Wasteland of flint

and warm.'

But the tent was too hot and the ground too hard. Hummingbird was snoring again, and she couldn't take the heep-snort-heep sound of his breathing. After laying in the sleepbag for an hour, too tired to remove her breather mask or even brush her teeth, Gretchen crawled out of the tent and into the mind-numbing cold again.

She climbed back up to the ultralights and made a desultory circuit, checking their tie-downs and anchors. The old Mйxica had done a fine job, each cable taut and balanced. Irritated, Gretchen walked to the edge of the mesa, stepping carefully among weathered, wind-blasted slabs and boulders.

The canyon below was entirely, impenetrably dark. Anderssen considered pitching a glowbean over the edge, just to see what might be revealed in the flickering blue-green light. The stars gleamed on her goggles, very bright and steady. The air had chilled to a supernal level of stillness, much as it did during the polar winter on Old Mars. Good place for a telescope, she thought, beginning to walk along the rim of the mesa, her back to the eastern sky. But is there anything to see out here?

Ephesus sat at the edge of one of the abyssal gulfs running through the spiral arm. There were few nearby suns, only clouds of dust, dark matter and interstellar gas. A lonely outpost on the verge of nothingness, hundreds of light years from another habitable world. Gretchen wondered, as she climbed a rough, rectangular outcropping, if the long-dead inhabitants had ever managed to pierce the envelope of air around their home world. Had satellites or orbital stations seen the valkar burst from the nothingness of hyperspace? Had anyone tried to escape? Or were the Ephesians still grubbing in the mud, trying to trap their dinner in woven nets or pit traps when the sky darkened with the killing cloud? A million years…Earth was still a raw, primitive world. Only megafauna and protohominids fighting to survive in Pliocene swamps. Did we escape a similar fate by some quirk of chance?

The thought made her feel despondent. Her heart did not easily agree with the prospect of a universe where man only lived and thrived by the fall of some random cosmic die. Gretchen realized Hummingbird's vision of a universe of frightful powers – of gods – offered a strange kind of comfort. He believes men can alter the course of fate. He believes he can divert the engines of chance. Huh.

Beyond the outcropping, a deep crevice split in the face of the mesa. I should head back…she started to remind herself, but then…what's that? A light?

Anderssen stopped and knelt down, peering over the edge into the darkness. There was a light. There were many lights, spreading in a delicate cobweb across the rock, making the ravine gleam and glitter like the stars above, a hidden galaxy of jeweled-colors and shining motes.

Like moss, a firemoss, she thought, lips quirking in a smile. Life blooming from nothing. Even here, at the edge of annihilation. Gretchen concentrated on the nearest filaments and was rewarded by a vision of delicate tendrils radiating out from a cone-shaped core. The surface seemed to glisten, though she doubted there was any kind of moisture in this system. A superconducting energy trap, maybe? I wish Sinclair and Tukhachevsky were here… They would love this. Ha! They'll be jealous when I tell them about all the things I've seen. God, I even miss that tub vodka of theirs.

A sound interrupted her delight. Gretchen looked up, surprised. A cloaked figure knelt a few meters away, silhouetted by a wash of stars, djellaba and kaffiyeh wrapped expertly around narrow shoulders. An instant of surprise was replaced by a certain sense of recognition.

'What are you?' Gretchen stood up slowly, hoping to leave the firemoss undisturbed. Flakes of rock spilled away from her gloves, falling among the thready clusters. 'You're not Russovsky, are you?'

'I am,' answered the dark outline. The voice was hoarse, rusty, as if long unused. The shape stood as well, wiry blond hair hanging loose around her shoulders. 'What are you?'

'A human being,' Gretchen said, then stopped, horrified. Hummingbird wouldn't want her to give anything away. 'A visitor.'

'Am I a human being?' Russovsky came close and Gretchen could see her pale, lean face glowing with an inner light. Stunned, Gretchen realized she was seeing the pattern of a vibrant crystalline lattice seeping through the woman's skin. 'My memories are strange. I was flying, high above the world. I was walking under the sea, among the bones of the dead.'

'Yes, yes, you were. But you are not a human being now. You are an Ephesian, like the moss.'

Russovsky looked down at the colony, her bare, unprotected face perfectly still. 'No. I am not. The hathol are an incurious people, content with their long slow lives. I am restless. I need something I do not have.'

'Everyone is restless,' Gretchen laughed softly, breath puffing white around her breather mask. 'Perhaps you are human.'

'Are you content?' Russovsky moved closer and the light within her skin grew brighter. Her eyes shone like stars themselves. 'Show me!'

Gretchen began to back away, feeling her way along the edge of the ravine. Something in the shape began to change and she felt the prickling of alarm. The voice continued to echo in her suit comm, but she realized there was no way Russovsky could make such a sound in the thin atmosphere, not without a comm link. She scrambled up and over the crest of the rocks. The figure stopped and was staring up at her. Without waiting for the shape to do something, Gretchen scrambled away as fast as she dared, heading for the tent and Hummingbird.

The Cornuelle

Mitsuharu was sitting cross-legged on the edge of his sleeping mat, a fall of snarled dark hair spread over his shoulders and chest when the comm lit up with an incoming message. An officious two-tone chime sounded, indicating a priority connection from the bridge.

'Hadeishi here,' he said, putting down an ivory-handled brush. Guiltily pleased by the interruption – he did not enjoy the tedium of brushing – the chu-sa began plaiting his traditionally long hair up in a thick braid. 'On screen.'

Comm stabilized to reveal Sho-sa Kosho sitting on the bridge. To unfamiliar eyes the exec's stiff, controlled demeanor would have revealed very little beyond an impression of cool consideration. Mitsuharu saw a certain eager excitement in the tilt of the woman's eyes and the set of her mouth. There was also a brief, nearly undetectable, reaction of embarrassment to finding him almost naked, clad only in an undershirt, belt, trousers, boots, comm unit and medband.

'The g-sensor array has yielded up a match for the refinery ship,' Kosho reported in a more-than-usually terse voice. 'Distance is forty thousand k, by my estimate. Bearing two-six-three, elevation plus thirty-two.'

'Right on top of us.' Hadeishi allowed himself a quick, pleased smile. He botched the smaller over-and-under at the end of the plait and gave up, letting the shining dark hair, a little streaked with gray, lie loose against his back. 'Deeper into the belt?'

Kosho shook her head, looking sideways at a hidden display. 'Near the outsystem fringe. The bulk of the local drift is between us, so I've not been able to get a secondary detect with passive sensors.'

'Clever.' Hadeishi unfolded himself from the bed and found his uniform shirt. 'Keeping close to the area they want to work, neh? And behind a shield of debris. What is their gravitational situation? Could they make gradient to hyperspace from their current location?'

The exec shook her head, an eager gleam of flickering in her eyes. 'The local field is not smooth enough,' she said. 'They will have to bolt from cover if they wish to transit.'

'A location fraught with compromise.' Hadeishi sealed the shirt in a smooth motion with his thumb. 'Their holds must be only half-full, but the takings are likely rich, enough to warrant the risk of remaining in-system. Have you laid in an intercept course?'

'Hai, Chu-sa.' Kosho stiffened fractionally. 'Would you like to review the plot?'

'Not now.' Hadeishi's thoughts were already leaping ahead to the next task. In any case, he had full confidence in Kosho's ability to maneuver the ship through this debris field. 'I want to be in Outrider camera range as quickly as possible – while remaining hidden!' His tone turned serious. 'If they bolt, we will have to catch them and we cannot risk a weapons exchange in open space.'

Kosho frowned. Mitsu made a 'go-ahead' motion with his hand.

'Hadeishi-san,' she said, rather tentatively, 'why not just spook them into making gradient? Then they'll be gone and the debris field will probably mask their departure from any…one who might be