occupied a circular hole in the tile floor, inside of which a mound of arctic ground had subsided around its edges into the spaces beneath the floor, exposing the dark subsoil. She rushed back to help Rafael and Daidaunkh off of the mound and out of the hole in the floor. It defied her imagination to explain how it was caused. Daidaunkh was correct. They were moved by something that wasn't a transmat. The undefinable implication felt both fantastic and dire. She studied the mass of disturbed earth and recorded images of it for later analysis.
"This is my home!" Daidaunkh declared, casting his gaze about the room.
A few pieces of old furniture sparsely populated a living room. There was a kitchen next to the double glass door that opened to a balcony. A hallway led to other rooms.
"I'm hungry," Samson complained.
"Where's the toilet?" Fidelity inquired of Daidaunkh.
= = =
He saw the image of a bright pink disc lying on the ground in a treeless wilderness. It took Pan a few moments to recognize the grout-filled joints between tiles and to realize the pink disc was a perfectly formed circular section of what was probably a tiled floor. The wilderness resembled a summer arctic plain of an Earth continent. The perfection of the circular shape tugged on his mind and made him imagine the disc as being cut out of an actual floor. The landscape in which the pink tile seemed totally foreign made Pan think of it being dropped there, after it had been cut out of a floor that had to be far from there. The more Pan stared at this improbable scene, and the longer Etrhnk remained silent, made the phenomenon increase in importance and become threatening in some way. Even as he hoped it would not, Pan's reservoir of forbidden memories opened for a few startling moments, matching past events in his life that could easily explain how pink floor tile could be sent to an arctic wilderness. He knew Etrhnk was aware of his reaction. He could not moderate his response; it came too suddenly and too vividly, only to be snatched away toward oblivion. Despite himself, Pan tried to grab something of the past, wanting an explanation for himself, even if he had to share it with Etrhnk.
His Marine guards had exited, leaving Pan alone again with the Navy Commander. Etrhnk turned away from the still image on the wall of his meeting room. He regarded Pan with patient but unyielding expectation. "Tell me what you think that means," Etrhnk ordered.
Pan could only shake his head, not yet sure he believed his own fantastic deduction.
"You are still alive," Etrhnk said, "because you dared question my 'algebra of ethics.' You know things, things that I believe are of great importance to me. Important to me. But you made me examine the moral equations. I haven't found their solution. I am tempted to make a corollary to the Golden Rule so that I may do to you that which you would do to me, if you were in my position."
"That fails as a corollary," Pan dared to point out, surprised at the implied vulnerability of Etrhnk's position.
"Logically, yes, but you don't understand my personal stake in this matter. You know what caused this image. You know too much because I showed it to you. I know too much because I made it happen. Our lives are forfeit, perhaps not immediately, but soon. What more can it cost you to verify this one fact to me?"
Pan could think of no reason now not to respond with the truth. He also found it intensely interesting to know Etrhnk had put his own life in jeopardy by his 'experiment' on Demba. It was also frightening that Etrhnk had admitted it to Pan.
"What I see," Pan replied, "is the evidence of an active gate. Someone was transferred from that location to another where the floor was made of pink tile. I assume Admiral Demba was transferred. I wonder if you know that gates are real, and that they have no limit to their range."
Etrhnk turned back to the image wall and made it change into a recording of activity. Pan saw Demba, Daidaunkh, Rafael, and Samson. He heard them speak. He saw them gather together on the plain of tundra. He saw them disappear at the same instant the pink circle appeared.
"Where did you send them?" Pan asked.
"I did not send them."
"You said you made it happen."
"I use a transmat for my experiment. I have no gate. I think it happened because I included the boy in the experiment."
"Why the boy? Why all of them? Why any of them?"
"This is a game dead men play," Etrhnk said, dramatically for all the absence of drama in his voice. "I am unethically pleased you could join me."
/
When the Opera Master was removed, the Golden One came into the room and looked at the image on the wall. "Now you've done it," she said, smiling. "You're not dead yet, but you keep trying! Why did you move them again? Why did you move them in the first place?"
"You won't let me kill her," Etrhnk replied.
"I don't think you were ever going to kill her," the golden Constant said, "but I gave you a convenient reason to keep her alive. You're rather interested in her, I think. I never have thought you were the killer your barbarians' legend has made you. How many did you actually kill with your bare hands?"
"As many as necessary."
"Yet the number grows at each game, when the booze starts to flow."
"It is the efficiency with which I killed that may have impressed them."
"But you don't really care for the killing," she said thoughtfully, moving to where she could capture his gaze. He always tried to look away from her. "My fellow aliens were rather concerned when I chose to meet you alone. 'Look,' they said, 'he's got to be thinking about his last days of life. He's different. He may harm you, even kill you. He has nothing to lose.' Would you comment on that, Etrhnk?"
"I'll not harm you," he replied, pausing only briefly to wonder at his own impenetrable reasons. Perhaps, if he was so noble of character, it was the devastation The Lady would bring upon the Essiin and probably many other peoples as revenge. The Golden Ones were sacred to The Lady. Billions would die if one of them were harmed or killed. He felt not even an illogical urge to commit an act of violence against this immortal Golden One.
Constant was trying to make him feel something, and that was an endeavor Etrhnk could faintly appreciate because of her curiosity. He could understand her curiosity. She smiled at him. How many muscles were required to form a smile? Were all of his atrophied?
= = =
"Eat while you can," Fidelity ordered her ward.
"I don't like this food," Samson complained, wrinkling his nose.
"We may not be here long," she warned.
It was a little game they played, she decided, something to keep her attention and at the same time relieve the pressure of his emotions.
"I'm tired. Can we go home?"
"There is no home," she replied. "It burned down."
"I want to take care of Gator. We didn't bury him."
"Eat. I have to take care of Daidaunkh."
"Why? He doesn't like us. We don't like him."
"He's injured and he has only us to help him."
"He wouldn't help us if we were injured."
"Are you sure? Do you think it's right to not help him?"
"He doesn't even have good food in his kitchen."
She passed by a quiet Rafael and took his hand, gently urged him to his feet. He had been without sleep for too long, unless his frequent catnaps were effective. He followed her into the bedroom where Daidaunkh lay on a futon on the floor. Rafael knelt on one side of the Rhyan and Fidelity knelt on the other.
"I have a knife in that drawer," Daidaunkh said, pointing to a chest of drawers. "I assume you know where to stick it in me to stop the pain."
"Would that be a kindness to you?" Fidelity asked.
"I suppose it would. Never mind, then. I can't have you being kind to me."
"Indeed. In fact, I'm here to hurt you more. I need to adjust your splints. I have better material to bind them with. I hope I haven't destroyed an article of clothing you wanted to keep."
"You presume I'll live long enough to need a change of clothing."
"Good. You have a sense of humor, dark thou
gh it is."
The hand of Daidaunkh's unbroken arm reached for her and grasped her forearm tightly. It disturbed his injuries to do this but she could sense he intended no harm to her. "Perhaps it's a grim humor, Admiral, but don't dismiss my words as empty. The only reason I was alive to make my feeble attempt to kill you was Denna. I've only lived this long to see the day she would be happy again. My life was already over. I would consider it an ironic honor if you would finish me."
"You're letting the pain think for you, Daidaunkh."
"Don't waste your breath! I'm not worth it! I'm not worth anything! I killed this man's wife! Killed her twice! Beheaded her in a drunken rage the first time. Lucky there was a Clinic head-bag nearby. I loved her. I shouldn't have made her come with me. She didn't like coming back to her old home, her old man, where her son died, all of that. I killed her by bringing her with me. She wasn't as bad as you think. Did you see her face when she shot the dog? She loved animals. She wouldn't let them kill the tiger that killed her son. And can you imagine any normal person continuing a friendship with their murderer? I've cried for that woman every day for all the years I've known her. She was broken and we couldn't fix her. But she could make you laugh, even when you knew she was one word away from bottomless grief. Leave me here. Jarwekh may come to check on my place and find me. Go and hide from this insanity!"
"I suspect they put transponders in our bodies during node transit," she said. "They can find us no matter where we are. I'll try to separate myself from you, to see if they will