'Tell me,' Val said, 'tell me, and don't flatter us, if what you have just said is true.'
Mischa wondered why Val was asking for reassurance, whether she needed justification for what she had led the others to do, whether she needed reinforcement for self-confidence or a strengthening of new reactions toward the people of Center. 'It's true,' Mischa said. She could not explain the differences between Center and the deep underground; it seemed to her that independence and initiative had disappeared from the city: that people ran in gangs or lived in families and used the ties to steal from or hurt each other; or that they lived all alone, in fear. 'It's true,' she said. 'It's like Center is killing itself and eating itself, but you're still alive.'
Subtwo passed Mischa, ignoring her, ignoring Val, dully approaching his people, looking from one tired face to another, holding himself stiffly so he would not sway and touch their filthy clothes. He paused at each stretcher, gazing briefly at the faces, until he came to the last, which was covered. Hesitating, he seemed to draw on some unfamiliar inner strength, even
hope; he pulled aside the corner of the blanket.
Mischa recognized Draco, his chin smeared with dry blood. Subtwo, with anger and relief and disappointment in his expression, turned on them.
'Draco is dead. Have you killed Subone as well?'
Val faced him. A chill prickled across the back of Mischa's neck, along her spine: archaic reaction to Subtwo's tone and to the sight of the hair at the base of Val's neck standing straight up. 'We killed no one,' Val said, her tone low.
Wordlessly, Subtwo motioned toward the stretcher.
'He has no wound from us. He breathed glass dust, like these others he was guarding.'
'So you killed him.'
Val said, very quietly, 'He was already dead.'
Subtwo took a deep, audible breath. 'And Subone?'
'If he was in the underground, he is still there.'
Subtwo looked over his shoulder, back at the long, dark tunnel. 'He was to wait for me to return. He will not know where to go.'
'You wandered around down there for him,' Mischa said, irritated. 'Let him wander around for you. He'll probably even find his way back.'
'He always. needed me.'
'He doesn't need you anymore! How often are you going to let him make a fool of you?'
Subtwo did not answer and Mischa did not push him any more. 'Val,' she said, 'Jan and I made a deal with Subtwo. We're leaving earth. Will you come with us?'
'No.'
Crab gripped Mischa's hand, sad-feeling, understanding that she was going away. Mischa knelt beside him.
'You don't have to say good-bye quite yet,' Val said to them. 'It's dark in Center now. We'll come a little farther.'
'Mischa, come!'
Mischa cringed, physically, at the shock of Gemmi's intrusion into her mind. No, Mischa thought, no, not now, all I needed was a few more hours . But Gemmi did not understand, she never understood; she pulled and called Mischa more vigorously, frightened by her resistance. Crab felt her
too, and crouched down surprised, gripping Mischa's hand so tightly it hurt.
Subtwo was a double image before her. For an instant, Mischa thought that Subone had magically arrived and would convince Subtwo again that she and Jan had to be murdered. Her vision cleared. The group passed her and Mischa followed, nearly staggering, Crab creeping along beside her.
Jan dropped back. 'What's wrong?'
She stared at him blankly.
'Mischa, come!' Gemmi bubbled through her mind, a brook, a stream, a flooded river. Mischa squeezed her eyes shut. When she opened them again Jan seemed to have moved away, two Jans staring at her, eight Jans reaching for her, and Mischa was looking at the world through a clear, faceted jewel that split and spread and altered light and images. Then, with every step she took toward him, the images clicked back to half their number, a quarter, an eighth, and Jan stood beside her all alone.
'It's Gemmi,' Mischa whispered, 'it's Gemmi, she's calling me, they'll never let me go.'
'We're almost there,' Jan said. 'She won't be able to follow you off earth—'
'I don't know. she never gets any weaker.'
'You've never been able to get very far away,' Jan said. 'Try, Mischa. Hold on just a little longer.'
'All. right.'
Jan put his arm around her shoulders, supporting her physically and with his deep, calm presence.
But she knew she would never get away; she had never really had a chance, not for all her dreams, for all her defiance. She saw Val and Simon and the others watching her curiously and with concern, but they were all very far off and could not reach or help her. Gemmi sensed that Mischa was not coming toward her, and she began to shriek and scream. Every step Mischa took seemed to be through quicksand, in which she would drown if she faltered or fell. She felt tears streaming down her face; she could hear nothing. The world blurred and spun. She pulled away from Jan; her knees and her palms hit stone. 'I've tried to fight them before,' she said. 'Don't you think. I've tried. ?' She spread her hands flat on the hard rock. 'I can't come,' she whispered. 'Not now.' She heard Jan's voice, and Val's, and even Simon's, explaining, arguing, discussing, and finally Subtwo said, 'She must be let go, or she will go mad instead,' and Mischa thought that he alone might understand how strongly she was being commanded.
She heard a loud crack, like something breaking or rocks falling a great distance, and everyone but Gemmi receded. She tried to get up; she thought they were leaving her.
She felt Crab's mind touch hers, and she fought even him. He pushed her identity to the edge of her brain. She could not spare the concentration to understand him. He was standing by her head, holding both her hands, sending little tendrils of thought toward her like bits of spiderweb. Gemmi felt Crab too, and drew back in fear of the never-before-encountered. But Crab lured her gently out again with the convolutions and precipices of his consciousness. For a long, long time, they stayed that way, Mischa watching half-insensible as Crab and Gemmi played. Mischa thought she heard a ship take off: she thought Jan had left and Val had gone back to the deep underground; Chris was dead, and she was all alone again, except for Crab and Gemmi, forever. 'It isn't fair!' she cried to them, enraged. 'Crab, I thought we were friends!' And suddenly he seemed to understand what all this meant to her, with an implosion of intuition that allowed him to untangle, for a split-second, the confused sensations of his mind. Mischa felt him draw on the power of her fury and reach out—as if his spirit were shaped like his body, with sharp claws—and pull her with him until she could see Gemmi more clearly than she ever had or wished to; in that split-second Mischa could see all that Gemmi could see: a mosaic of every consciousness in Center. But neither she nor Crab could stand it; they drew back, and the total melding was over. But Crab stayed near Gemmi; Mischa saw what he was searching for and pointed it out. He reached for it. 'Wait, no,' Mischa said. 'That one first.' He reached through a maze of connections and snapped a single thread.
Gemmi's pain vanished with the destroyed synapse. For the first time in her life, she did not hurt: her body could no longer hurt her, nor could the ugliness she could not shut away.
Crab cut the second synapse, and Gemmi disappeared.
Mischa sat up slowly, shaking her head. Expecting to see a bare corridor, and Crab, and no one else, she was astonished that everyone was still there, standing in a circle around her.
'How long. ?'
'Ten seconds, maybe,' Jan said.
'I thought you had all gone. It seemed like days.'
Jan knelt down beside her and brushed the hair from her forehead with his fingertips.
'She's gone,' Mischa said.
'Crab wouldn't let us near you.'
Crab clicked his claws together and Mischa remembered the loud snap: his sound of warning. 'We did something to Gemmi's mind,' Mischa said. 'She can watch and see, but she can't call anymore. And she can't be hurt.' She shuddered, and Crab squeezed close against her side. She could feel his amazement at what he had
