They sentenced her to the zero-time jail.

"Didn"t you ever hear anything about the interstellar colonies?"

"No, nothing."

"It figures. They must have broken away from the State long before you landed. That"s probably why they fired on you. Not because you were Mirelly-Lyra, but because you were from Earth."

There was a silence. Then, "I never understood that. Are you saying that the State broke apart?"

"Yeah. It took a h.e.l.l of a long time, that"s all. The State was a water-monopoly empire." Corbell was talking half to himself now. "They tend to last forever, unless something comes in from outside and breaks them up. But there wasn"t anything outside the State. The collapse had to wait till the State made its own barbarians."

Hesitantly Mirelly-Lyra said, "You talk as if you have known many kinds of State."

"I predate the State. I was a corpsicle, a frozen dead man. When the State was a century or so old, they... turned a condemned criminal into Jerome Corbell."

"Oh." Pause. "Then maybe you know more than I do. How could the State break apart?"

"Look at it this way. First there was the State expanding through the solar system. Later, much later, there were a lot of copies of the State, one for each star, all belonging to one big State run from Earth. Then... well, I"m guessing. I think it was children"s immortality.

"You made a big thing out of the advantages of making eleven year-olds immortal. Okay, fine. What if the other States didn"t accept that? Look at how different different your children"s State would be! The other States probably claimed they were the original State. That makes the solar system State heretics-its citizens, unbelievers." your children"s State would be! The other States probably claimed they were the original State. That makes the solar system State heretics-its citizens, unbelievers."

"What would happen then? Would they stop talking to each other?"

Corbell laughed. "Sure. Right after the war. Right after both sides tried to exterminate each other and failed. That"s got got to be the way it happened. It"s inevitable." to be the way it happened. It"s inevitable."

"Why?"

"It just is."

"Then," she said slowly, "that"s what happened to..."

"What?"

"When they took me out of zero-time there was more than one State on Earth. Maybe that was inevitable, too. Let me tell you."

The Children led Mirelly-Lyra to the peak of a squat silver pyramid. Widgets of silver and clear plastic floated around her: three-dimensional television transmitters, and weapons that affected the mind and will. They turned off the pyramid; its mirror-colored sides became black iron. They put her in an elevator and sent her down.

She joined a despondent rabble. Some tried to talk to her in gibberish. She watched the elevator rise... and sink again with another prisoner.

None spoke her language.

The elevator never stopped rising and falling, bringing prisoners down, rising empty. The styles of those about her were wildly different; they continued to change with every new prisoner. There was no provision for feeding the prisoners.

It became obvious: n.o.body had been here long enough to become hungry.

The twelfth to descend was not a prisoner. A Girl of eleven dropped to just above their heads. Small machines floated around her. One, a silver wand mounted in a larger base, twitched this way and that like a nervous hound eager to be loosed. The Girl was naked, and strangely decorated: Transparent b.u.t.terfly wings sprang from her shoulders. She called in a sweet, peremptory, oddly accented voice, "Mirelly-Lyra Zeelashisthar, are you there?"

So Mirelly-Lyra returned to the world after perhaps a quarter of an hour of subjective time.

Her hosts were half a dozen children, all Girls. The Girl who had come for her, Choss, was in some ways the leader. Their social organization was complex.

Their minds were not the minds of children. They walked like the Lords of the World. Mirelly-Lyra"s translator gave Corbell her emotional inflections as well as her words. The emotions were awe and fear and hatred. These were not little girls. They were Girls, neuter and immortal. They were arrogant and indulgent by turns, and Mirelly-Lyra learned to obey them.

They trained her with the floating silver wand... a variant of the silver cane she carried much later. The box she carried constantly at her belt was the same translator she carried now. They made her wear it long after she knew the language. They thought her accent ugly.

It grated on her to think that they regarded her as a social inferior. Later she changed her mind. They regarded her as a house pet, a prized property that could do tricks.

With the children she watched shows put on by other groups of children. Some they attended live. Others were broadcast as three-dimensional illusions, like holovision sets arbitrarily large. Once they floated in interplanetary s.p.a.ce for hours, and Mirelly-Lyra wondered at the grim intensity with which Choss"s Girls watched a dull and repet.i.tious planetarium show. She understood their rapt concentration later, during the voting.

But most of the shows were bids for prestige. Some of the bulky floating widgets that followed her around were cameras and emotional sensors. Mirelly-Lyra was another show. Because of her, the prestige of Choss"s group was high.

Her medicines had r.e.t.a.r.ded, but not prevented, menopause. The change in her body was a near-killing blow to Mirelly-Lyra"s faith in herself. She was a trained seal, and aging. One thing kept her going. Somewhere out there was dictator immortality.

At first she welcomed the chance to talk to the Girls. But that was the trouble: Mirelly-Lyra did all the talking. Her own questions were not answered. Questions the Girls put to her she was expected to answer in full. If she didn"t lecture at length they became annoyed.

Then, once, she found Choss in an indulgent mood.

"Choss told me that the dictators took care of their own medical problems," said Mirelly-Lyra. "The dictators were ruled by the Boys, who made shows with them and saw to it that chemicals in their food kept them from having children. I think Choss was jealous that the Boys would not let Girls play with the dictators. I"m telling this badly," she said suddenly. "These Girls were all older than I. They were decadent aristocrats, not children."

"Yeah. I get the impression the Girls and the Boys stayed apart."

"Yeah, and that made it difficult for me. The Boys and Girls, they didn"t have s.e.x to hold them together. They were two separate States on Earth, each with its territory and its rights. They must have been separate for a long time. Choss said that the Girls ruled the sky and the Boys ruled the dictators. I would have to go to the Boys to find out about dictator immortality."

"The Girls ruled the sky sky?" That sounded like nonsense, but...

"Choss said so. I think it was true, Corbel. I saw them vote not to move the Earth! We watched an astronomical light show, and then there were hours of discussion, and they voted!

"But I was more concerned with dictator immortality. Choss promised to learn what I wanted from the Boys. I was valuable to them, Corbel. They gained prestige from the stories I told and the shows they made about me." Anger crackled in the translator"s voice as Mirelly-Lyra relived evil memories. "They were forever amused by what I did not know. Other groups of Girls began reviving other prisoners. After many years I decided that Choss had done nothing to get me what I wanted. I would have to reach the Boys."

"It figures."

"What?"

"Choss couldn"t go to the Boys. They"d claim you as a dictator. Their property."

"I... never thought of that. I was a fool."

"Go on."

"The Boys held the land ma.s.ses of the southern hemisphere. They had built heated domes in the south polar continent. They held two other continents and many islands. But the Girls ruled more useful land, and more power too, if they really ruled the sky. I knew that the Earth had been moved. There were times when Jupiter shone so brilliantly that one could see the banding and pick out the moons. I was afraid of these Girls. I was trying to find a safe way to steal an aircraft, but I waited too long.

"One day Choss told me that they were tired of me, that I must go back in zero-time. I was no longer a new thing. I took a plane that night. They let me fly a long way before they brought me back with the autopilot. I learned that they had made a show of my escape."

"Fun people, your Girls. They put you back in the box?"

"Yes. They let me keep my translator. It was the only thing they did for me. Later they lowered two Boys they had caught during a fight. The Girls had given them soul whips," she said with grim amus.e.m.e.nt, "and I was the only one who could talk to them."

"Soul whip?"

"I used one to make you docile. It didn"t work. A few more applications may help."

"Finish your story."

"We waited a long time. n.o.body came to free us. Finally the machinery stopped. Everything was killing-hot. The Boys ruled us with the soul whip, and I was their translator, but there was little cooperation. Some of us lived to reach the southernmost continent. There they were captured by Boys, all but me. I fled back across the water alone.

"It was a long time before I learned enough to feel myself safe. I had to learn what could be eaten, what foods would not spoil, how to hide from storms: all things you will have to learn, too. I was old when I could begin searching again. For ten years I searched for dictator immortality through the ruins the Boys and Girls left me. Then I emptied out my small zero-time storage place and went into it to wait for... you."

"Nice try."

"When you are young again, then then mock me!" mock me!"

"I don"t expect that will happen."

"We can"t give up."

Corbell laughed. "I can give up. I guess I don"t believe in your dictator immortality. Have you ever seen anyone get young?"

"No, but-"

"Do you even know what makes people get old? Fires don"t burn backward, lady."

"I am not a doctor. I only know what anyone knows. Inert molecules gather in the cells to clog them, like... like silt and garbage and the poisons of industry gather in a great inland sea, until the sea becomes a great inland swamp. The cells become less... active. Some die. One day there are too few active cells living too slowly. Other inert matter acc.u.mulates to block the veins and arteries... but I have medicines to dissolve them."

"Cholesterol, sure. But getting the dead stuff out of a living cell without killing it would be something else again. I think you were hoaxed," said Corbell. "Choss and her friends acted like nasty children. Why not your Boy lawyer too? Remember, you asked the Girls. They didn"t raise the subject."

"But why why?"

"Oh, just to see what you"d-"

"No!"

"Everyone dies. Your lawyer"s dead. Choss is dead. Even civilizations die. There was a civilization here that could move the Earth. Now there"s nothing."

After a longish silence came the calm voice of the translating box. "There are Boys where you"re going. I tried to talk to them once. They know nothing of dictator immortality."

"Do they know what happened to civilization?"

"You said it yourself. There were two States on Earth. They must have fought."

"It could have happened." War between the s.e.xes had always seemed silly to Corbell. Too much fraternizing with the enemy, haha. But if s.e.x didn"t hold them together?

"The Boys know nothing," she repeated. "Perhaps there was never dictator immortality in the south polar continent."

"You"ve got a one-track mind. If it ever existed, you found it in every city in the world. Used up. Rotted."

"One year, Corbell."

Might as well try it... "How does this sound? Let me use your your medicines. I can travel faster and look further if I"m young and healthy." medicines. I can travel faster and look further if I"m young and healthy."

Another long pause. Then, "Yes, that makes sense."

"I thought you"d say no." Here was his chance! But... "Nuts. No, I just can"t risk it. You scare me too much. This way at least I get a year."

She screamed something that was not translated. The receiver went dead.

A year, he thought. In a year I"ll be dug in so deep she"ll never find me at all. In a year I"ll be dug in so deep she"ll never find me at all.

CHAPTER SIX:

THE CHANGELINGS.

I.

Corbell came to the Antarctic sh.o.r.e in near darkness. The vanished sun had left dark red splashed across the northern horizon, and a red-on-red circle that was Jupiter"s night side. To east and west he picked out tiny Jovian moons. Ahead, dark woods came down to a dark sh.o.r.e.

The trees came at him, spreading out.

Then the smooth ride was bouncing Brownian motion, and the car was dodging tree trunks at maniac speed. He gripped the padded bar to keep himself from bouncing around inside. He dared not close his eyes. The chase scenes through Four City should have burned away his capacity for terror, but they hadn"t, they hadn"t.

The old trees forced their way through a tangle of burgeoning life, vines, underbrush, big mushrooms, everything living on each other. A pair of huge birds ran screaming from the car. The car rode high, but branches slashed at its underside.

The forest thinned... and showed masonry half hidden in vines. The car was already racing through Sarash-Zillish. Soil and gra.s.s and small bushes had invaded the streets. If this was Three City- if this was the Antarctic source of industrial activity Peerssa had sensed from orbit-then it was far gone.

The car was slowing. Thank G.o.d. G.o.d. It sc.r.a.ped slowly over crackling brush, stopped in the open, and sank. Corbell got out onto moist gra.s.s. He stretched. He looked about him. It sc.r.a.ped slowly over crackling brush, stopped in the open, and sank. Corbell got out onto moist gra.s.s. He stretched. He looked about him.

In the darkness it was barely possible to pick out two distant curved wails of hexagonal filigree where a dome must have stood. Corbell found no sign of the great black cube, the subway station, that had been the center of every city he"d seen so far.

He was parked beside what must be World Police Headquarters: a great wall of balconies and dark windows, with a row of large circular holes at the top, holes big enough to be access ports for flying police cars.

There must be weapons in there...

But there was certainly food in the park, and Corbell was faint with hunger. With some reluctance he climbed back into the car and tapped out the number Mirelly-Lyra had given him: inverted L, inverted L, nameless squiggle, delta. inverted L, inverted L, nameless squiggle, delta.

Like the woods beyond the city, the park was spreading into the streets. The car stopped over a patch of tangled vines. He stepped out, having precious little choice, and found himself thigh-deep in the tough vines. They pulled him back like a nest of snakes. He waded out.

Hunger had never done anything for Corbell"s disposition. It made him irritable, unfit to live with.

A wall of greenery twice his height ended just ahead of him. On the theory that there was a real wall under that tangle of vines, Corbell walked to the end, turned, and entered the park proper.

There was no obvious difference. It was as dark as the inside of a mouth. Jupiter"s horizontal light couldn"t reach through trees and buildings. Corbell wished for a flashlight, or a torch; but he didn"t even have a match. CORBELL Mark II, bare-a.s.s naked against the wilderness, would not be hunting prey tonight.

But fruit, now... these could be fruit trees. The Norn had said they were. Corbell stood beneath a tree and ran his hands through the branches. Something round bounced against his wrist.