Sheri S. Tepper - Shadow's End

SHADOW’S END

Sheri S. Tepper

[14 dec 2002—scanned for #bookz]

[17 dec 2002—proofed for #bookz]

Behold now behemoth

which I made with thee …

He is the chief of the ways of God.

—The Book of Job

CHAPTER I

Dawn on Dinadh. Deep in the canyonlands shadow lies thickly layered as fruit-tree leaves in autumn.

High on the walls the sun paints stripes of copper and gold, ruby and amber, the stones glowing as

though from a forge, hammered here and there into mighty arches above our caves. Inside the caves, the

hives spread fragrant smoke, speak a tumult of little drums, breathe the sound of bone flutes. Above all,

well schooled, the voice of the songfather soars like a crying bird:

"The Daylight Woman, see how she advances, she of the flowing garments, she of the golden skin

and shining eye … "

I do not speak with Daylight Woman. I revere her, as do all Dinadhi, but it is Weaving Woman 1 plead

with, am pleading with. Origin of all patterns, I pray, let my shuttle carry brightness!

Each morning before first light, songfather comes to the lip of our cave, where it pushes out, pouting

above the darkness below. There he stands, hearing the far faint sounds of daysongs from the east,

raising his voice when first light touches the rimrock above, using his song to coax the light down the great

wall. Today I stand unnoticed in the shadow beside the hive, listening as the song flows north and east

and west into a dozen canyons, past a hundred hives, stirring reverberations and resonances, joining a

great warp and woof of sound that follows Daylight Woman's eternal march westward.

Dawnsong, so the songfather tells us, endlessly circles our world like the belt that runs from the treadle

to the wheel, and thus Dinadh is never without welcome to the Lady of Light.

One time we had another lady. One time we had another father, too, but they were relinquished long

ago, when the terrible choice was made. Though the songfathers assure us we were made for that choice,

we people, we women, sometimes I grieve over it. Sometimes in the night, darkness speaks to me, and

the stars call my name. Saluez, they cry, Saluez, look at us, look at all the mysteries in the night …

But still we have appropriate and sufficient deities. We have Weaving Woman and Brother and Sister

Rain, and many others. And Lady Day. In darkness, one could step into error. In cloud or fog—rare

enough anywhere on Dinadh—one could stray from the right path. Led by Daylight Woman, we walk

only the chosen trail, the wise way, and each morning and evening the songfathers celebrate her shining

path.

"The lighted path, the chosen way,"intones Hallach, in the words I had anticipated. I hear those

words coming back from farther north, where the canyon rim is lower and comes later into the light.

Though it sounds like an echo, it is being sung by the songfather of Damanbi. From where I stand I can

hear light welcomed not only from Damanbi but also from beyond it, from Dzibano'as and Hamam'n.

When the wind blows from the east, we hear the song from Chacosri, around the corner in Black-soil

canyon.

I am not the only listener. Inside the hive everyone is gathered behind the doorskins listening, waiting the

time of release. Children jitter impatiently. Some men and women paint their faces to ready themselves

for the day. Old people with many tasks confronting them stand stolidly, wishing the welcome finished.

And I, Saluez? I wish it could go on forever. I wish the moment could stand frozen in time and not move

at all.

"See her rise,"sings Hallach."See her dance in garments of fire. See dark withdraw, exposing the

world to her grace."

It is planting season, a time to consider fecundity; so songfather sings now to Brother Big Rain, begging

for storm upon the heights, and to Sister Deep Rain, begging for long slow drizzle that will wet the

canyons and fill the springs. He mentions the top spring and pool, the lower spring and pool, the waterfall

that spreads its moist lace over the rock, the wetness of the bottomland where the summer crops will

grow. He sings to Weaving Woman of the pattern of foods eaten at different seasons.

No doubt songfather is eager for summer food, as we all are. We are all sick of winter-fungus,

life-bread, grown in the hives during cold time, using the warmth of our bodies, the waste of our bodies

to feed itself. It has no taste. It keeps us alive, but it gives no pleasure. During winter, all the pleasurable

food must be saved for others, for there are worse things than mere tastelessness.

But soon the time of winter-fungus will be past. First-water has already been carried to the fruit trees, to

wake them from winter. Now songfather sings of damp soil, the feel of it, the perfume of unfolding

blossoms, continuing this litany until light falls on his face. He opens his soft, fleece outer robe and his

patterned cotton inner robe, exposing bare flesh to the light, closing his eyes as he feels the warmth move

from chest to belly to thigh. When it reaches his knees, he looks downward through slitted lids, not to

miss the moment the sun touches his feet. The final words of the song must be timed properly.

" … even as she has commanded, step into her day! Go forth!"

The song ends as all morning songs end, when light lies on the feet of the singer. Hah-Hallach, songfather

of Cochim-Mahn, turns and steps forward onto daylight, seeing the way clearly. The musicians on the

roof of the song-study house have been waiting for this. The bone flute shrieks, the panpipes make their

breathy sound, the gongs tremble, the little drums, with a final flourish, tum-te-tum into silence. Only then

the poisoned doorskins are set aside by careful hands, and people pour from the hive, the sound of day

voices bubbling up like water in the spring. Now are talking voices, voices for the light, stilled since dark

came. They speak of planting maish and melons. They ask who left a water bowl outside all night. They

rise in annoyance at children, and children's voices respond after the manner of children.

And I? I wait until songfather sees me standing there, where I have been since before light, my head bent

down, trying not to tremble, for it would not be fitting for songfather to see me tremble.

"Songfather," I murmur.

"Girl," says Hah-Hallach, who until yesterday called me Saluez, sweet Sally-girl, who until yesterday was

Grandpa, who until yesterday would have put arms about me, holding me.

Am I different today from yesterday? I am still Saluez, granddaughter of his heart, so songfather has said

to me, manytime, many-time. Am I changed? Am I not still myself, the self I grew to be? Until yesterday,

I knew who Saluez was. Until yesterday, when Masanees told me it was certain:

"You are with child," she said, gripping my shoulders to help me control my shaking.

I cried then. I was too proud to scream, but I cried, and Masanees wiped my face and cuddled me

close as only women will cuddle me close now, only women who know. I had not wanted to be this way.

I was not ready for this. Some say there are herbs one can take, but such things are only whispered. The

songfathers do not allow it; they say we were made for fecundity, such is the purpose of the pattern, so

the Gracious One has spoken. They tell us how all nature is made the same, every tree with its fruit, every

blossom with its bee. So every girl must take a lover, once she is able.

I said no, no, no. My friend Shalumn said no, no, no. We were enough for one another, she and I. But

this young man said yes, yes, yes. And that young man said yes, yes, yes. And Chahdzi father looked at

me beneath his eyebrows, so. So, I picked the one who was least annoying, and it was done. I had a

lover. If all went well, soon I would have a husband. When the seed sprouts, Dinadhis say, then the

gardeners join their hands and dance. Their hands, and other parts as well. I take no great pleasure in

that thought. First loving is, as the old women say, fairly forgettable. Nor is there any pleasure in the

thought of what comes between.

So, now I am with child and am no longer favorite anything to Hallach, songfather. Now I become part

of the promise, part of the covenant, part of the choice. For this time between the planting and the

dancing, only that. Nothing more.

"A day has been appointed for you," says songfather, not looking at me.

I feel myself shake all over, like a tree in wind, like a newborn little woolbeast experiencing the coldness

of air for the first time. Is it fear I feel, or is it anger at their pushing me so? "Soon you will be old enough.

Soon you will have a lover. Soon you will have a husband. It is the way of Dinadh." I learned these

words when I was first able to talk. Now it is all I can do to stand until the shudder passes, leaving me

chilled beneath the sun.

"You are prepared?" It is the ritual question.

"Songfather," I say, "I am prepared." The words are the correct words. I have been trained since

babyhood to say those words, but no amount of training has made them sound sincere, not even to me!

What is it I am supposed to be prepared for? No one will say. They whisper. They hint. But no one ever

says!

"You were made for this," he says solemnly. "As the Gracious One has told us, you were made for the

giving of this gift. Who will go with you?"

I say, "Masanees, sister-mother." Masanees has done this thing before, several times, successfully! She

is of my mother's generation, though my mother is gone.

Hah-Hallach knows all this. "She will watch over you," he says, approvingly.

"Yes, songfather." I suppose she will.

"Attend to the day. Soon you will go and our songs will go with you." He strides past me, toward the

song-study house.

So. The Gracious One has been mentioned in passing. I have fulfilled my destiny and said my words.

The songfather has said his words. Sweet-Sally and Grandpa have said no words at all. The thing is

resolved upon, whatever the thing is, and all Dinadhi know their parts in the pattern. They are they, and I

am Saluez, who turns and goes back into the hive, for there is much preparation to be made.

Still I cannot keep my head from going back, far back to let my eyes look high, there, among the

rimrock, among all those piles of stones where stands the House Without a Name. It has stood there

since the Dinadhi came to this place. One stands above every hive. This was the choice we were offered

by the Gracious One. This is the choice we made, so songfather says. We people of Dinadh.

But deep inside me I say no! No! This is not the choiceI made. I had no part in it. You songfathers made

this choice for me, and I have no part in it at all!

Songfather spoke to me at Cochim-Mahn on Dinadh. In another place another man spoke to another

woman. That place was the city of Alliance Prime on the world now called Alliance Central. The world

had once been called earth, when Alliance Central was only a department, a bureaucracy, that grew and

grew until all the earth was covered by Alliance Central and no one called it earth anymore. So I have

been taught, as all Dinadhi children are taught, for Dinadh is a member of the Alliance.

The powerful man was the Procurator himself, and the woman was Lutha Tallstaff. She was part of a

happening thing and I was part of the same happening thing, a branching of the pattern, as we say, though

she and I knew nothing of one another at the time. While we live, say the weavers, we are only the

shuttles, going to and fro, unable to see the pattern we are making, unaware of other shuttles in the weft.

After years we can look back to see the design we have made, the pattern Weaving Woman intended all

along. A time comes when one sees that pattern clear, and then one says, remember this, remember that;

see how this happened, see how that happened. Remember what the songfather said, what the

Procurator said.

What he first said was, "You knew Leelson Famber."

It was a statement of fact, though he paused, as one does when expecting an answer.

Lutha Tallstaff contented herself with a slight cock of her head, meaning all right, so? She was annoyed.

She felt much put upon. She was tired of the demands made upon her. Anyone who would send

invigilators to drag her from her bath and supper—not literallydrag, of course, though it felt like it—to

this unscheduled and mysterious meeting at Prime needed no help from her! Besides, she'd last seen

Leelson four years ago.

"You knew Famber well." This time he was pushing.

Skinny old puritan, Lutha thought. Of course she had known Leelson well.

"We were lovers once," she replied, without emphasis, letting him stew on that as she stared out the tall

windows over the roofs of Alliance Prime upon Alliance Central.

A single ramified city-structure, pierced by transport routes, decked with plazas, fountains, and spires,

flourished with flags, burrowed through by bureaucrats, all under the protective translucence of the

Prime-dome, higher and more effulgent than those covering the urbs. The planet had been completely

homo-normed for centuries. Nothing breathed upon it but man and the vagrant wind, and even the wind

was tamed beneath the dome, a citywide respiration inhaled at the zenith and exhaled along the

circumference walls into the surrounding urbs with their sun-shielded, pallid hordes. Lutha, so she would

tell me, had a large apartment near the walls: two whole rooms, and a food dispenser and sleeping

cubicles and an office wall. The apartment had a window scene, as well, one that could create a forest or

a meadow or a wide, sun-drenched savanna, complete with creatures. Lutha sometimes wondered what

it would be like to actually live among other creatures. Came a time she and I laughed ruefully about that,

a time when we knew all too well what it was like!

On that day, however, she was not thinking of creatures as she remained fixed by the Procurator's

expectant eyes. He was waiting for more answer than she had given him thus far.

She sighed, already tired of this. "Why is my relationship with Leelson Famber any concern of yours?"

"I … that is, we need someone who … was connected to him."

Only now the tocsin. "You knew Leelson Famber," he'd said. "Youknew him."

"Why!" she demanded with a surge of totally unexpected panic. "What's happened to him?"

"He's disappeared."

She almost laughed, feeling both relief and a kind of pleasure at thinking Leelson might be injured, or ill,

or maybe even dead. So she told me.

"But you were lovers!" I cried in that later time. "You said you were made for each other!"

So we believe, we women of Dinadh, who sit at the loom to make an inner robe for our lovers or our

children or our husbands or ourselves, beginning a stripe of color, so, and another color, so, with the

intent that they shall come together to make a wonderful pattern at the center, one pattern begetting

another. So people, too, can be intended to come together in wonder and joy.

So I pleaded with her, dismayed. "Didn't you love him? Didn't he love you?"

"You don't understand," she cried. "We'd been lovers, yes! But against all good sense! Against all

reason. It was like being tied to some huge stampeding animal, dragged along, unable to stop!" She

panted, calming herself, and I held her, knowing very well the feeling she spoke of. I, too, had felt

dragged along.

"Besides," she said, "I was sick of hearing about Leelson! Him and his endless chain of triumphs! All

those dramatic disappearances, those climactic reappearances, bearing wonders, bearing marvels. The

Roc's egg. The Holy Grail."

"Truly?" I asked. Even I had heard of the Holy Grail, a mystical artifact of the Kristin faith, a religion

mostly supplanted by Firstism, though it is practiced by some remote peoples still. "Practiced," we say of

all religions but that of the Gracious One. "Because they haven't got it right yet." It is the kind of joke our

songfathers tell.

But Lutha shook her head at me, crying angrily, saying well, no, not the Holy Grail. But Leelson had

found the Sword of Salibar, and the Gem of Adalpi. And there was that business about his fetching home

the Lost King of Kamir. Well, we knew what came of that!

Perhaps the Procurator understood her ambivalence, for he lurched toward her, grimacing. "Sorry!" He

chewed his lip, searching for words, his twisted body conveying more strain than the mere physical. "I

perceive the fact of his disappearance does not convey apprehension."

"His disappearance alone does not make me apprehensive," Lutha drawled, emulating his stuffy manner.

Though it annoyed the Fastigats, who claimed intuition as a province solely theirs, even laymen could play

at inferences. "I gather fromyour obvious distress, however, that his disappearance does not stand

alone."

Seeming not to notice her sarcasm, he gestured toward the wide chairs he had ignored since she entered

the room. "Sit down, please, do. Forgive my rudeness. I haven't had time for niceties lately. Let me order

refreshment."

"If it pleases you." She was starved, but damned if she'd let him know it.

"I hope it will please us both. Today … today could use some leavening of pleasure, even if it is only a

little fragrance, a little savor."

She seated herself as he murmured rapidly into his collar-link before scrambling into the chair across

from her, a spindly lopsided figure, his awkwardness made more evident by the skintight uniform. When

in the public gaze, draped in ceremonial robes or tabards or togas or what-have-you, even elderly

bureaucrats could look imposing enough, but without the draperies, in official skinnies with their little

potbellies or saggy butts fully limned, many of them were a little ridiculous. Even the Fastigats. So she

said of him.

He, peering nearsightedly at her, saw wings of white hair at either side of her face, stark against

otherwise char-black tresses, a bed-of-coals glow warming the brown matte skin at lip and cheek: forge

lights, comforting or burning. He saw her square, possibly stubborn jaw. He looked into her eyes, a dark

warm gray, almost taupe, showing more anger and pain than he had expected. No doubt the Procurator

saw it all. If he cared about such things, no doubt he thought what I thought: how lovely! Though perhaps

he had less reason than I to value loveliness.

So he looked at her but did not speak again until the almost invisible shadows had fetched fragrant teas

and numerous small plates of oddments, something to suit every taste. Lutha averted her eyes from the

food items that were still moving or all-too-recently dead and concentrated on the tray of small hot tarts

set conveniently at her elbow. The aroma and taste were irresistible.

"You have some problem concerning Leelson Famber?" she prompted, brushing crumbs from her lips

with one of the folded finan skins provided as napkins, soft and silky to the touch. On its own world, the

finan is rare, almost extinct. Using its skins for napkins would be a conceit had the animal not been made

for that purpose, as the Firsters aver. They are the hierarchs of homo-norm, of whom there are many,

even upon Alliance Central. Besides, the finans' genetic pattern had been saved in the computers at

Prime. So Lutha told me.

Instead of answering, the Procurator asked, "Are you familiar with what is now called the 'Ularian

crisis'?"

Familiar, Lutha thought. Now there was a word. The crisis had been when? Almost a century ago. And

on the frontier, to boot. Why in the world would a linguist like herself—a document expert, yes, but

withal a mere functionary—be expected to be "familiar" with such distant and ancient history?

She put her mind in neutral and stared at the table, noticing the foods she found most attractive were

now closer to her and the disgusting dishes had been removed. How did the shadows know? Was her

face that easy to read? Or were the shadows taught to interpret the almost imperceptible twitches and

jerks most people made without realizing it. Were they empaths, like Fastigats? Perhaps they actually

were Fastigats, turned invisible as penance for some unseemly behavior. Fastigats were great ones for

seemliness.

What had the old man been talking of? Of course. "Ularian crisis," she said. "Around twenty-four

hundred of the common era, a standard century ago, give or take a little. Alliance frontier worlds in the

Hermes Sector were overrun by a race or force or something called Ularians." She paused, forehead

wrinkled. "Why was it named that?"

"The first human populations that vanished were in a line, a vector, that led toward the Ular Region," he

replied.

She absorbed the fact. "So, this something wiped all human life off a dozen worlds or systems or—"

The Procurator gestured impatiently at this imprecision.

She gave him a half smile, mocking his irritation. "Well, a dozen somethings, Procurator—you asked

what I knew and I'm telling you." She resumed her interrupted account, "Sometime later the Ularians

went away. Thereafter, briefly, occurred the Great Debate, during which the Firster godmongers said

Ularians didn't exist because the universe was made for man, and the Infinitarians said Ularians could

exist because everything is possible. Both sides wrote volumes explaining Ularians or explaining them

away—on little or no evidence, as I recall—and the whole subject became so abstruse that only scholars

care one way or the other."

The Procurator shook his head in wonder. "You speak so casually, so disrespectfully of it."

She considered the matter ancient history. "I shouldn't be casual?"

He grimaced. "At the time humans—at least those who knew what was going on—feared for the

survival of the race."

"Was it taken that seriously?" she asked, astonished.

"It was by Alliance Prime, by those who knew what was happening! All that saved us from widespread

panic was that the vanished settlements were small and few. Publicly, the disappearances were blamed

on environmental causes, even though people vanished from every world in Hermes Sector—that is,

every one but Dinadh."

She shrugged, indicating disinterest in Dinadh. She who was to learn so much about Dinadh knew and

cared nothing for it then.

The Procurator went on. "My predecessors here at Prime could learn nothing about the Ularians. The

only evidence of the existence of an inimical force was that men had disappeared! Prime had no idea why

they—orit —attacked in the first place."

He leaned forward, touching her lightly on the knee. "Did Leelson ever speak to you ofBernesohn

Famber?"

She was suddenly intrigued. "Oh, yes. Leelson's great-grandpop. One of the greatest of all Fastigats, to

hear Leelson tell it. A genius, a biochemist."

"Do you remember the name Tospia?"

Lutha smiled. "Bernesohn's longtime lover. A Fastiga woman, of course." She frowned. "A diva in solo

opera. Leelson played some of her sensurrounds for me. Very nice, though I think the senso-techs were

owed as much credit as Tospia herself. To my taste, one person's performance sensed six times,

however differentiated and augmented, does not have the interactive passion of six separate actors. I've

yet to experience one that has true eroticism."

The Procurator peered at her over the rim of his cup. "But Leelson never mentioned Bernesohn and the

Ularians?"

She gave the question to her subconscious, which came up empty. "I recall no connection."

He settled himself with a half-muffled groan. "I beg your patience:

"A century ago, there were twelve human populations on planets in Hermes Sector. Eleven of these

were only settlements, six of them homo-normed, the other five at the survey stage. The twelfth world,

Dinadh, had a planetary population. Dinadh is a small world, an unimportant world, except that it is near

us in a spaciotemporal sense, though not in an astrophysical one. Everything into and out of Hermes

Sector, including information, routes through Dinadh and did, even then.

"So, it was customary for freighters to land there, whether going or coming, and one did so a century

ago, bringing the news that two of the settlements in Hermes Sector had vanished. Prime sent six patrol

ships carrying investigative teams; two ships returned with news of further vanishments; the other four did

not return. We sent more men to find the lost men—frequently a mistake, as in this case. None of them

returned. Dinadh's government, such as it is, refused to consider even partial evacuation, which would

have been the best we could do. Evacuating a populated planet is impossible. There aren't enough ships

to keep up with the birthrate." He sighed.

"And?" she prompted.

"Dinadh is the only occupied planet of its system, the only one suitable for occupation. The Alliance did

the only thing it could think of, englobing the system with unmanned sentinel buoys. We might as well

have done nothing, for all the good it did. No one came out of the sector toward Dinadh. Every probe

we sent into the sector from Dinadh simply disappeared.

"Ten standard years went by; then twenty, then thirty. Planets applying for colony rights were sent

elsewhere. Then, thirty-three standard years after the crisis, the sentinel buoys picked up a freighter

crossing the linefrom Hermes Sector into Dinadhi space! The holds were stuffed with homo-norm

equipment. The crew claimed they had found it abandoned and therefore salvageable, after falling into

Hermes Sector accidentally, through a rogue emergence. Later we checked for stellar collapse and found

an enormous one about the right time—"

"Stellar collapse?"

"The usual cause of rogue emergences is stellar collapse. The dimensional field twitches, so to speak.

Things get sucked in here and spat out there. Well, the crew was brought here, and more questions were

asked. It turned out they'd picked up equipment from four worlds in the sector and had noticed nothing

at all inimical. We sent volunteer expeditions to investigate. All of them returned shrugging their shoulders

and shaking their heads. Nothing. No sign of what had happened to the human population thirty-odd

years before, and no signs of aliens at all. We assumed the Ularians, whatever they or it had been, had

departed."

"So there were no survivors?" mused Lutha.

He shook his head. "Oh, we looked, believe me! We had no information about Ularians, no description

of them, no actual proof that they existed, which gratified the Firster godmongers, you may be sure, for

they'd claimed from the beginning there were no such things as Ularians. Since government is always

delicately poised vis-a-vis godmongers, we were extremely interested in what survivors might tell us, but

we never found a thing in Hermes Sector. Oh, there were some children who turned up on Perdur Alas

around twenty years ago, but they were probably emergence castaways also."

"Unlikely they'd have been there for eighty years. They'd have had to be third or fourth generation."

"Quite right. All this is mere diversion, however."

"You started by asking me about Bernesohn Famber," she said impatiently.

"Therelevant fact is that Bernesohn Famber was on one of the ships that went into Hermes Sector right

after the vanishments."

"One of the lost ships."

"No! One that came back. Bernesohn was erratic and secretive. A genius, no doubt, but odd.

Sometimes he didn't appear outside his quarters for days and days. His colleagues didn't expect to see

him regularly, so they didn't realize he was gone! When the ship got back here, they didn't have any idea

where or when he'd gone. We couldn't find him."

The Procurator leaned back in his chair. "Imagine our discomfiture sometime later when we learned he

was living on Dinadh."

"How did you find that out?" Lutha asked.

"Well, a year or so after Bernesohn disappeared, Tospia, his longtime companion, gave womb-birth to

twins. In Fastiga."

Lutha knew where Fastiga was. It might be called a suburb of Prime. Leelson's mother lived there.

The Procurator went on. "Tospia's twins were entered in the Famber lineage roster, but nobody at Prime

made the connection."

She said impatiently, "You intend to make the point, I presume, that the twins were conceived after

Bernesohn's disappearance?"

The Procurator assented. "Years later a sensation sniffer for one of the newslinks did a so-called

biography of Tospia—unauthorized, need I say—in which he alleged that Bernesohn Famber could not

have fathered the twins. Tospia threw a memorable and widely publicized tantrum and sued the sniffer for

misprision of media freedom, asserting that Bernesohn had been living on Dinadh and that she had visited

him there."

The Procurator set down his cup and went on:

"Enormous consternation, as you might imagine! Alliance officers were sent to Dinadh immediately to

debrief Bernesohn about the Ularians."

"And?"

He shrugged, mouth downturned. "And the Dinadh planetary authorities turned them all away, saying

that Bernesohn had bought a hundred-year privacy lease, that even though he was no longer at his

leasehold, his lease was still in effect and no one could be admitted but family members, thank you very

much. His 'family members' were notably uncooperative, and since our only reason for questioning

Bernesohn was the Ularian threat, which was seemingly over, we couldn't demonstrate compelling need.

In the absence of compelling need, we had no authority to invade a member planet, and that's what it

would have taken."

He nodded to himself, then resumed in a thoughtful voice: "Of course, we drew what inferences we

could. We assumed Bernesohn had gone there because he expected to find something on Dinadh, but if

he'd come up with anything useful, he hadn't told Prime about it."

"You said he was no longer at his leasehold?"

He sighed, turning his cup in his hands. "All Dinadh said about the matter was that they 'had welcomed

him as an outlander ghost.' "

"Which means?"

"We presume it means he died. And there the matter has rested until now … " His voice trailed off

disconsolately.

"But?"

"But, now they're back."

Lutha stared at him, disbelieving. "The Ularians?"

He nodded, swallowed, shredded the finan-skin napkin between his fingers. "Almost a hundred standard

years! Why not fifty years ago? It was then Prime decided it was safe to open up Hermes to colonization

once more. There are three populated worlds and several colonies in there; there are homo-norm teams

on half a dozen other worlds, and survey teams everywhere worthy of survey."

Sheri S. Tepper - Shadow's End

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