peered down into the pile. Each rock was separately displayed. Each rock was clearly visible in all the colors of the sunlight. They looked like nothing more than unpolished marble. Jirlib sighed, but in awe. “These are real Distorts, the best that anyone besides Chundra Khelm has ever found.”
If they had been polished, some of the rocks would have been kind of pretty. There were swirls that were more the color of elemental carbon than marble. If you used your imagination, they looked a little bit like regular shapes that had been stretched and twisted. They still didn’t look like anything that had ever been alive. On the far side of the pile was one rock that had been carefully sliced into tenth-inch sheets, so thin that the sunlight glowed right through. The stack of one hundred slices was mounted on a steel frame, with a gap between each slice. If you got really close and moved your head up and down, you had sort of a three-dimensional view of how the pattern was spread through the rock. There was a glittering swirl of diamond dust, almost like forams, but all smudged out. And around the diamond, a sort of webbery of dark-filled cracks. It was beautiful. Jirlib just stood there, his head pressed closed to the steel frame, tilting back and forth to see the light through all the slices. “This was alive once. I know it, I know it,” he said. “A million times bigger than any foram, but based on the same principles. If we could just see what it was like before it got all smeared apart.” It was the old, Khelmic refrain—but this thingwas real. Even Gokna seemed to be entranced by it; it was going to be a little while before Viki got a closer look. She walked slowly around the central pile, looked at some of the microscopic views, read the rest of the explanations. Leave aside the laughs, the junk statues—this was supposed to be the best example of Distorts around. In a way, that should discourage poor Jirlib as much as anything. Even if these had once been living things, there was certainly no evidence of intelligence. If the Distorts were what Jirlib really wanted, their creations should have been awesome. So where were their machines, their cities?
Sigh. Viki quietly moved away from Gokna and Jirlib. She was in plain sight behind them, but they were so caught by the translucent distort that neither seemed to notice her. Maybe she could sneak into the next hall, the videomancy thing. Then she saw Brent.He was not distracted by the exhibit. Her brother had hunkered down behind a table in one of the darkest corners of the room—and right next to the exit she was heading for. She might not have noticed him except that his eye surfaces gleamed in the extreme-colorlamps. From where he sat, Brent could lurk on both entrances and still see everything they were doing at the central tables.
Viki gave him a wave that was also a grin and drifted toward the exit. Brent didn’t move or call her back. Maybe he was in an ambush mood, or just daydreaming about his buildertoys. As long as she stayed in sight, maybe he wouldn’t squawk. She moved through the high-arched exit, into the videomancy hall.
The exhibit began with paintings and mosaics, generations old. The idea behind videomancy went back long before modern times, to the superstition that if you could only picture your enemies perfectly, you would have power over them. The notion had inspired a lot of art, the invention of new dyes and mixing formulas. Even now, the best pictures were only a shadow of what the Spider eye could see. Modern videomancy claimed that science could produce the perfect picture, and the ancient dreams would be realized. Daddy thought the whole thing was hilarious.
Viki walked between tall racks of glowing video tubes. A hundred still landscapes, fuzzy and blurred… but the most advanced tubes showed colors you never saw except in extreme lamps and sunlight. Every year, the video tubes got better. People were talking about picture radio even. That idea fascinated Little Victory—forget the mind- control quackery.
From somewhere beyond the far end of the hall there were voices, frolicsome jabber that sounded like Rhapsa and Little Hrunk. Viki froze in startlement. A few seconds passed… and two babies came bounding through the far entrance. Viki remembered Jirlib’s sarcastic prediction that Rhapsa and Hrunk would show up, too. For an instant she thought he’d been right. But no, two strangers followed them into the hall, and the children were younger than her little sister and brother.
Viki squeaked something excited and raced down the hall toward the children. The adults—the parents?— froze for an instant, then swept up their children and turned in retreat.
“Wait! Wait, please! I just want to talk.” Viki forced her legs down to a casual walking gait and lifted her hands in a friendly smile. Behind her, Viki could see that Gokna and Jirlib had left the Distort display, and were staring after her with expressions of stark surprise.
The parents stopped, came slowly back. Both Gokna and Viki were clearly out-of-phase. That seemed to encourage the strangers more than anything.
They talked for a few minutes, politely formal. Trenchet Suabisme was a planner at New World Construction; her husband was a surveyor there. “Today seemed like a good day to come to the museum, what with most of the day-off people up in the mountains playing in the snow. Was that your plan, too?”
“Oh, yes,” said Gokna—and for her and Jirlib maybe that was so. “But we are so glad to meet you, a-and your children. What are their names?” It was so weird to meet strangers who seemed more familiar than anyone but family. Trenchet and Alendon seemed to feel it too. Their children squirmed around loudly in their arms, refusing to retreat to Alendon’s back. After a few minutes, their parents set them back on the floor. The babies took two big hops each and ended up in the arms of Gokna and Viki. They scrambled around, chattering nonsense, their near sighted baby eyes turning this way and that with excited curiosity. The one climbing all over Viki—Alequere, she was—couldn’t be much over two years old. Somehow, neither Rhapsa nor Little Hrunk had ever seemed so cute. Of course, whenthey had been two, Viki had been only seven and still out to get all the attention she could for herself. These children were nothing like the surly oophases they had met before now.
The most embarrassing thing was the adults’ reaction when they learned exactly who Viki and her siblings were. Trenchet Suabisme was silent for a shocked second, “I-I guess we should have known. Who else could you be?… You know, when I was in my teens, I used to listen to your radio program. You seemed so awfully young, the only Outies I had ever heard. I really liked your show.”
“Yeah,” said Alendon. He smiled as Alequere wormed her way into the pocket on the side of Viki’s jacket. “Knowing about you made it possible for me and Trenchet to think about having our own children. It’s been hard; we lost our first baby welts. But once they get eyes, they’re cute as can be.”
The baby made happy squeaking noises as it scrambled around in Viki’s jacket. Her head finally emerged, waving eating hands. Viki stretched back to tickle the little hands. It made Viki proud to know that some had listened and gotten Daddy’s message, but—“It’s sad you still have to avoid the crowds. I wish there were more like you and your children.”
Surprisingly, Trenchet chuckled. “Times are changing. More and more, people expect to be awake right through the Dark; they’re beginning to see that some rules have to change. We’ll need grown children around to help finish the construction. We know two other couples in New World who are trying to have children out-of- phase.” She patted her husband’s shoulders. “We won’t be alone forever.”
The enthusiasm flowed across to Viki. Alequere and the other cobblie—Birbop?—were as nice as Rhapsa and Little Hrunk, but they weredifferent, too. Now finally they might know lots of other children. For Viki it was like opening a window, and seeing all the sunlight’s colors.
They walked slowly down the videomancy hall, Gokna and Trenchet Suabisme discussing various possibilities. Gokna was all for having the house on the hill turned into a meeting place for oophase families. Somehow, Viki suspected that would not fly with either Dad or the General, though for different reasons. But overall… something could be worked out; it made strategic sense. Viki followed the others, not paying much attention. She was having a very interesting time jiggling little Alequere. Playing with the cobblie was far more fun than seeing the snow could have been.
Then behind all the chatting, she heard the distant ticking of many feet on marble. Four people? Five? They’d be coming through the same doorway that Viki had, just a few minutes before. Whoever it was would have an interesting surprise—the sight of six oophases, from babies to near-adults.
Four of the newcomers were current-generation adults, big as any of Mother’s security people. They didn’t pause or even act surprised when they saw all the children. Their clothes were the same nondescript commercial jackets that Viki was used to back in the house on the hill. The leader was a sharp, last-generation cobber with the look of a senior noncom. Viki should have felt relief; these must be the people Brent had seen following them. But she didn’t recognize them—
The leader held them all in her gaze, then gestured familiarly at Trenchet Suabisme. “We can take it from here. General Smith wants all the children back inside the security perimeter.”
“W-what? I don’t understand?” Suabisme lifted her hands in confusion.
The five strangers walked steadily forward, the leader nodding pleasantly. But her explanations were
