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  “All right. All right.” The Guildmaster nodded slowly as he processed that information. “First question: can you stop it?”

  “You mean an antibody program? Surely your own people have one in place by now.”

  “We have three, to be exact. The best odds our designers will give us regarding their success aren’t reassuring. We’re hoping you can do better.”

  Part of Masada’s reputation came from never promising anything he couldn’t deliver. Thus he considered carefully before answering. “In a machine environment, I could guarantee you success. But this is the human brain we’re talking about,” he reminded him. “Every program that runs in the brain is altered by it, we know that. Even the virus itself will be affected by the brain it invades. Can I try to predict the overall pattern of such changes, allow for their effect, design a system to weed out every version of the infection that might evolve? In the short term, yes. But in the long term?” He paused. “Could any observer studying Earth’s dinosaurs have predicted that birds would descend from them? Much less set a trap that would be effective for a bluejay, millions of years later? I can do my best. Given my special perspective, it will probably be better than your programmers could do. But it won’t be perfect. Nothing can be.”

  The Guildmaster nodded grimly, acknowledging the information. “What about determining the virus’ source?”

  For a minute he didn’t answer. Any response he might give began with the same statement, and that was a commitment he wasn’t ready to make. “The designer’s mark will be evident in his work,” he said at last, “and like any signature, it can be traced. There are a handful of subtle patterns within this virus which might be viewed as representative of its creator’s style. But to locate other programs with that same signature one would need an almost infinite database, and unlimited access—”

  He stopped himself.

  Not in time.

  “You would have that,” the Guildmaster told him, “in the outemet.”

  He said nothing. There were still doubts. Fears.

  “What else?” the man prompted.

  “Track down the spores,” he said. Grateful for the temporary reprieve. “See if there’s a pattern to the mutation that can be analyzed. It’s unlikely that a programmer this good would send out his virus and then just wait for random chance to bring it back within reach. More likely there’s some kind of homing pattern embedded in the code, or an address he can use to retrieve it. If he’s good—really good—it won’t express for generations.”

  “You’d have to wait for it to come out naturally?”

  “Not necessarily. One might catch a hint of underlying structure in the pattern of mutation and extrapolate from there. Or—”

  Words suddenly failed him. It’s all theory, he thought, just theory. There’s never been anything like this before.

  “Quite a challenge,” the Guildmaster suggested.

  It was. A unique one. He might never see its like again.

  Say the words.

  He forced himself to draw in a deep breath. “How much freedom would I have?”

  The Guildmaster spread his hands. “We set you loose in the outworlds. We foot your budget for whatever travel you deem necessary. Your instincts have served us well in the past; we trust them now. All you need do is report to our people at regular intervals so we can follow your progress.”

  “They won’t interfere?”

  There was a pause. “You have my word.”

  “All right,” he said. He could taste the power of the words: sealing his fate, closing off a thousand possible futures to channel him toward one. The sensation was vertiginous. “All right. I’ll go.”

  The man offered his hand to seal the bargain. Masada braced himself, then grasped it. “I’ll see that a debit account is opened for you. The next shuttle leaves first thing Twos-day. Can you be ready?”

  He had meetings, assignments, scholastic obligations ... but the Guild would take care of all that. No one would argue with them. No one would defy the people who made interstellar flight possible. The price was simply too high.

  That price will soon be paid, he thought. And I will be choosing its victim.

  “Dr. Masada?”

  He forced himself to nod. “I’ll be ready.”

  Deal closed.

  NATSIQ

  The field of ice is a forest of sharp edges, knife-edged platforms thrusting upward from the pressure of a season’s expansion, cracks and fissures and tumbled ice-boulders obscuring any certain path across its surface. The natsiq does not know where these barriers came from, for he does not understand the laws of the ice shelf. He knows only that he wishes to cross the vast white plain, and that the journey will be difficult, and that it will take a long time.

  With care he begins to move across the white plain, heading east. The landscape is daunting, the sense of futility a palpable force. Many other creatures have attempted the journey and abandoned it, contenting themselves with the little world in which they were born. But not so the natsiq. He is determined to conquer the distance, despite all obstacles, and see what manner of wonders lie on.the other side.

  Suddenly he comes upon a crack that courses through the ice like a knife-cut—an ainniq—and he peers down into it. Beneath is a black surface, cold and glistening. He studies it for a moment, then determines that it cannot be studied from without, and dives down into it.

  Cold envelops him and he is transported into a world of liquid motion, where light hangs crystalline in the air above him. Here there are no mountains; here there are no obstacles. Here the same motions of flesh which might gain him a step or two above the ice send him hurtling forward like a bullet beneath it. A journey which might have taken days, or even years, is here reduced to a thing of hours. He hurtles beneath the ice shelf, dodging amidst the gleaming stalactites of frozen crystal, drunk on speed. He cannot see the landmarks he needs to guide his path, but up ahead the sun’s light is clear, the sign of another ainniq. He will go to that, rise up, and get his bearings anew. Thus can all the trials of the ice field be avoided.

  There is a trembling in the ocean beneath him then, but he does not know how to read it. There is a sound, but he does not know how to interpret it. Fear tightens a fist about his heart, and he struggles to swim faster. Something is under the ice also, that has waited for an unwary traveler to happen by. Something that lies in wait for any creature from above the ainniq, for such are food to its hunger.

  He can sense its presence, but he cannot see it, for his eyes are not accustomed to this world, and all darkness seems the same. He knows that his fear is laying a trail the thing can follow, but he does not know how that happens, nor how he can protect himself. All he has is speed, a brief exertion of pure terror that might or might not get him to safety.

  He tastes the difference in the waters as the thing draws close, too close. Then he bursts through the ainniq at last, back up onto the ice shelf, and lies in the frigid air panting, his heart pounding against his ribs. Will the thing follow him? Frozen with terror, he waits. But the minutes pass, and nothing comes forth. He knows it is circling below, waiting for him to return.

  The natsiq is east now, past the ice-mountains. The journey took minutes. There are other ainniq in the distance, which might be reached with equal speed. If he only dives under the surface again, he might go anywhere, in no time at all.

  Unknown horizons call to him, a siren’s song in the fading daylight.

  The sana waits below.

  KAJA: An Outworider’s Guide to the Gueran Social Contract, Volume I: Signs of the Guild

  METROLINER: AURORA

  DON’T GO OUT!

  It isn’t safe!

  Stay in your room!

  The voices were constant, demanding. No longer the whispered, ghostly essences they once had been, they rang in Jamisia’s ears with such volume that at times it was all she could do to shut them out. Was it her circumstances, so recently changed, which had given them new power? Was it
her tutor’s program which had somehow granted them new strength to torment her? Or was she simply going mad, in the old Earth sense, driven so far beyond normal functioning by the stress of her situation that her mind was beginning to snap? She had no way to evaluate that last possibility, though it was the one which frightened her the most. Earth had conquered insanity long ago, weeded out its biological roots from the gene pool, isolated cases of psychological risk before they could begin to fester. Hadn’t the doctors tested her right after her parents’ death for just that reason, ever aware that the threshold of mental instability was crossed quickly and silently—and knowing that, like a physical injury, such wounds were easiest to heal when they were fresh and clean? She had been watched all her life, first by the government, and then—after the accident—by Shido. So she was all right, surely. They would have detected an anomaly at one of her regular checkups if she had been otherwise, and treated her for it. Wouldn’t they?

  She wasn’t sure. She wasn’t sure of anything any more. Her entire world had become unknown and frightening, and the only way of escaping it was to cower in her room, voices keening anger and warning in her head.

  They’ll come after you. You need to do something!

  Stay here stay here stay here hide hide hidehidehide—

  Fucking bastards! They have no right ...

  “Stop it!” she sobbed. “Leave me alone!”

  Were there remotes in this room of hers, was there a doctor watching her even now by vid as she talked to invisible antagonists, wondering what the best moment would be to take her away for treatment? She had searched the small space a dozen times over and found nothing, but that didn’t necessarily mean that her privacy was guaranteed. Shido had remotes throughout its habitat, whose harvest was analyzed by computer for signs of industrial treachery. Or so she had been told. Could she say with any certainty that the metroliner, whose safety depended upon maintaining a fragile peace between hundreds of alien subspecies for three years at a time, had not set up a similar system? Perhaps here it was not computers who did the initial screening, but living men: gazing down into her room from some hidden vantage point, measuring her bouts of fearful hysteria, weighing them against some master list of psychological transgressions which the great ship would not tolerate....

  Stop it stop it stop it stopitstopitstopit!

  With a moan she forced herself to her feet, and wiped the new tears from her face with a trembling hand. If she cowered in this room for three years, then she really would go crazy, there was no doubt about that. The space was adequate for her needs, but it was small—accommodations on the great ship were priced according to volume, and she was terrified of using up her limited resources before even reaching the ainniq—and it was sterile, bereft of all the trinkets that a teenager would normally use to mark her territory. In her rush from the habitat she had packed little but clothing.

  Slowly she drew in a deep breath, trying to make herself calm. It was getting harder and harder to master her fears, but she knew she had to keep trying; it was when she gave up that she would be truly lost. Voices chittered in her head as she forced herself to go to her closet and open it, choosing a no-G jumpsuit from among her meager possessions. God alone knew where she would want to go today, she had best be prepared for anything. Carefully she pulled it on, wary of putting any stress on the cloth that might cause it to weaken or tear. She had so little spare money now, and no source of new income on the horizon; she had to make everything last as long as it could.

  She dared a look in the mirror as she closed up the closet, trying to focus on the image, to accept it. The lean jumpsuit flattered her figure, even lent a buxom fullness where her own body lacked development. For a moment she posed before the mirror, pulling the fabric taut at her waist, emphasizing the curves. She was still two E-years too young to have her shape professionally altered; Shido frowned on such cosmetic adjustments while the body was still developing. Only Shido didn’t matter anymore, she realized suddenly. Nothing from Earth mattered anymore. If she could get the money, and if she could find a cosmetic therapist willing to trade his skill for her resources, she could become anything she wanted. Taller or shorter. Rounder or thinner. Lighter or darker, as whim or fashion dictated. The thought was accompanied by a bizarre rush of power. Shido had always treated her as a child, therefore she had remained a child. Only Shido was gone. What was she now?

  Not an adult yet, she thought, looking in the mirror. But not what I was either. Something in between. She forced herself to take a good look at herself, to try to assess what others might see in her. It wasn’t an easy exercise. Studying her personal appearance sometimes brought on a wave of dizziness, even nausea, powerful enough on occasion that she had to force herself to look into mirrors at all. She had once asked her tutor about it, and he had looked at her strangely—very strangely—and then finally had said something about how teenagers were often insecure about their appearance, this was just a phase she was going through ... only she’d had the distinct impression that he was making a mental note of the phenomenon. Why? What made it significant?

  What she hadn’t told him was that sometimes her body seemed ... well, wrong. Like it wasn’t really her body. Like deep inside she expected to see different features than those which were reflected in the mirror. Sometimes it would seem to her that her height was all wrong, or her skin should be dark instead of pale, or her hair should be black or blonde or some strange artificial color like they wore on Earth, instead of the reddish brown that it truly was ... she couldn’t think of any feature or body part that she hadn’t at some point doubted. There were days it all seemed wrong, and panic would well up inside her so suddenly and so intensely that the alien shell reflected in the mirror would double over and vomit. But today ... she breathed a sigh of measured relief. Today her body looked like it should. Today everything seemed to be all right.

  Maybe it’s an omen, she told herself.

  She wished she could believe that.

  With a trembling hand she unlocked her door, watching as it whisked to one side to allow her egress. For a moment she hesitated, and then, with a deep breath, forced herself to step over the threshold. Voices inside her were screaming for her to run back inside the room and cower there, it was the only safe place to be.... But if she let the voices run her life, then she really would go crazy, and so she forced herself to step the requisite three feet from the threshold, far enough that the portal mechanisms sensed her absence and the door whisked shut behind her. There. She had done it. She was outside. Now if only she could figure out where she wanted to go....

  The metroliner was vast and varied, as befit a playground for wealthy travelers. It would take a passenger ages to explore it all, far longer than the three E-years of a one-way ticket, or even the six of a round-trip passage. Who could say how much trouble had been averted because of that? Teenagers grew from childhood to independence within its confines, finding enough secret corridors and forbidden corners to satisfy even the most restless pubescent spirit. Rebels could establish city-states of their own within its tangled web of domiciles, organizing whatever social contracts they chose—even redesigning the physical structure of the ship itself if they had the resources to do so. Variants could isolate themselves from their true-human neighbors, or else walk among them to the sound of startled gasps and muttered prayers, sounds of disbelief unvoiced (so Jamisia had been taught) in the true up-and-out. And those true humans who could not or would not tolerate the sight of their mutated cousins could themselves withdraw to a part of the ship where no Hausman victims were permitted, and create a false Terran sanctuary of three years’ duration.

  Which all left almost too much to choose from. For a moment the sheer variety of options was almost too much for her, and she nearly did go back into her room then and there—not to cancel the excursion, she told herself, merely to delay it. But she had followed that course before, often enough to know that an hour’s delay easily led to two hours, then to three ...
and ultimately to a whole E-day spent cowering in her safe little comer of the ship, while the voices inside her head keened their triumph. No. Not this time. Biting her lip in newfound determination, she turned to the left—toward the head of the great ship—and began to walk with a measured stride toward the public areas.

  It was not long before her narrow home corridor emptied out into a larger conduit, and other passengers crossed her path. Most of them were true humans, but a few Variants had apartments in this sector, or else were on their way to visit someone who did. She tried not to stare at them. Her tutor had told her that in the up-and-out such Variants were commonplace, and it was the worst form of rudeness to gape at them—but it was so hard not to! The first one she saw today looked more like a spider than a person, with weird, oddly-angled legs jutting out of its torso in pairs; that it walked as an arachnid would, with its body parallel to the ground, only added to the illusion. Its eyes were covered over with a thick white film, and she could not tell as it passed her whether it retained some manner of human sight, or relied upon mechanical devices to “see” her. She raised a palm in polite greeting and then quickly turned her eyes away. Her tutor had said that such a gesture was culture-neutral, all Variants used it ... but what about the ones who lacked hands as such, or used their own for walking? Would they respect such a gesture, or be angered by its somatic arrogance? Little wonder Variant diplomacy was such a touchy discipline....