a couple of years. They wrote us off and stopped figuring us in. Not to mention what my accrued seniority might mean if I get plugged back into the system."

Jo mixed her one of her favorites. "Chew on this."

AnyKaat took a gulp. "I would've been better off if we hadn't gotten off V. Rothica 4. Hell. Everybody would have been better off. They wouldn't all hate me for turning up alive and making them feel guilty about how they feel."

Jo grunted. She could not think of anything to say to that.

"It hurts, Jo. Even when you understand what's going on. All that time hanging onto a thread, and here wasn't here anymore when I got here."

"I know. I've been through it. And it's all I have looking at me when I catch VII Gemina."

AnyKaat fiddled with things not there. "So how do you cope with it?"

"I don't know. After a while we just avoid attachments and commitments. We put everything into being a good soldier."

AnyKaat closed her eyes, expression momentarily surprised. Jo suspected she had realized that a certain Guardship soldier had formed an attachment despite herself. She hoped AnyKaat would not want to talk about it. That was when things got strange and scary and misinterpreted and turned into things they were not.

"I told Otten we were pulling out on the tenth. That's about as long as Seeker will be patient. He's real worried."

AnyKaat took the offered escape hatch. "How come?"

"I don't know. He don't always make sense even when Amber Soul helps him try."

"She's weird. She gives me the creeps."

"She gives herself the creeps. She's lived through what you're suffering right now, a hundred times worse."

"Yeah." AnyKaat reached across, touched the back of Jo's hand. "Thanks, Jo."

"Hunh? What?"

"Nothing. I got to check some things out."

Jo watched her leave, puzzled.

AnyKaat was aboard Dawn Watch when the Traveler undocked. Her face was puffy from crying. She could not forget all she had chosen to leave behind, though she had lost it long ago. Jo left her alone.

Jo did not think she could have walked away rather than cling to the edges of the once known....

Seeker had a vague notion where to start looking, almost two months of hard running beyond the Rim. The crew did not argue. However they were being paid, it was enough to make them bite down on their fear.

With unavoidable stops, misnavigations, and evasions, four months elapsed before Dawn Watch reached its destination. VII Gemina was not there. There was nothing in that system but the leavings of an old skirmish the defenders had not won. Seeker would have to continue spying on the methane breathers till he extracted a hint where to move next.