And just as suddenly, he realized how much Jimmy must have hated playing the game of high-stakes threats with Tomas Nau. He didn't have the scheming talent for such things, and in the end he had simply miscalculated. All the guy really wanted to do was marry Tsufe Do and get into middle management.It doesn't make sense. Vinh was suddenly aware of the darkness around him, the sounds of butterflies sleeping in the trees. The damp of the moss was chill through his shirt and pants. He tried to remember exactly what he'd heard over the auditorium speakers. The voice was Jimmy's, no doubt. The accent was precisely his Diem-family Nese. But the tone, the choice of words, those had been so confident, so arrogant, so...almostjoyful. Jimmy Diem could never have faked that enthusiasm. And Jimmy would never have felt such enthusiasm, either.

And that left only one conclusion. Faking Jimmy's voice and accent would have been difficult, but somehow they had done it. And so what else had been a lie?Jimmy didn't kill anyone. The senior Qeng Ho had been murdered before Jimmy and Tsufe and Pham Patil ever went aboard theFar Treasure. Tomas Nau had committed murders on top of murders to claim his moral high ground.Explain Focus to your people, and do it sothey can accept it, so what is left of our missions can survive.

Vinh stared up into the last light in the sky. Stars glinted here and there between the branches, a fake heaven from a sky light-years away. He heard Pham Trinli shift. He patted Ezr awkwardly on the shoulder, and his lanky form floated off the ground. "Good, you're not bawling anymore. I figured you just needed a little backbone. Just remember, you gotta go along to get along. Nau is basically a softy; we can handle him."

Ezr was trembling, a growl of rage climbing up his throat. He caught the growl, made it a sobbing sound, made his trembling anger an exhausted quavering. "Y-yes. We've got to go along."

"Good man." Trinli patted him on the shoulder again, then turned to find his way back through the treetops. Ezr remembered Ritser Brughel's description of Trinli after the Relight. The old man was immune to Tomas Nau's moral manipulation. But that didn't matter, because Trinli was also a self-deceiving coward.You gotta go along to get along.

One Jimmy Diem was worth any number of Pham Trinlis.

Tomas Nau had maneuvered them all so cleverly. He had stolen the minds of Trixia and hundreds of others. He had murdered all those who might have made a difference. And he hadused those murders to make the rest of them into his willing tools.

Ezr stared up at the false stars, at the tree branches that curved like claws across the sky.Maybe it's possible to push someone too far, to breakhim so he can't bea tool anymore. Staring up at the dark claws all around him, Vinh felt his mind spin off in separate directions. One part watched passively, marveling that such disintegration could happen to Ezr Vinh. Another part drew in on itself, drowned in pools of sorrow; Sum Dotran would never return, nor S.J. Park, and any promise of reversing Trixia's Focus must surely be a lie. But there was a third fragment, cool and analytical and murderous:

For both Qeng Ho and Emergents, the Exile would last for decades. Much of that time would be spent off-Watch, in coldsleep...but they still had years stretching before them. And Tomas Nau needed all the survivors. For now, the Qeng Ho were beaten down, raped, and—so Tomas Nau must be led to think—deceived. The cool one within him, the one who could kill, looked out upon that future with grim intent. This was not the life that Ezr Vinh had ever dreamed would be his. There would be no friends he could safely confide in. There would be enemies and fools all around. He watched Trinli's light vanish at the entrance to the park. Fools like Pham Trinli could be used. As long as it didn't implicate competent Qeng Ho, Trinli was a sacrifice piece in the game. Tomas Nau had set him a role for life, and his greatest reward might be nothing more than revenge. (But maybe a chance, the original watcher tried to say, maybe a chance that Reynolt wasn't lying about Trixia and the reversability of Focus.)

The cool one took a last long look down the years of patient work that lay ahead...and then for the moment, it retired. Surely there were cameras watching. Better not to seem too calm after all that had happened. Vinh curled in upon himself and surrendered to the one who could weep.

FOURTEEN

Only the most literal-minded would dispute the saying "New sun, new world." It's true, the core of the planet is surely unchanged by the New Sun, and the continental outlines are mostly the same. But the steam-storms of the first year of the sun scour back the dry wreckage of all previous surface life. Forests and jungles, prairies and swamps, all must start again. Of Spiderkind's surface works, only stone buildings in protected valleys may survive.

Spore-borne life spreads quickly, torn apart in the storms to sprout again and again. In the first years, higher animals may poke their snouts from deepnesses, may try to gain advantage with an early taking of territory, but it is a deadly business. The "birth of the new world" is so violent that the metaphor is strained.

...And yet, after the third or fourth year, there are occasional breaks in the storms. Avalanches and steam surges become rare, and plants can survive from year to year. In the winter season, when the winds have gentled and there is a gap between the storms, there are times when one can look out at the land and imagine this phase of the sun as an exuberance of life.

Pride of Accord was once more complete, a grander highway than ever it had been before. Victory Smith had the sports car up past sixty miles per hour on the straightaway, slowing to just under thirty when they entered a switchback. From his perch in the back, Hrunkner Unnerby had heart-stopping views of each new precipice. He held on to his perch with every hand and foot. Except for that terrorized embrace, he was sure the last turn would have flung him out the side of the auto.

"Are you sure you wouldn't rather have me drive, ma'am?" He asked.

Smith laughed. "And me sit back where you are? No way. I know how scary it is to watch from the back perch."

Sherkaner Underhill tilted his head out the side window. "Um, I never realized how exciting this ride was for passengers."

"Okay, I get the message." Smith slowed, drove more cautiously than any of them might have done alone. In fact, road conditions were excellent. The storm had been blown away by a hot, compressional wind, leaving the concrete surface dry and clear. In another hour, they would be back in the soup. Their mountain route scraped just under ragged, fast-moving clouds, and the lands to the south were dark with the haze of rain. The view was about as open as it ever got along Pride of Accord. The forest was just two years old, hard-barked cones sprouting tear-away leaves. Most of the treelets were scarcely a yard tall, though here and there a sproutling or a softbush might reach six or ten feet. The green stretched for miles, interrupted here and there by the brown of avalanches or the spray of waterfalls. In this phase of the sun, the Westermost Forest was like God's own lawn and from almost every point on the Pride, the travelers could see down to the ocean.

Hrunkner relaxed the grip on his perch a fraction. Behind them, he could see Smith's security detail appear around the last switchback. For most of the trip, the escort had had no trouble staying close. For one thing, the storm and rain had kept Victory to very low speeds. Now they were scrambling, and Hrunkner wouldn't blame them if they were steamed. Unfortunately, their commanding officer was about the only person they could complain to, and that was Victory Smith. Smith wore the uniform of a major in the Accord Quartermaster Corps. The branch wasn't quite a lie, since Intelligence was construed as a branch of Quartermaster whenever convenient. But Smith was no major. Unnerby had been out of the service for four years, but he still had his old drinking buddies...and he knew just how the Great War had finally been won: if Victory Smith was not the new chief of Accord Intelligence, Unnerby would be enormously surprised.