Chill

'Thank you, Head,' he said, and stepped over the threshold. At least that was his intention, but the reality of the motion left him arrested, tottering, halfway in and halfway out. Because before Tristen, relaxed in an armchair, shirtless and clad only in the appearance of archaic blue jeans and boots, lounged the blond-haired, hound-faced angel Samael.

Not exactly as Tristen remembered him. He seemed assembled from bits--his hair bleached hay and bits of feather, his left eye a snail shell and his right eye flecks of bright color that Tristen understood from their powdery iridescence to be fragments of a butterfly's wing. The broad wings that spread from his shoulders whirred against themselves with his movement--the pinions were scraps of leaf and withered petals--but there was no mistaking his mosaic face.

At Samael's right hand stood Mallory, the basilisk as always on one shoulder, arms folded, wearing an expression composed of one-half self-satisfaction and one part childish apprehension over just how such a prank might be received.

'Hello, Tristen,' Mallory said. 'I made you an angel.'

'Made?' He would have shut the door to seal Head out, but sie stepped through and put hir back to it.

'Collected,' Samael said. He stood, and the light shone through the bits and pieces that made him. Tristen could make out the outline of the chair behind, and the curve of Mallory's hip. 'As you can see, there isn't much left of me.'

That explained why Nova had lost contact with Rule. And possibly why the world had started to come unraveled around Tristen on his way here. Tristen stepped forward and to the side, turning so he could keep all of the other inhabitants of the room in view. Trust was a lovely thing, when one could afford it. He made himself light inside the armor, ready for battle, and mourned the death of his old unblade. It would have been good to have at hand, facing such an enemy as this.

'Samael,' he said. 'I am the First Mate of this vessel, and the head of the house of Conn. Was it you who tried to destroy me on my journey here?'

Samael shook stringy blond locks across stringier shoulders, a swarm of organic particles tumbling. 'First I've heard of it.'

Head stepped forward, shoulders hunched miserably, and said, 'He saved us, My Lord.'

'Saved you?'

'From Lady Ariane's disease. And from the acceleration.'

Tristen was not about to drop his guard, or shift his attention from the angel. His armor gave him a panoramic view, through which he observed Head's response as he demanded, 'Explain.'

The ghost of Samael spread his arms wide like a conjuror and made a bow complete with the scrape of one foot across the earth. Beetle shells and ant thoraxes glimmered, tumbling, in his boot. He said, 'I am the Angel of Life Support, First Mate. I serve the world and the life within it--above anything.'

'And how did you survive?'

'I found electrically sealed pockets of the world.' Samael's shrugs had grown no less expressive for all their transparency. 'And I hid in them like a snail, First Mate. The kitchens here had reinforced gravity, for safety's sake, and with those resources I helped preserve Head and hir people. And before you grow angry with your allies, there's something you should consider. What I can do, so can another angel.'

The chill that ran the length of Tristen's spine would have made him shudder had his concentration not been so absolute. Voice level, giving away nothing except what the very question itself offered, he said, 'Dust?'

Samael folded his arms. 'Asrafil.'

Not the worst news, then. But bad enough. Both angels had opposed each other, and both had tried to choose the next Captain. While Dust had allied himself with Perceval, going so far as to kidnap her, Asrafil had been the power behind Arianrhod and Ariane. Tristen would take Asrafil over Dust only because Dust had been the cleverer and more political of the two, being as he was wrought of the remains of the world's library. Asrafil, the Angel of Battle Systems, however, was quite challenge enough. All assuming that Samael could be trusted--but if there were one thing to be said for angels, it was that they did not generally lie. Tristen bit his lower lip and turned to Head. There was something he needed done to make this place his. And it should be done immediately, with as little ceremony as possible, as if all it were was the setting right of something misplaced.

'Head?' He knew he was working up to it by stages.

Head colluded, because that was what friends do. 'Yes, Prince Tristen?'

'Before anything else, please turn my sisters' portraits to the light.'

'Yes, Prince Tristen.'

He didn't need to move his head to see that sie was smiling. He heard hir sharp intake of breath. 'And Ariane?'

'Is there crepe to be found?'

'There is.'

He nodded. 'Then we shall do her memory all honor. Meanwhile, it appears yon angel has made some work for my undertaking.'

'I am sorry, First Mate,' Samael said. 'Please consider my powers--diminished though they temporarily are--to be yours to direct, and my services under your command.'

'I will,' Tristen said. 'You understand that I am going to report this first to Perceval.'

'And her angel,' Mallory added, with widened eyes.

Samael shrugged. 'The one thing amounts to the other, necromancer.'

8 everything their father had told them

As for the instance of gaining the secure and perpetual felicity of heaven by any way, it is frivolous; there being but one way imaginable, and that is not breaking, but keeping of covenant.

--THOMAS HOBBES, Leviathan

Whatever Perceval had expected of her Captaincy, it was not quite so much schoolwork. But there were schematics to learn, diagrams, navigational mechanics, logistics of supply. And while Nova could spoon-feed it to her, being told something was not the same as understanding it.

So Perceval sat in the Captain's chair, eyes closed, hands resting open on the arms, and studied. With Nova's help, the experience of her indwellers, and the help of her colony, she came quickly to understand the numbers. The numbers did not comfort her.

'Engineering,' she said--or thought of saying; when it came to Nova, what Perceval said or thought were much the same.

'The First Mate has arrived safely in Rule,' Nova said. 'I'm putting you through to the Chief Engineer now.'

Perceval opened her eyes. Her mother's image resolved between her and Nova. The angel had caught Caitlin in the act of glancing up from her work, pushing her auburn hair left-handed from her eyes. Her lips were pale with exhaustion and her skin wan and stretched--her colony no doubt still overstressed with repairing acceleration and radiation damage, and she appeared not to have been eating enough.

She still managed a smile for Perceval. Exactly the sort of smile that made Perceval feel bigger and stronger than she knew herself to be, and maybe capable of doing what had to be done. 'Hi, Mom,' she said. 'We have a problem.'

'We have more than one,' Caitlin answered. 'Start with the most serious, and I'll see what I can do about it.'

She didn't mention Rien, and Perceval, grateful, did not either. 'Resources,' she said. 'Shortages are critical throughout the world. The Enemy has claimed--'

Caitlin nodded. 'I know. There are options. We can recoup significant resources from the nebula. Some of that material must be used for fuel, but the rest--well, it will all have to be scrubbed. But we have radiovores. We'll