“—a task one of your colleagues has been working on, down at the place I mentioned, for several weeks now—”

One of my colleagues? Sara blinked. She had seen Bonner and Taine, a few days ago, at Biblos. Plovov was at Gathering. Then who…?

One name came to mind.

Purofsky the astronomer? Down at Mount Guenn? Doing what, in the Egg’s name?

“—a task which seems to cry out for your expertise, if I might be so bold.”

She shook her head. “That — place — is all the way beyond the Great Swamp, past the desert and the Spectral Flow! Or else you must take the long way around by river and then by sea—”

“We know a shortcut,” Kurt put in, absurdly.

“—and just a while ago we were plotting a mad dash just to reach the nearest village, as if it were as hopeless as a journey to a moon!”

“I never said it would be easy.” Kurt sighed. “Look, all I want to know right now is this. If I could convince you it was possible, would you come?”

Sara bit back her initial reply. Kurt had already pulled miracle powers and god-machines out of that satchel of his. Did he also have a magic carpet in there? Or a fabled antigravity sled? Or a gossamer-winged glider to catch the offshore wind and loft them to a distant mountain of fire?

“I can’t waste time talking nonsense.” She stood up, worried about the Stranger. It was getting dark fast, and though Ulgor had fled to the northwest, there was no guarantee she would not circle around to seek and surprise the man from space. “I’m going to go look—”

A scream interrupted, making her jump. A shrill ululation of surprise and outrage that warbled melodically, almost like a snatch of frantic song, rebounding off the rocks so many times that their bruised ears could not pin down where it came from. Sara’s back shivered with empathic terror at the awful sound.

Prity snatched up one of the long urrish knives and stepped closer to the nervous prisoners. Jomah fondled the smallest of the desert hunters’ bows, nocking an arrow against the string. Sara flexed her hands, knowing that a weapon should be in them, but the thought of holding one felt obscene. She could not bring herself to do it.

A character flaw, she admitted, a bit dazedly. One I shouldn’t pass on to kids. Not if we’re headed into an age of violence and “heroes.”

Tension built as the wail intensified. An eerie howl that seemed one part pain, one part despair, and eight parts humiliation, as if death would be preferable to whatever the screamer was going through. It grew louder and more frenzied with each passing dura, causing the prisoners to crowd together, peering anxiously into the gloom.

Then another sound joined, in basso counterpoint. A rapid, unrhythmic thumping that made the ground tremble like an approaching machine.

Kurt cocked the pistol, holding it in front of him.

Suddenly, a shadow took form at the western fringe of firelight. A monstrous shape, slanted and heavy, protruding forward at a rising angle, leading with an appendage that flailed and thrashed like a cluster of waving arms and legs. Sara gasped and stepped back.

A moment later it resolved itself, and she let out a shuddering sigh, recognizing Ulgor as the protrusion, moaning in distress and shame, held up in the air by the adamant embrace of two armored, pincer-equipped, chitinous arms.

Qheuenish arms. The remaining three out of five stumbled forward clumsily, fighting for balance as the writhing urs fought to break free.

“Resistance is useless,” a scratchy but familiar voice whistled from two leg-vents, a voice dry with the same caked dust that fooled Sara at first, into thinking the armor was slate gray. Only near the fire did a hint of the true shade of blue glimmer through.

“Hello f-f-folks,” croaked Blade, son of Log Biter of Dolo Dam. “Could anybody s-s-spare a drink of water?”

The night was clear, windy, and extremely cold for this time of year. They nursed their fuel supply for the fire and draped fragments of the shredded tent over huddled groups of captives, to help them retain body heat. Darkness hauled the urs — including a tightly bound Ulgor — down toward sleep, but the human insurgents muttered together under their makeshift shelter, making Sara ponder glumly what they must be scheming. Clearly they had less desire than the surviving members of UrKachu’s band to see more Urunthai arrive over the hilltops, tomorrow or the next day. If they sawed or chewed through their bindings in the darkness, what deterrence value would Kurt’s pistol hold in the event of a sudden charge?

Granted, many of the men were flash-blinded. And Blade was a comfort to have around. Even wheezing dust, and with the softer chitin of a blues he was an intimidating figure. With him present, Sara and the others might even risk taking turns trying to get some sleep.

If only we knew what’s happened to the star-man, she worried.

He’d been gone for several miduras. Even with Loocen now up to shed a wan glow across the country-side, it was all too easy to imagine the poor fellow getting lost out there.

“The gunshot helped lead me to your camp,” Blade explained once Sara and Jomah had sponged out his vents and eye circle, using up much of their precious water. “I was becoming rather desperate, unable to follow your trail in the fading light, when I heard the bang. A bit later, there was the reflection of your fire off yonder spire.”

Sara looked up. A flicker did seem to dance across the tall stone tower. Perhaps it would guide the Stranger home.

“Imagine my surprise, though, when someone came running forth to greet me!” Blade chuckled out three vents. “Of course, my shock was nothing like Ulgor’s when she saw me!”

The qheuen’s tale was simple, if valiant. He had waited underwater, back at Uryutta’s Oasis, until UrKachu’s fast group departed, followed by the slower expedition of captives and booty. Blade spent the time contemplating his options. Should he strike out for Crossroads or some other settlement? Or else try to follow and give help when help might do the most good? Either decision would mean dehydration and pain-not to mention danger. Sara noticed that Blade never mentioned a third option: to wait at the oasis until someone came along. Perhaps it never occurred to him.

“One thing I didn’t expect — to find you four in charge, having overcome both groups all by yourselves! It appears you never needed rescue, after all.”

Jomah laughed from atop Blade’s carapace, where he was sponging off the qheuen’s scent-slits. The boy hugged his blue cupola. “You saved the day!”

Sara nodded. “You’re the biggest hero of all, dear, dear friend.”

There seemed no more to say after that. Or else, everyone was too tired for more words. They watched the flames in silence for a while. At one point Sara stared at Loocen, observing the bright, reflected-sunlight twinkle of abandoned Buyur cities, those enduring reminders of the might and glory that once filled this solar system and that would again, someday.

We sooners are like Jijo’s dreams, she thought. Ghostlike wraiths who leave no trace when we are gone. Passing fantasies, while this patch of creation rests and makes ready for the next phase of achievement by some godlike race.

It was not a comforting contemplation. Sara did not wish to be a dream. She wanted what she did and thought in life to matter, if only as contributions to something that grew better with time, through her works, her children, her civilization. Perhaps this desire was rooted in the irreverent upbringing provided by her mother, whose offspring included a famous heretic, a legendary hunter, and a believer in crazy theories about a different kind of redemption for all of the races of the Six.