For a long time there were no more little flashes. Ezr's mind drifted slowly toward deeper sleep.

Then: "U NU BFR TNITE? DAM ME." Another long pause. "I VRY SORRY. I THOT U BROKN."

Vinh nodded to himself, a little proud. And maybe someday Qiwi would forgive him, and Trixia would return to life, and...

"OK," Ezr tapped at the Prince. "HOW MNY PEOPLE WE GOT?"

"SECRET. ONLY I KNO. EACH CAN TALK BUT NO ONE KNOS ANYONE ELSE." Pause. "TILL U TONITE."

Aha. Almost the perfect conspiracy. The members could cooperate, but no one but the Prince could betray anyone else. Things would be so much easier now.

"WELL IM VRY TIRED NOW. WANNA SLEEP. WE CAN TALK MORE LATR."

Pause. Was his request so strange? Nights are for sleeping. "OK. LATR."

As consciousness drifted finally away, Vinh shrugged deeper into his hammock and smiled to himself. He was not alone. And all along, the secret had been as close as his hand. Amazing!

The next morning, Vinh woke up rested and strangely happy. Huh. What had he done to deserve this?

He floated into the shower bag and sudsed up. Yesterday had been so dark, so shameful. Bitter reality seeped back into him, but strangely slow....Yeah, there had been a dream.That was not unusual, but most of his dreams hurt so much to remember. Vinh turned the shower to dry and hung for a moment in the swirling jets of air. What had it been about this one?

Yes! It was another of those miracle escape dreams, but this time things hadn't turned bad at the end. Nau and Brughel had not leaped out of hiding at the last moment.

So what had been the secret weapon this time? Oh, the usual illogic of dreams, some kind of magic that turned his own hands into a comm link with the chief conspirator. Pham Trinli? Ezr chuckled at the thought. Some dreams are more absurd than others; strange how he still felt comforted by this one.

He shrugged into his clothes and set off down the temp's corridors, his progress the typical zero-gee push, pull, bounce at the turns, swing to avoid those moving more slowly or going in the other direction.Pham Nuwen.Pham Trinli. There must be a billion people with that given name, and a hundred flagships namedPham Nuwen. Recollection of his library search of the night before gradually percolated back to mind, the crazy ideas he'd been thinking just before he went to bed.

But the truth about Captain Park had been no dream. By the time he arrived at the dayroom, he was moving more slowly.

Ezr drifted headfirst into the dayroom, said hello to Hunte Wen by the door. The atmosphere was relatively relaxed. He quickly discovered that Reynolt had brought her surviving Focused back online; there had been no more flareups. On the far ceiling, Pham Trinli was pontificating about what had caused the runaway and why the danger was past. This was the Pham Trinli he had dealt with several Ksecs of each wake period on every overlapping Watch since the ambush. Suddenly the dream and the library session before it were reduced to the proper and completely absurd perspective.

Trinli must have heard him talking to Hunte. The old fraud turned, and for a moment looked back down the room at Vinh. He didn't say anything, didn't nod, and even if an Emergent spy were looking right down Vinh's line of sight, it would have not likely mattered. But to Ezr Vinh, the moment seemed to last forever. In that moment, the buffoon that had been Pham Trinli was gone. There was no bluster in that face, but there was lonely, quiet authority and an acknowledgment of their strange conversation of the night before. Somehow it had not been a dream. The communication had not been magical. And this old man truly was the Lost Prince of Canberra.

TWENTY-SEVEN

"But it's firstsnow. Don't you want to see it?" Victory's voice took on a whine, a tone that worked with virtually no one except this one older brother.

"You've played in snow before."

Sure, when Daddy took them on trips to the far north. "But Brent! This is firstsnow at Princeton. The radio says it's all over the Craggies." Brent was absorbed in his dowel and hub frameworks, endless shiny surfaces that got more and more complicated. By himself, he never would have considered sneaking out of the house. He continued working at his designs for several seconds, ignoring her. Infact, that was how Brent treated the unexpected. He was quite good with his hands, but ideas came slowly to him. Beyond that he was very shy—surly, grown-ups often said. His head didn't move, but Viki could tell he was looking at her. His hands never slowed as they weaved back and forth across the surface of the model, sometimes building, sometimes wrecking. Finally, he said, "We aren't supposed to go out 'less we tell Dad."

"Pfui. You know he sleeps in. This morning is the coldest yet, but we'll miss it if we don't go now. Hey, I'll leave a note for him."

Her sister Gokna would have argued the point back and forth, finally exceeding Viki herself in clever rationalizations. Her brother Jirlib would have gotten angry at her manipulation. But Brent didn't argue, returning instead to his finicky modeling for a few minutes, part of him watching her, part of him studying the dowel and connector pattern that emerged from beneath his hands, and part of him looking out across Princeton at the tinge of frost on the near ridges. Of all her brothers and sisters, he was the one who wouldn't really want to go. On the other hand, he was the only one she could find this morning, and he was even more grown-up-looking than Jirlib.

After a few moments more, he said, "Well, okay, if that's what you want." Victory grinned to herself; as if the outcome were ever in doubt. Getting past Captain Downing would be harder—but not by much.

It was early morning. The sunlight hadn't reached the streets below Hill House. Victory savored each breath, the faint stinging she felt at the sides of her chest as she tasted the frosty air. The hot blossoms and woods-fairies were still wound tight in the tree branches; they might not even come out today. But there were other things about, things she had only read about before now. In the frost of the coldest hollows, crystal worms edged slowly out. These brave little pioneers wouldn't last long—Viki remembered the radio show she had done about them last year. These little ones would keep dying except where the cold was good enough to last all day long. And even then, things would have to get much colder before the rooted variety showed up.

Viki skipped briskly through the morning chill, easily keeping up with the slower, longer strides of her big brother. This early there was hardly anyone about. Except for the sound of distant contruction work, she could almost imagine that they were all alone, that the city was deserted. Imagine what it would be like in coming years, when the cold stayed, and they could only go out as Daddy had done in the war with the Tiefers. All the way to the bottom of the hill, Viki built on the idea, turning every aspect of the chilly morning into the fantastical. Brent listened, occasionally offering a suggestion that would have surprised most of Daddy's grown-up friends. Brent was not so dumb, and he did have an imagination.

The Craggies were thirty miles away, beyond the King's high castle, beyond the far side of Princeton. No way could they walk there. But today lots of people wanted to travel to the near mountains. Firstsnow meant a fair-sized festival in every land, though of course it happened at various and unpredictable times. Viki knew that if the early snow had been predicted, Dad would have been up early, and Mom might have flown in from Lands Command. The outing would have been a major family affair—but not the least bit adventurous.

A sort of adventure began at the bottom of the hill. Brent was sixteen years old now and he was big for his age. He could pass for in-phase. He had been out on his own often enough before. He said he knew where the express buses made their stops. Today, there were no buses, and scarcely any traffic. Had everyone already gone to the mountains?