Comet shot south along the Pacific coast. No such thing as a persona? That was crazy. It couldn't be true. A fast trip to San Francisco, the City of Good Sense, would cure her doubts. It wasn't quite true that the city had more personas than ungifted, but there were enough personas that they were a big voting block, larger than the Szechuanese or the Tibetans. Enough people to be a big voting block should be easy to find.
Humboldt Bay and coastal ranges blurred by. The great sweep of San Pablo and San Francisco Bays appeared to her left. Over the hill would be the Golden Gate with its bridge across the narrows. She could remember the first time she'd seen it peeking out of the fog.
Her jaw dropped. For half a dozen seconds she lost all concentration, flight field collapsing virtually to nothing, leaving her body-planing through the air, staying airborne by trading speed for lift. The Marin Temple was gone. Where should have risen the Western Mother Temple, right on the north shore of the Golden Gate, stood instead an assortment of obviously expensive private homes, perched facing the water. And the bridge! What had been done to it? Its marble sheathing, whose detailwork made it a wonder of the modern world, had vanished. Only the steel core, painted a hideously garish red-orange, remained.
A glance took in the sky from horizon to horizon. There were airplanes. The tightly bunched lights with jerky motion were, quaintness of quaintnesses, real vernian aeronefs hanging from horizontal airfoils. But where were the primaries and gaudy pastels, the shimmering glows marking personas in flight? There were lights on the ground and cars wheeling along freeways. Above them the sky was virtually empty.
She looped around the bridge once and again, then set foot on the upper railing. Using one hand for balance, she could lean over and feel the steel, removing all doubt that it was indeed steel, not marble plates in disguise. Impossible. Impossible! What had been done to San Francisco? She closed her eyes, trying to push back very real tears. She'd flown them all home, brother and sister and Cloud and Eclipse. She knew she had. She'd flown farther and faster than ever before in her life. This had to be home! The StarCompass said so. What could possible be wrong? It was too much to bear. She threw herself off the railing at the waves far below.
The wind set her hair flying. Ocean-chilled air fanned her arms and legs. The surf loomed below, closer and closer. Now she could hear the beat of waves over distant traffic noises, taste the salt spray in the air. So soon, she would hit the water. So very soon.
She called her flight field. Swathed in light, she turned east, climbing faster and faster, leaving behind an unsolved mystery. It didn't matter. Soon she would be home. So soon. So very soon. There was only a small continent to be crossed, a step needing but minutes to complete.
Boston Harbor. Almost home. Dipping below the clouds, she could see the airport. A soaring of towers marked Republic Square. She zoomed along the Carolus Fluvius, a thousand feet above its broad still waters, her eyes focused on the floodlit limestone walls of the Rogers Institution. Almost there. Almost home.
Sleep-fogged thoughts at first refused to recognize the anomaly. Right between the old dorms and the new chemistry buildings, there rose two dozen stories of tesdrome topped skyscraper. Impossible. She'd played tossdisc there with her dad's grad students, not one week before. Now half the field was filled by this hulking, green-shaded, old-looking slab of a windowless -- well, side face windowless -- building. She soared the height of the building, dropped to half its height off the ground, then killed speed, floating to touch its concrete and peer through a lighted front window.
Within, a bearded figure in shaggy wool sweater, unlit pipe hanging from his mouth, glanced from a terminal. Two pairs of eyes met, separated by an inch of glass set firmly in poured concrete. The figure dashed to the window, hands pressing against the glass. Comet instinctively flinched, drifting a few feet back from the building. The figure took in her location, her apparent lack of support, and her age. Pipe fell to the floor, tobacco scattering across clean-mopped tiles. Fingers tapped on a bell extension. Unwilling to wait, Comet fluttered west across the campus, dodging chimney stacks and library dome, pausing once and again to sample the view, in the end coming to a hover at the main entrance.
What was wrong? What had happened? Except for the skyscraper where none should have been, everything was familiar. This was almost home. No, not quite. Above the main entrance, in letters nearly her own height, was the school's name. The letters, to judge from weathering, accumulation of grime, and pigeons nesting in one cornice, had been standing for decades over graceful Ionian columns. Letters that last week proudly identified her father's employer as Rogers' Technological Institution Founded 1862 now referred to MASSACHVSETTS INSTITVTE OF TECHNOLOGY WILLIAM BARTON ROGERS FOVNDER.
Too stunned to speak, Comet pushed off from the columns and drifted slowly across the street.
``Hey!'' voices called up from the ground. ``Incredibly neat hack! How do you do it?'' ``I want it. I want it for my next Assassin game.'' She glanced streetward. A few moments had attracted a small crowd of goggle-eyed students. Hands waved. A minicam hummed. She put hands to face, confirming she had remembered to don her domino.
Baffled by the words, Comet waved back. Nothing made sense. She couldn't wait any longer. She was almost home. Soon it would be over, at least for her. Soon it would be over, even if she could only look in from the dark before fetching the rest of the gang. Soon it would be over, the four of them returned safely to their parents. She had already planned the return to look like a rescue by Eclipse. The poor girl desperately needed credit for doing something right.
Comet accelerated diagonally upwards, north along Massachusetts Avenue, supersonic before she reached the Piazza Leprecano, flight field damped to stealth mode black as she bent gently west to Arlington and home. Behind her, an irate geophysicist, three Campus Police, and an Assistant Dean confronted the President of the Tech Hackers Association.
``Can you explain why someone would rope a child off the top of the building?'' asked the geophysicist. ``It's not funny, the way it was funny when my classmates floodlit the Great Dome bright orange, back when HoJo became President.''
``That is precisely my point,'' continued the Dean. ``It's not amusing, and your friends risked someone's life to do it.''
``Hey, we didn't do this,'' countered the student. ``No way. Did your office get a notice? No! Did the Campus Police get the schedule in advance, like they do for tuition riots? No! Did the TV station get notified to film it. No! This wasn't us, it was someone else, someone less than marginally clueless. What if the turkeys on the roof had tried to lower the kid to the ground, and found their hoist was gronked? I mean, back in `64 when someone rapelled down a dorm wall, there was a good reason. She had a reaction going in organic lab, and the only panty raid of all time was in her way. But she was a mountaineer, and knew what she was doing. This hack was just dumb.''
The Campus Policemen looked at each other, eyebrows. One of them tilted his head, listening to a helmet radio. ``We have another sighting. Outside the Building 7 Lobby. Next to the Lesser Dome. Keep in touch?'' He pointed at the student. Campus Police and Assistant Dean headed out the door.
``I told you it wasn't us.'' The student looked at the Professor. ``I've got an exam Monday, and need to do some serious tooling. Give me a call if you find out who did it, okay?''
``It was a well executed hack, ignoring that the concept was totally wedged beyond belief. Even up against the glass, even with all the lights she was wearing, I couldn't see the wires. It really looked like she was flying.'' The Professor returned to his terminal.
* * * *
Arlington. So close to home. So close to certainty. Comet dipped over side streets, dodging misremembered tall trees. There was the gentle triple bend of her street, a six-point intersection anchoring its northern end. There was home. Well, she thought, there was the right house. Assuming it had been repainted in the last three days. Assuming the house next door had grown a twenty-foot-deep extension overnight. But the treehouse was gone; the cars in the driveway were wrong. And someone was coming out of her front door, a strange man in a strange suit, blue and two-piece, someone who turned to kiss a very young woman and two three-year-old children good-bye.
So close to home. Comet folded her flight field around her, tighter and tighter. Against the night sky she was not so much as hazy black crepe. So close to home. Slowly, silently, she floated from the street, finally drifting down to look in through her bedroom window. So very close to home.
An instant of horrified emptiness. Her bed was gone. Her desk was gone. Furniture, toys, posters, her half-read carefully annotated Fundamentals of Analytic Geometry ...all gone. All replaced. This was a sewing room, clothes matching the two little ones she had seen below with their parents.
Float to sister's game room. Look for well-known furniture, stacks of old magazines, playing boards, postal chess and stones games frozen in mid-play -- first tournament prize framed on wall. Not there. See stacks of books, magazines, work in neat piles on desk. Books on -- Theory of Torts? Principles of Constitutional Construction? Pictures on walls. Class photos, diplomas. The woman she'd seen downstairs, a name she'd never heard before -- this room was the woman's law library.
Comet shuddered. This was her house, but her home was not to be found.
Burst skywards, throat stifling a scream from the deepest heart. Roll over to west and south, masking path of departure. Accelerate southward hard, flight field bursting to bright flame, finally able to voice shrieks of denial.
* * * *
Above every cloud, higher than the sky itself, the night was brilliantly clear, stars flaring like magnesium torches. North of Baltimore, Comet dropped out of the stratosphere, her flight field glowing brilliantly, trailing the fluorescent wake from which she took her name. Enhanced vision, her flight field trapping incident photons and passing them to her eyes, gave her a view as clear as full daylight. Approaching the city, she banked eastwards, her path taking her over Annapolis and down the Chesapeake; a tighter turn sent her northwest, lining up on the river she recognized as the Aquea Potomaciea and the Federal District beyond.
As she closed on Washington, she began to worry. FedCorps -- the Federal Volunteer Persona Corps -- was sensitive about unidentified personas flying near the capital. She knew the drill. There was a specified approach, a specified range of very low altitudes and slow speeds which let one or another Corpsman mindtouch anyone entering the district, so FedCorps had plenty of time to react or to confirm visitors as friendly. Soon everything would be all right. FedCorps knew who she was, at least in persona, however uncomfortable they might be about someone her age doing a public persona. Soon she would be safe with them. They'd tell her what happened. Just be careful, she reminded herself, not to tell them you're with Eclipse. They might not take that too kindly, given how many Corpsmen had died trying to thread the Maze.
Half a continent away, under miles of granite, the headquarters of American Air defenses tracked the unknown. Whatever it was, it had appeared forty miles above central New England, speeding southwest along the coast at more than four thousand knots. Multiple types of radar confirmed position, altitude, and speed. The target was electromagnetically quiet, with no hint of radar or radio emissions. A transport aircraft contacted by ground reported being passed by a faint tailed star ``Looks to be a meteor, but just keeps on going, no sign of burning out...''
Coded warnings were dispatched to higher headquarters. Missile tracking centers reported no signs of other targets, no records of missile launches by unfriendly nations. Operational orders prescribed precautionary alerts along the Eastern seaboard. In New Jersey and Maryland, interceptor aircraft were hastily scrambled. At Baltimore the target began a descent, simultaneously swinging out to sea. Satellite communications, after several decades fully integrated with reports of unit status and disposition, retrieved radar data from warships in Chesapeake bay. Computer searches confirmed what specialists and non-commissioned officers with thirty years experience had already stated: the target's flight, radar, and infrared characteristics bore no semblance to any known aircraft. The target, now down to thirty miles altitude and 2500 knots, was heading slightly east of south, away from sensitive military and political targets in the District of Columbia.
At the mouth of the Potomac, the unknown executed a sharp turn, almost reversing direction to head west of north, moving along the Potomac basin directly at the nation's capital. The rate of change of velocity exceeded 1100 meters per second per second: one hundred ten gravities, far sharper than possible even to an unmanned missile. Simultaneously, the target began a drastic loss of altitude and speed. Trajectory computations suddenly predicted that the unknown would come to earth near Washington. Aircraft at full afterburner screamed to intercept. Across the Capitol, men and women struggled to ready the city's minimal point air defenses, historically optimized to protect buildings from terrorists flying low, slow private aircraft.
The target dropped lower and lower, slowing to subsonic, then disappearing into ground clutter many miles short of Washington, out of range of the city's recently-deployed Patriot-X surface-to-air missile batteries. For minutes, nothing more was reported. Then the target reappeared. Airliners approaching National Airport reported being passed by a glowing salmon-orange sphere with glittering tail.
Comet flew south of the Potomac, puzzled by the silence in her mind. She had done this flight before, more than once, the first time with considerable trepidation, other times with more self-confidence. Where was the voice without a sound, the gentle greeting that marked recognition by the Federals? Where were the Washington defenses? Even if it wasn't energized, the force dome over the City of Washington should have been visible in the darkness.
She crossed the last stretch of water, the Washington Monument looming before her. Was everything going to be strange again? It couldn't. Not here, too. She'd pass the Solara Monument, overfly the Capitol Building, and there would be her friends at the FedCorps Barracks.
On the ground, consternation reigned. An unknown object, ignoring all radio warnings, was approaching the Washington Air Forbidden Zones. Secret Service detachments with Stinger antiaircraft missiles moved to open ground. Marines manned certain inconspicuous rooftop structures. In a secret underground facility adjoining Union Station, technicians scrambled to top off condenser banks and enable launch controllers.
Comet slowed almost to a standstill, admiring gardens coming to first blossom. To those on the ground, the unknown target was closing on the White House. On rooftop after rooftop, firing crews struggled to persuade infra-red homing weapons to lock on a plainly visible target.
Comet, barely at treetop height, stopped in astonishment. Her reflexes were still hypered, tied to her flight speed, so to her senses seconds passed like minutes. Pedestrians appeared frozen in mid-stride. What seemed to those on the ground to be the lightest hesitation allowed her moments of shallow thought. There was the Ellipse, but where was the Solara Monument. Where was the eternal flame burning over golden sun-disc in a tribute now two centuries old? On its site was a white stone building, fenced and gardened, in a style that could have escaped from Gone with the Wind. What was it? Where was the Monument? No one would dare tamper with that! Well, Eclipse might; she seemed willing to risk almost anything.
In the Pentagon, the Ready Officer noted in his log that at 0231 hours an unknown object had entered the White House Air Forbidden Zone and been engaged by defensive fire. As he wrote, jets of flame marked antiaircraft rockets beginning uncertain climbs toward their prey. Point defense antiaircraft guns, some radar aimed, others hand sighted by their crews, opened up in a deadly hail of explosive and armor-piercing rounds. Breakaway plastic plates, painted as ventilator shafts, crashed to nothingness under the impact of 20mm shells.
To Comet's eyes, missiles floated slowly from launch tubes. Anti-aircraft shells, glowing brilliantly in the infrared, drifted from weapons mounts, each following the last at quarter-meter intervals. For critical moments she froze in surprise, not understanding what she faced. All these weapons, she finally recognized, are targeted at me. What did I do? What did I do? Why are they all trying to kill me? Even with enhanced reflexes, her mind moving at near-computer speed, the first rounds were almost to her before her flight field engaged. She sideslipped, swift glances taking in each shell's position. For most, she had enough time to dodge. A few were impossible to avoid. A side-palm swat, her flight field a web between her and the hot metal, deflected those the needed inches to safety, sending sparks of incandescent lead plasma scattering in all directions. Infrared homing missiles, initially baffled by the lack of a target, locked on a cloud of plasmized lead.
The Magnetically Augmented Vehicle Interceptor, Sabot-Based (MAVIS-B) represented one of several possible compromises between conventional and rail- gun technologies. Its munition was the hittile, a non-explosive smart munition descended from SDIO technology. A short-barreled 120mm cannon fired discarding-sabot hittiles in the general direction of its target, digitally- controlled electromagnetic drivers provided boost and guidance. The nose of the hittile was transparent sapphire, behind which lurked optical imagers and a neural network targeting system. Once beyond the rail gun, fin stabilizers deployed; piezoelectrically-driven tab drag points provided terminal guidance. With an effective muzzle velocity of more than 4000 meters per second, MAVIS-B's depleted uranium hittiles could strike and penetrate any known airborne target, including aircraft too maneuverable or armoured to damage with conventional projectile munitions. A crump of burning propellant and whine of discharging capacitor banks signaled the dispatch of a half-dozen hypervelocity projectiles at Comet's unprotected stomach and back.
Almost too late, Comet noticed glowing cylinders of white hot metal sliding rapidly through the air. Accustomed to a world in which bullets and missiles crawled, she suddenly had to pivot, turn, and dodge objects as fast as she. She almost succeeded. A single hittile crashed into her flight field and ripped across her back. There was a crunch of breaking bone. Vaporized metal sprayed across the sky, the recoil driving her into a sudden uncontrolled spin.
Her trajectory dipped groundward. She struggled to regain control of her flight and stay above the line of fire of the anti-aircraft cannon. The crews could repoint their weapons, but that would take time, time that they had not yet had. She pulled out and up, a half-dozen Stinger missiles closing rapidly. She had not been a good target, but the glow of volatilized uranium gave a sharp infrared source. Terrified, Comet's flight became a wobbling erratic climb. The missiles surged closer, then fell away, unable to match her panic-driven skybound thrust.
Several thousand feet in the air, her presence of mind returned. Her flight field infolded, fading to flat black. To ground-based observers she simply vanished, denying hastily-readied Patriot-X batteries a parting shot at a fleeing target.
Pain caught her. The shell's impact had been almost parallel with her skin, skimming along the surface of the flight field. The field was not a true defense; it wouldn't stop even a low-caliber bullet that hit square on. Her last-microsecond pivot had prevented fatal damage, but the shell's brush across her back had been enough to crack a shoulder blades. Her thoughts collapsed into themselves, leaving her with an awareness of excruciating agony.
Moments ticked away. Across a continent, Aurora gasped to full awakeness, flung by dreams from a sound sleep. ``Trisha?'' she called softly, knowing something was terribly wrong with her sister. More loudly: ``Trisha?'' There was no answer. Aurora rolled out of bed. Where was she? A bedroom, someplace, one she couldn't recognize. What room was this? No time for that! There was another bed, empty, Trisha's garb neatly folded on the dresser. So Trisha had been here! Where was she now? A spiralling shadow fogged the air around Aurora's head. She had heard the cry for help, but where was Trisha? Where? She always knew, deep inside, where her siblings were. Where? There! There was Trisha, across the continent, soaring skywards.
*Trisha? What's wrong?* The telepathic call found its familiar match. Aurora's thoughts interwove lovingly with her sister's.
*They're crazy. All crazy. All the world. Hurts. I hurt.* Comet's thoughts fluttered to the edge of unconsciousness. *Have to keep ... going. Want darkness.*
*TRISHA!* Aurora's thoughts were a paroxysm of terror. *TRISHA!*
A floor above, rising from dreams laced with wheat stalks and rolling fields of blooming marigolds, Eclipse dragged sharply awake. ``What?'' she whispered. She forced herself to think. Had someone shouted someplace? No, she didn't have a ghost of a memory of hearing something. Aurora? Was it Aurora? *?* a mental probe, slightly stronger, drifted down.
*TRISHA! What HAPPENED to you?* Aurora was at the edge of panic. *WHO'S crazy? WHAT HAPPENED TO YOU? ...Who's there?*
*Aurora? Eclipse. Why are you shouting?* The older girl's thoughts were completely tranquil.
*It's Trisha. She's hurt, and flying, and passing out. And she's THERE!* [Images of Washington. Comet, one arm hanging limply, streaking higher and higher.] *We can't help her. She's too far. You can't fly there IN TIME. We can't do ANYTHING. I DON'T WANT HER TO DIE. WE CAN'T do anything!*
*Aurora? Calm down.* Eclipse cringed at the thought of another rescue. What had Comet done? She gently chided herself for what she had not quite thought. Aurora was touching the fringes of her mind, and Aurora really did not need her vocabulary broadened, not in the directions Eclipse had almost used.
*We CAN'T do ANYTHING. And she's DYING!*
*Please! Calm yourself!* asked Eclipse. Aurora ignored Eclipse's rational inner voice. *Put your body field up!* Eclipse felt a tension in the air as Aurora's gifts locked breathable air around her.
A shimmer of blue-violet light, the delicate ring of distant wind-chimes. Eclipse, dressed in a frilly, long-sleeved, close-necked nightgown, now stood at Aurora's side. ``Calm down,'' Eclipse demanded. ``Calm down! I'll save Comet. You've got to help. Where is she?'' Eclipse let Aurora pass images to her, images showing places half a continent away. Comet was above the atmosphere, madly climbing away from the city Eclipse so dreaded. Eclipse tried to target Comet's geodesic, found it bending away faster than she could adjust her aim. Goddess-be-praised, thought Eclipse, Comet's pulling a hundred fifty gees, not counting the jinks. I'm supposed to target that? ``Can she hear you? Aurora, listen to me! Can Comet hear you?''
*Eclipse, where'd you come from? Trisha? Of course she hears me. We're sisters,* answered the younger girl.
Eclipse swallowed slightly. Aurora was so completely panicked that she hadn't noticed the flare of the teleport, even when Eclipse appeared half an arm's length away. ``Tell Comet to coast. Relax and coast. I need to lock on her. I can't if she keeps boosting.'' If Comet doesn't listen, thought Eclipse, mayhaps I can push something firmer through Aurora; that sure doesn't leave me much reserve for a rescue. Not to mention what I'll do to Aurora. To Eclipse's delight, Comet eased away from headlong flight.
A moment's calculation. An infalling violet glow lit walls and ceiling. A cascade of calling bells rang unheard. Two figures vanished from the bedroom, reappearing far above Maryland, tens of yards from Comet, velocities matched. Stars swam before Eclipse's eyes. She shook her head, clearing a dazed gloss from her vision.
*TRISHA!* shouted Aurora.
*Aurora?* answered Comet, letting foggy thoughts be intercepted.
*I'm here, sister.* Three bodies touched. Comet swayed out of consciousness. Eclipse clutched the sisters' waists, holding the three of them together.
Too high to speak. Too little air for sound. *Aurora?* Eclipse joined the sisters' mind-to-mind link. *Is Comet out cold? I'll get us back. But she mustn't start flying again.*
* She's asleep...No, I CAN'T HEAR HER. Her DREAMING mind SHUT OFF! I think SHE'S DYING! She ISN'T even DREAMING! ShE IsN't ThInKiNg AbOuT BrEaThInG! WhErE ArE wE?* Aurora's terror interlaced her thoughts. *Where's the bedroom? How'd we get here?* demanded the eleven-year-old.
*I, oh, I teleported us. Like Starsong does? Here to there?* responded Eclipse. She took another moment of calculation, this time targeting a deliberately memorized point in Pickering's library. A violet flare folded in on itself, chimes echoing triumphantly from great sweeps of glass. Three figures materialized ten feet above the library floor and fluttered to the carpet.
*She's dying. SHE'S DYING! We've GOT to DO SOMEtHiNg!* Aurora screamed into Eclipse's mind.
``Aurora? Aurora! Stop being a baby!'' Do I have to do everything? Eclipse asked herself. ``You four heal each other! Don't just stand there squawking, heal her!'' To Eclipse's eye, Comet was seriously hurt, arm broken, third degree burns and blisters across her back, but dying? Not likely. Not unless there was a lot wrong internally.
*I can't! I can't by myself. It has to be two of us. I need a power base. They're both asleep upstairs. It's TOO LATE.* Aurora squeezed back tears.
``Aurora. Aurora!'' Eclipse, a semi-conscious Comet draped over her left shoulder, grabbed the younger girl by her T-shirt, hoisting her one-handed almost off her feet. ``Cut that out!'' Eclipse shouted. Then she blinked, hard, the walls of the library swimming around her. ``I did this before. I did it with Comet. We did it to you. Remember? After you stopped DeathMaster? We healed you. Use me as your base. Just heal her. Do it now.'' Do it, thought Eclipse, before I fall flat on my face myself. Shelves of books drifted into a reddish haze.
*But I could hurt you. If I draw too deep, I could...* protested a frightened Aurora.
``You? Draw too deep from me? Don't be silly. I worry about myself, you don't! GR? I'll just get dizzy.'' Inwardly Eclipse recited the steps of mastery, the link to the infinite. She felt lines etch along her bones. Someplace not reached by normal vision, she saw a golden eye masked under black veils, the physical realization of Aurora's seal. Comet's burns disappeared, flesh returning to a healthy tan. Her shoulder lost its odd bend. Comet flashed back to energetic awareness.
*Trisha?* whispered Aurora.
``Janie? Sister? What happened?'' They hugged each other gleefully, their joy shared through Aurora's mind-link. Eclipse sagged bonelessly to the carpet, her last threads of consciousness contemplating its fine, intricate weave, while the sharp smell of new-woven wool came pungently to her nostrils. After what seemed to her like minutes, two small pairs of hands rolled her onto her back. She stared blearily into the brilliantly-lit ceiling, wishing she could close her eyes and sleep, though reason said she had responsibilities to perform.
``What happened?'' came Comet's voice. ``What did she do?'' Comet peered around the library. ``Where are we? What is this place? How did we get here?''
*Comet? Don't you remember? Eclipse came for you* ``Eclipse? Are you all right?'' asked Aurora.
``Me?'' answered Eclipse wanly. ``Sure. Just looking at the carpet. Nice pattern.'' She paused. ``I did things a little fast. Wore me down. A trifle. Dragging you both here was a bit of a strain. This is Alex's library. What did you do, Comet? You were completely wrecked up.''
``They shot me,'' Comet answered. ``They shot at me, and I couldn't dodge them all, and there was something so fast I couldn't get out of its way, not when I'd never seen it before, and now I'm okay, but you fell over and lay there. Well, your eyes were still open, but you looked as limp as an overcooked asparagus.''
``Who shot whom?'' Pickering's usually-soft voice rang sharply through the library. ``Comet, what happened to your back? Surely that T-shirt was intact when last I saw it?''
Three heads turned. Pickering had been nowhere to be seen. Now, as if called, he stood on the lower mezzanine, concern lighting his eyes. Eclipse slumped on the carpet, momentarily too tired to stand.
Comet whirled to face Pickering. If they were all in trouble with him, it was her fault, so she should make sure she took the blame. Her sister was always there to back her up, but there was no reason for Aurora to get yelled at by a grown-up, not when it wasn't her fault, not when even mild adult criticism always completely zapped Aurora out. At worst, if Pickering was really mad at them, they'd have to go away. If they flew South, far enough, sleeping outside wouldn't be too bad. At worst, there would be a beach, out in the Pacific, though sleeping on sand really left your clothes yucky. Not what she wanted, not right at this moment with brother sound asleep and Eclipse flat on her back, but this was Pickering's house, and that was the only fact that really mattered. ``I went to Washington, and they didn't recognize me, and started shooting, and I tried to run away, but couldn't, and ...''
``A little more slowly. Please? Where did you go? Someplace that has guards?'' Pickering sounded very confused.
``Washington. Washington, F. D. Maryland. Oh, right.'' Comet turned on Eclipse. ``Are you sure he doesn't believe in flying? I mean, this is going to be awful difficult to explain to someone who's never believed in flying or personas. Terrible awful difficult, mayhaps even.''
``Try me. After all, I saw her fly,'' said Pickering, pointing at Eclipse, ``and I think I saw all of you fall into the lake.''
``I can't fly,'' announced Aurora. ``My big sister carries me.'' She put her arm around Comet's waist, while Comet set her hand on her sister's further shoulder.
``I went to San Francisco,'' said Comet, ``and someone stripped the marble off the Golden Gate Bridge and painted it icky orange, and I went to Boston and someone renamed the Rogers Institution, and I,'' she failed to force back tears, ``I went home and it wasn't there.''
Aurora went almost white. ``No Rogers Institution?'' Her interruption let her miss the reference to home.
``It got renamed, since three days ago,'' continued Comet ``And I went to Washington and the force dome was gone and the Solara Monument was gone and the FedCorps Barracks was gone and they all started shooting at me; they didn't ask questions, they just started shooting with guns and rockets and weird things so fast you could hardly see them fly, and then it hurt, so I ran away. It hurt.'' Now crying helplessly, she leaned against Aurora. ``It hurt. They wanted to kill me.'' Eclipse climbed shakily to her feet and held them both. They pressed heads together, falls of black, copper-red, and frost-white hair almost entangled.
``They shot you?'' asked Pickering, playing for time. This story was out of hand. A little hovering was one thing, not that he could imagine how it was being faked, but cross-country so fast had to be supersonic. The proximity radar track had to be wrong; she might have smuggled a rocket belt onto the property, but even a girl her age couldn't take twenty gravities. At his notepad prompting, Telzey obediently brought CNN up on his monitor, her voice-to-text converter scrolling the announcer's words across the pictures. Antiaircraft fire in Washington, if real, would be reported quickly enough. When it was not covered, because there had been none, he would ask the three children what was really going on. A recue displayed other networks split-screen, two of which were transmitting ``SPECIAL NEWS BULLETIN. PLEASE STAND BY'' not their customary video feed.
``They shot at me,'' gasped Comet. ``They shot me. No warning. No one touched my mind. No one asked who I was. There were just guns and rockets.''
``Touched your mind?'' asked Pickering. They had to be making this up. But Eclipse's flight had been real. Appearing in the library had been real. The TV networks did appear to be in a tizzy about something.
``Yes, of course, my mind -- the FedCorps Air defenses.'' Comet gave herself a few seconds to recover, dabbed at her eyes with a handkerchief, and continued. ``Mind-to-mind? Telepathy, like.'' What did Pickering know about the world? she wondered. Not very much, to judge from his questions. This house was apparently an asylum for a single very rich lunatic. At least he was a super cook.
``I can assure you,'' declared Pickering, ``that the United States government does not employ telepaths. After all, before a telepath could be hired, there'd have to be such a thing as mental telepathy.'' Faking it well enough to fool Congress might be less demanding, he noted. A body that had agreed to name a shuttle after a pseudo-mythical lost continent, first described in the nineteenth century, was unlikely to strain at carnival tricks.
``Right.'' Comet turned to the other girls, whispering conspiratorially. ``Guys. Is he completely nuts?''
``Here, I'll show him,'' announced Aurora. ``If it's all right. Is it, Alex?''
``Show me? No, I have no objection.'' Pickering stared distractedly at stock film of the Capitol. The reporter's words, scrolling upwards on his monitor, spoke of an air attack on the White House, repelled by antiaircraft cannon, surface-to-air missiles, and secret weapons. He cued Telzey to put CNN on the wall screen.
*Telepathy. You said you didn't mind.* Aurora's voice appeared inside Pickering's mind. His ears insisted that the room was quite silent. Pickering was suddenly aware of an extra dimension to the room, a dimension in which Aurora and Comet and Eclipse spoke -- no, thought -- things with the speed of mind, a dimension in which Aurora was a little girl horribly frightened that her beloved older sister was hurt, Comet was both a frightened little girl a half-step from tears and older- girl-being-baby-sitter-responsible for three children, and Eclipse, more rigidly self-disciplined than seemed reasonable for a twelve-year-old, masked her thoughts behind tight-woven steel mesh.
``I guess I',' Pickering stopped speaking aloud, *did say that, didn't I?* His neck crawled. *But if you're not faking this, repeat aloud the series: 2653545
``Two six five three. Hey! Slow down! I can't talk that fast,'' Aurora complained.
``He's convinced,'' announced Eclipse. ``Though it's occurred to him that pi starting a few places in is not very random.'' Pickering nodded, acknowledging her accuracy. ``Even for someone your age, Aurora. You're that bright. I know how close you are to a GamesMistress norm.''
*See, Alex, this is regular telepathy.* Eclipse's voice joined Aurora's, her words slipping between Pickering's thoughts. *Except telepathy can send pictures* [Image of a rose colored like corn candy, fading from yellow at the tips through orange to deep pink and then white at the base.] Pickering reached over the rail, trying to touch a flower he knew was not physically present. **And, if I try harder, this is a second mentalic conversation. Only us two hear the second conversation**, *but all four of us hear the first conversation.* Eclipse withdrew from Pickering's mind.
*Eclipse! Chill demo,* said Aurora.
``But you're really firing his detects, Aurora,'' announced Eclipse. ``That's the crawling sensation, Alex. You have a gift for detecting mind-probes. **By the way, Aurora, he's backreading us through you, enough to see our mindsets.**
**Oops.** Aurora withdrew her probe.
``Is mind-reading always so eldritch?'' asked Pickering.
``Eldritch? That was your detect,'' answered Eclipse. ``Most people feel nothing, or something less unpleasant. I could change your detect output. If you'd like. I owe you more of a favor than that.''
``Someday we could discuss that. Something less disconcerting would be fine, thanks. CNN may be relevant.'' Pickering brought up picture and sound on the wall display.
``...take you now to Reporter Vera Veranowsky on the Capitol Stairs.''
``Thank you, James. I'm standing at the foot of the Capitol Stairs, the Halls of Congress only yards behind me, where minutes ago an unidentified aircraft attacked the Capitol. Standing with me is Mr. Yosohiro Kanizawa,'' the camera panned to an older man who bowed politely to the audience, ``who actually filmed the attack. Mr. Kanizawa's tape is now ready for rebroadcast.''
Vera Veranowsky's blow-dry curls were replaced by a crisp, well-framed shot of two women, the Capitol building behind them. ``I was filming my honorable wife and daughter.'' The narrator had a distinct Oxford accent, ``My daughter noticed a strange object,'' the camera angle swung to show a glowing orange speck. ``I switched to telephoto lens.'' The image blurred and expanded to a pastel sphere. Pickering started, recognizing the sphere he'd seen above his lake, not twelve hours earlier. ``Here is the flying object over the Capitol. To the naked eye, something appeared to be inside.'' The object floated above budding tree limbs. ``Then shooting began: cannons, rockets,'' the field of view expanded, revealing streams of tracers raining on a now-hovering target, ``and ray weapons.'' The camera showed solid lines of light flashing across the street. One struck its target, bursting into an incandescent flare.
The ball of light shuddered, dipped, and rocketed up, faster and faster, vanishing from camera sight. The film looped back, showing the ball again descending toward the Capitol, this time in slow motion. A freeze frame, swiftly expanded, revealed a darkish shape at the ball's center. The commentator was puzzled by its shape, which was taller than wide, unlike most aircraft. Pickering had no trouble identifying it: a human form floating in mid-air, supported by nothing more solid than a dazzle of pastels.
``Comet?'' asked Pickering. ``I know you've been through a lot, but do you think I could see you fly?''
``No big trade.'' Her face disappeared behind an orange tapestry, a glowing ball matching the television images. She hovered a few inches above the floor. White-orange shadows of balcony railings projected up against walls and window panes. ``See? Just like the video,'' she said. ``I don't have room to go fast in here.''
``Do you fly fast?'' asked Pickering.
``Well, pretty fast. Faster than...'' several incidental remarks came together in Comet's mind. ``You really don't know what I mean by a `persona', do you, Alex?'' He shook his head. ``And that spaceship trapped in orbit, the, the...''
``Lemuria,'' supplied Eclipse, most of her attention locked to the television coverage.
``That's a good spaceship, as fast as they get, isn't it?'' Comet asked.
``Well,'' Pickering qualified, ``The Apollo moon capsules were a bit faster, but that was before you were born.''
``Wait a minute,'' chimed in Aurora, ``How can anyone not know what a persona is?'' Pickering again felt the hairs on his neck prickle.
*Well,* answered Pickering, recognizing the cues that Aurora's powers were again in use, *I don't know what a persona is, because thus far you have neglected to tell me. This is a deficiency you could correct, if you were so inclined. After all, if you're going to read my mind without asking, wouldn't it be polite to share what's in yours, too?*
*Sorry. Really. Please? You don't know, do you? You're right. It would be polite. I was rude. I'm sorry. How can't you know? It's like never having heard of Boston. Or Atlanticea. What do you call people who fly? [Image of Comet diving through clouds.]*
*Motion picture actors.* Pickering first recalled the technical methods used in various special effects, then called to mind the sight of Eclipse floating through his library, his utter astonishment, and his failure to detect the technical means she and Comet had employed to perpetrate their hoax.
*Ummh, right. Sorry. I shouldn't have peeked in your mind. I apologize. What you said. It's impossible. I know you believe it. I'm sorry I looked, but it's hard to believe. Sorry I upset you. Someone's got to be playing a trick on you.* The eldritch feeling withdrew from Pickering's consciousness.
``Eclipse?'' said Comet. ``No personas? That's gonna to make it hard to explain faster-than-light, isn't it? Mayhaps I should skip it?''
``Stick with Washington. You didn't go faster than light there,'' Eclipse suggested.
``Faster than light? Don't you mean faster than sound? Sound is a bit slower than light,'' said a dumbfounded Pickering. His gaze was elsewhere. While the girls talked, he watched a computer screen. Telzey replayed recordings of the library, first vacant, momentarily occupied by a pulse of twisted violet light; Eclipse, Aurora, and Comet appeared from nowhere. Half-a-dozen detectors agreed. The three had not crossed the room's threshholds. They had been somewhere else at one instant, and here the next.
``Could I say I'm fast enough? When I need to be? I mean, I need to go from start to finish, but I get there when I have to.'' Pastels disappeared. Comet dropped to the floor, landing gracefully on the balls of her feet. Aurora was more puzzled than ever.
``Aurora,'' Eclipse looked at the younger girl, ``It's way past your bed time. And mine. And Comet's.'' Eclipse prodded Aurora out, glancing over one shoulder to wink at Comet.
* * * * *
The two girls followed a short,book-lined corridor to the central staircase. *Eclipse?* whispered Aurora. *Trisha! We're leaving Trisha by herself! She was so scared, not one minute ago.*
*Be wintery,* came the voiceless answer. *She's not hurt. She needs a good cry. She won't while you're there. She's afraid she'll frighten you.*
*Why? Why should I leave her? I'm her sister! We NEVER have SECRETS, NOT from EACH OTHER!* protested the younger girl.
*I know. She thinks you're very tired. She's playing baby sitter so you go to sleep. She's too tired to think whether she's baby sitter or older sister. Or she'd know you want to be with her. She'll tell you in the morning. About everything. Including RTI. I'm sure. She'll be GR. So everything is all right,* lied Eclipse. Well, she added to herself, it's partly true. It's just that the world is missing, or someone changed the past, or mayhaps something serious. But Aurora needs to sleep before she finds out. And I need sleep before I die. Look at the bright side: if someone changed the past, no one knows you had the Namestone. If it's a new world, everyone isn't trying to kill you. Yet.
*So she's doing it for me?* queried Aurora. Eclipse responded with a thumbs- up gesture. *I wish she wouldn't. I guess I've got to go along.* Aurora's tone was downcast.
*This is what happens,* answered Eclipse, *when someone loves you. People do strange things for people they love. She wants to do what's right. Don't you remember? [Flashback: Comet and Aurora in Pickering's library. `Janie?' had been Comet's first coherent thought, shifting instantly to a communion of mutual joy at the reunion.] See? She loves you!* Aurora remembered her sister's delight and flashed a smile. Eclipse forced cheer into her own voice. ``Let's get you off to sleep.'' Aurora had the family ties she would have nevermore.
* * * * *
Pickering continued his conversation with Comet. ``You skipped the in between when you appeared in this room,'' he said. ``So my burglar alarms indicate.'' Her skin, he noted, was completely restored; the back of the girl's T-shirt had been shredded and carbonized. From the absence of tan lines, her family must have a somewhat relaxed attitude towards clothing, consistent with his Hollywood actress/practical joke interpretation of her presence. here. In Pickering draped a blanket over her shoulders, obtaining the slightest of grateful nods in return.
``That's Eclipse. She teleports. And ...'' Comet's voice dropped, an alarmed look crossing her face. ``When we got here, we weren't moving, hardly at all; she killed all my speed. Oh, no! No wonder she fell over.''
``Comet? What's wrong?'' The concern in Pickering's voice was entirely genuine.
``Eclipse must, ummh, Alex, if I say `Energy is conserved', do you have a hint what I mean?'' Her hazel-green eyes came alive as she focused on her explanation.
``Oh! Everyone knows that. Except, once upon a time, my students on their examinations,'' responded Pickering.
``If you teleport, and change how fast you're going, you've got to supply energy; I must've taken a minute to build up speed, and Eclipse matched it in an instant. Twice. Once going there. Once getting back. I hope she didn't hurt herself. It's how her gifts work; she does the most incredible things, but Cloud and B...my brother never notice she turns white afterwards; she could fry herself rescuing me, and never say a word about it after,'' said Comet.
``She must care a great deal about you,'' said Pickering.
``She cares about everyone. All of us. It's how she is, how she was brought up; she always worries about friends, even when we don't deserve it. I mean, I worry about Star and Aurora, but they're family; she worries about strangers more than I worry about my brother or sister.''
``If I were a pop psychologist, I'd mumble about compensation,'' Pickering remarked. ``Having her mother show her the door of her house last Fall and say never to come back must have hurt her, even allowing that Eclipse is older than she looks. She sounds older. It's understandable; she wants to prove she's a good person, and that her mother was unfair.''
``What?'' responded a flabbergasted Comet. Pickering recounted the remainder of Eclipse's tale. ``Her mom told her that! Forever? Her mom tossed Eclipse out of her own house, when she was all of eleven-not-yet-going-on-twelve? That's terrible! She's never given a hint! Oh, wow! She never told us. She never told anyone; she's always vague, except she says she has this wonderful fortress - base - where she lives, instead of home; no wonder she's always gloomy, however hard she tries to hide it. Don't tell the other guys what she said; I mean Aurora would be frigid, you can tell her, but my brother or Cloud -- no passage!''
``I wish she'd warned me. I assumed you knew. I understand about Star and Cloud,'' said Pickering. ``She appears to be very well brought up. By implication, brought up by parents who would never do something so totally cruel to their own child. However, I've met people who were wonderful parents, until they caught their children doing something they disliked intensely. Then they went off the deep end. Though you're more trusting than American children.'' Allowing, he thought, you aren't paid to play your role. If you're an actress you know you're safe here, and are probably radio-wired so your employers hear everything I say. But how did you fake flying and mind-reading?
``We're more trusting than Americans? I am an American!'' protested Comet.
``You accepted my hospitality,'' the older man explained. ``American children are taught to fear strangers, often more than is rational. I suppose if you fly, teleport, and read minds, you might feel safe. Or are you older than you look, too?'' Pickering asked innocently.
``Cloud and Eclipse and I, we're twelve. Star and Aurora are eleven. I think Eclipse is younger'n me; she says she's tall because her mom's tall. Oh, if there're no personas, you wouldn't know; telepaths sound older than they are, so Aurora sounds twelve, when she's scarcely eleven, and Eclipse can speak grown-up if she tries, enough so when she spoke to the League of Nations the video annotators said she wase a front for grownups because she sounded too grownup to be true. That's reading grownup minds all the time and learning ideas, words, ways to talk. Aurora's very bright, lots brighter than Star or me, mayhaps even smart as Eclipse. Not that Aurora'd read minds at random or mom or dad's, or the...'' Comet's line of thought had run in a circle, back to her vanished parents, back to Arlington. She shuddered, trapped by the weave of her memories. ``I ...'' Comet froze, staring blankly ahead.
``Comet?'' Pickering asked quietly. ``Comet?''
``I have to wait till Aurora's upstairs. Please? Don't let me scare her?''
``Telzey!'' snapped Pickering. ``Library doors. Close all!'' There was a soft whisk as panels slid shut around the room. ``She won't hear now, whatever it is.''
``Telzey?'' For a moment she was released from her trance.
``My dearest friend, my constant and eternally loyal companion,'' Pickering announced.
Comet peered at sealed doors. Her stifled scream collapsed into great, gasping bursts of tears, each cascading into the next, too close upon each other for words to escape. Pickering told himself that Comet was a well-disciplined child momentarily in need of catharsis. Bye-and-bye, the flood of tears ebbed. Words crept into gaps between the worst cries, admissions of guilt for a terrible mistake. A mistake Comet didn't understand. A mistake that had to be completely her fault, for she had brought brother and sister, Cloud and Eclipse, here, and now she didn't know where here was. She had brought them home, but where was home?
* * * * *
*?* A wordless interrogatory stroked Eclipse's consciousness.
*Hmmh?* she answered.
*You're awake? My ? wasn't loud enough to wake you up? Was it?* Aurora, having intruded, suddenly turned shy.
*Me?* responded Eclipse. * I was awake. Be a while before I sleep. Your probe was very well done. Wouldn't wake someone. Just be heard if I were awake. Mayhaps trigger good wards.* The compliment came with the feel of muscles tensing: a warm, approving smile. Behind the smile lurked the source of Eclipse's insomnia: dull aches in arms and legs, sharp pains that came and went without pattern, a splitting headache, overwhelming exhaustion.
*Eclipse? Are you GR?* Aurora pulled, not gently, at Eclipse's self- perception, sampling what the older girl felt. *You're not. You're as bad off as Comet was. Worse, even. She hurt her back. You hurt all over. Why didn't you say?*
*Me? Say something? About what?* A grey shadow cloaked Eclipse's mind, shielding Aurora from what passed there.
*But you feel awful. You were hurt in the Tunnels, weren't you? I know what you did. Even if I promised not to say.* Aurora's tone was the well-brought-up little girl who suddenly notices that a friend is seriously ill.
*This? Promise not to tell?* Eclipse caught a kinaesthetic message, Aurora nodding agreement. *I get this way when I call gifts deeply. This came from grabbing Comet at, Goddess help me, must have been sixty miles a second she was doing, and three thousand miles up. And bringing us all back here. At dead stop. In one jump. And me barely awake.*
*You did that? For Trisha? When you knew how you'd feel after?* Aurora's words came with a feeling of very deep yet puzzled gratitude.
*The way I feel? It doesn't signify. It's not I truly hurt myself. Not permanently. I'll be GR tomorrow,* she said, grateful she'd never had to be honest while talking mind-to-mind. `Next week' was more likely than `tomorrow.' *I couldn't let Comet die. She wasn't that badly wrecked up. Hurting, scared, more than dying. Don't worry. This isn't killing me. It only spoils my sleep. This isn't bad like the Maze! And I walked out of that. Smiling.*
Eclipse, resigned to the price for tapping her limits, pulled her blankets over her head. *Aurora, dear, it's very, very late? Why don't you sleep? You don't have to stay awake, just because I am. Whatever got Trisha so upset, it'll be easier in the morning. Now follow the dream clouds...* Eclipse transformed her voice to images of sunlit grainfields, dust-yellow frozen waves whose fragments were marigolds bobbing in a gentle breeze.
*Late. And I'm* Aurora's thoughts cut sharply off as she followed Eclipse's lure into deep sleep.