"I know she hates me, but truly, I"m not one of the bad guys. I just have a job to do."

"Indeed." Inigo started flexing his limbs, grimacing at the chemical-induced stiffness. "What do you do for fun?"

"I don"t."

Inigo gave the city another look. "That looks deserted."

"It is. Ozzie has fully embraced his whole living recluse legend."

"Great Lady, you actually found him?"

"Yes."

Inigo peered around, unable to contain his excitement. "So where is he?"

Aaron held up a finger for silence. On cue a woman"s rhythmic groans could be heard from the open bedroom window.

"Ah," Inigo muttered. "What"s he like?"

"Not pleased to see me and especially not you."

"Yeah. We never did hit it off." He stood up cautiously and went over to Corrie-Lyn. His field scan ran a fast check. "So what"s the plan?"

"I"ll tell you when Ozzie comes down."

"Whatever." Inigo wandered into the house and found the kitchen. After a burst of enthusiastic compliments at discovering the culinary unit sitting amid all the historic cooking appliances, he started issuing it a complicated list. Several maidbots followed him back out to the veranda, carrying contemporary dishes: meal for two.

Corrie-Lyn finally shook off the sedative amid a flurry of cursing and groans. After a moment hugging a relieved Inigo, she shot Aaron a vicious glare. "b.a.s.t.a.r.d."

"We"re alive. The Chikoya can"t locate us. And I"ve found Ozzie."

"So where is he?"

"I"m sure he"ll join us soon."

"He"s not happy about this," Inigo explained.

"Tell him to get in line." But she relented when Inigo led her over to the table where the maidbots had laid out the meal. "Oh, wow, real food." She hesitated.

"It"s genuine," Inigo rea.s.sured her.

She grinned her grat.i.tude and started wolfing down the keanfish starter, dipping the ta.s.sels into a plum and rador sauce. Aaron went into the kitchen and ordered his own meal from the culinary unit, eating it alone on the scrubbed pine table.

An hour later Ozzie still hadn"t come down. It was pushing the screw-you point a little far, Aaron decided. Inigo and Corrie-Lyn were chatting happily on the veranda, holding hands at the table like a couple on a first date as they finished their second bottle of wine. All the scene lacked was candles and twilight. The chamber"s light hadn"t varied since they"d arrived.

Aaron went upstairs and knocked politely on the bedroom door. There was no answer. Ozzie was being deliberately difficult, which was understandable but unacceptable. He went into the room. It was dark inside, with the big wooden shutters closed and the slats down. Ozzie and the woman were cuddled up on the bed. The woman was sleeping. Colorful patterns on her s.p.a.ce-black body glowed in phosph.o.r.escent hues, shifting slowly in time with her breathing. Aaron hesitated at that. They reminded him of OCtattoos, a technology from so long ago that he didn"t even understand where the memory had come from.

Ozzie raised his head and peered at Aaron. "What, dude?"

"Quicker we start, the quicker it"s over."

"This is the middle of the night, you moron."

Aaron gestured at the light spilling in through the open door.

"Yeah? So? The light never goes out in Octoron. You make your own days here, man. And this is my night. Now take a hike."

"No. You come downstairs now and greet Inigo."

"Or what?"

"I start getting unpleasant."

"f.u.c.king fascist." Ozzie slithered off the bed, muttering. "Drown in your own s.h.i.t." He found a silk robe and tugged the belt tight emphatically. "Used to some G.o.dd.a.m.n respect in my own home." He combed his fingers through his ma.s.s of wavering wayward hair.

"I know. Turn your back for a moment and the whole Ozzied.a.m.ned universe falls to barbarism."

Ozzie glared at him for a long moment. It actually made Aaron nervous. Secondary routines were poised to activate his biononic defenses.

"Don"t push it, creepy boy," Ozzie growled.

"Sorry, but you"re not making my life easy."

Ozzie stomped past him out onto the first-floor landing. "That"s not what I was born to do."

"So what with all this daylight, I guess I don"t have to worry myself too much over those vampires," Aaron said to the legend"s back.

Inigo and Corrie-Lyn glanced around as Ozzie walked out onto the veranda, looking for all the world like guilty schoolkids. Inigo started to get up. "This wasn"t my idea, but I"m genuinely pleased we can finally-" He began.

"No s.h.i.t, a.s.shole." Ozzie dropped down hard in one of the chairs around the table. He gave the remains of the meal a suspicious look and picked up a tantrene sausage. "Get on with it."

"Okay, then. So what"s the plan?" Inigo asked Aaron.

Aaron sat at the table, trying to project the impression of a reasonable moderator. "My original goal was to take you into the Void," he told Inigo. "The intention was to establish a link with the Heart or nucleus or whatever it is that has sentient control of high-level functions in there. With that communication channel open, it was hoped to initiate negotiations."

Ozzie shrugged. "Makes sense in a lame-a.s.s sort of way. We know we can"t shoot the thing down or blow it up. Who would negotiate?"

"I"m not aware what form the negotiations were to take. My job was to secure the link. After that ... I"d know."

"How in the Lady"s name was I supposed to start talking to the Heart?" Inigo asked incredulously. "Haven"t you people shared any of my dreams? You only reach the Heart after you have achieved fulfillment."

"There is a methodology, I know," Aaron said. "That is, I"m certain I have procedures to follow once we get inside."

Inigo threw up his hands and slumped back in his chair for a sulk.

"Told you so," Corrie-Lyn said smugly. "This whole mission is a complete waste of time. You murdered hundreds of people for nothing nothing."

"So why come here, man?" Ozzie asked. "Why me? Everyone who knows me in the Commonwealth knows I don"t do this kind of s.h.i.t anymore. And your boss knows me, too much."

"There are several ways I would expect you to help. One would be an ultradrive ship we can use to fly to the Void."

"Dude, you need to stay current. Okay, first off, I don"t have an ultradrive. If I need that kind of s.h.i.t ... well, let"s just say I"ve got an arrangement with ANA. It"ll send me one if I ask. But we can"t ask anymore, can we? Second, your replacement"-he stabbed a forefinger at Inigo-"has just launched."

"The Pilgrimage?" Corrie-Lyn asked. There was awe in her voice.

"Oh, yeah, babe. They"re truly that dumb."

"How do you know?" Aaron asked.

"Myraian grooves all that cruddy gossip from the Commonwealth."

"Myraian? The lady upstairs?"

"Yeah. The lady upstairs. Who, I"ll tell you for free, is mighty peed off with all of you right now, not least over minds.p.a.ce crashing, so watch your mouth. I got a private TD link from the Spike to the Commonwealth. So even if you"re out of my my gaiafield"s range, you can still get to dig what Araminta"s been doing." gaiafield"s range, you can still get to dig what Araminta"s been doing."

Inigo ignored the jibe about the gaiafield. "It will take them months to reach the Void, so-"

Ozzie"s harsh laughter cut him off. "Seriously, man, you need to get current. I"m going to open my house net for you to access. Catch up, and we"ll talk again in the morning. You know, before you leave in a cloud of gloom and defeat."

He left them on the veranda and went back upstairs. At the last he opened his gaiamotes a fraction.

Inigo didn"t like the arrogance he exuded one little bit; it verged on smugness. Standard communication icons were slipping up into his exovision as the house"s nodes acknowledged his u-shadow. "We"d better see what"s been going on," he said.

"Yeah," Aaron agreed. His gaiamotes gave nothing away, but he sounded troubled.

Ozzie"s temper had improved slightly when he came down for breakfast the next morning. That was deliberately quite a while after he"d woken the first time. He and Myraian had gone at it the way they had the night before, and after that he"d dozed contentedly for an hour. Then there was a shower-none of that modern itchy spore c.r.a.p that clogged up his hair but a proper hot water and scented gel affair. Myraian hadn"t joined him, which was a shame, but you couldn"t have everything in life. Well, actually you could if you"d lived as long as he had, but then you learned not to be too demanding of people. They were transient enough without the stresses and strains everyone unwittingly put on a relationship. It had taken a long time for him to learn why it was women never stayed with him beyond a couple of decades, so now he knew how to treat them right. Or at least fake treating them right.

Myraian was dressed and ready when he finally came out of the bathroom in his shorts and T-shirt. She"d resequenced herself back to her mid-twenties, then tweaked various chromosomes to produce a great figure, which, in combination with a mind that was away mushrooming with fairies most of the time, made her utterly irresistible to him. No accounting for some things, but she"s perfect for me at this time of life No accounting for some things, but she"s perfect for me at this time of life. He took an enjoyable look at the thin ankle-length skirt of sky-blue cotton and the black mesh shirt that with her skin color made it look like she was wearing nothing at all. Her skinlight patterns shone through the thin weave, creating weird diffusion ripples.

"Cool combo," he told her. "Kinda earth mother meets dominatrix."

"Thank you." She shook her hair, allowing the long blond, auburn, and pink tresses to sway around her head in an underwater slow motion as the fluff fronds elevated it.

And no way was he ever putting them in no matter how much she nagged. "Let"s go catch them crying into their teacups."

She pouted. "You should stay up here. I"ll teach them not to bully my baby Ozzie."

"They"re not nice people," he told her again, hoping it registered this time. "Don"t let them bug you. And really, man, don"t get cross with them. I don"t want any of that."

"I"ll eat them up, scrummy yummy," she promised.

"Yeah." Okay, maybe it"s not so much the mind that"s the attraction Okay, maybe it"s not so much the mind that"s the attraction.

He found Aaron, Inigo, and Corrie-Lyn in the lounge, slouched across the couches and looking slightly dazed like a bunch of students from his time at Caltech pulling an all-nighter. The only thing missing was the pizza boxes. They did stare a little at Myraian but didn"t say anything. Ozzie wasn"t really surprised when it was Corrie-Lyn who rounded on him first. She reminded him of not a few ex-wives.

"You knew! You knew you were going to die in the expansion, and you won"t do anything anything to help us?" she barked. to help us?" she barked.

"I normally have orange juice, coffee, and toast for breakfast. Man, the old habits are the hardest to break, don"t you find?" His u-shadow gave the culinary unit its instructions.

She just growled at him.

"You don"t get it," Ozzie told her. "You don"t get me me. Dude, I"m over one and a half thousand years old. I"ve seen it all, and I do mean all! I can live with dying."

"But what about the rest of the galaxy? All the people who don"t get a chance to live as you have? The children?"

"Wow! Dude, big big shift there from one of the most truly devout Living Dream disciples shift there from one of the most truly devout Living Dream disciples ever ever."

"Cleric Councillor," Myraian said distantly as her hair fronds swam about lazily. "The Dreamer"s lover. Chief prosecutor in the Edgemon heresy tribunal."

"That was not-" Corrie-Lyn ground to a halt, furious.

"If you"re so worried about what you"ve unleashed on the rest of us, why don"t you rush into your precious Void and be safe?" Ozzie challenged.

"Enjoy your victory," Inigo said softly. "The Void is not our salvation. I was wrong to hold it out as a symbol of attainable Nirvana, of a life that can be perfect. It is none of those things. I. Was. Wrong."

"c.r.a.p," Ozzie muttered. It wasn"t often he was rendered speechless, but a messiah renouncing his life"s work, well, that would just do it every time. "I"ll make that a big pot of coffee. You"d better all join me for breakfast."

"We all understand the Void threat well enough," Aaron said as the maidbots slid around the table in the kitchen, delivering plates and cups. "I"m interested in your take on whatever Ilanthe has become. That could be a big factor in the expansion."

"She was the leader of the Accelerator Faction," Ozzie said as he accepted his gla.s.s of chilled orange juice from the maidbot. "The original idea was that they elevate themselves up to postphysical status courtesy of the Void. Thing is"-he scratched at his hair-"the Accelerator Faction is trapped behind the Sol barrier along with the rest of ANA, so they can"t pull off their whole Fusion concept. And the Silfen Motherholme is worried about her, which is new to me. Nothing gets that placid G.o.ddess riled. Nothing. Till now. Draw yourself a map."

"The Silfen Motherholme?" Corrie-Lyn asked cautiously.

"Sure, babe. I"m a Silfen Friend." He tried not to sound too smug, settling for merely superior. "I know what"s going down across the galaxy."

"Ozzie is the father of our species" mind," Myraian announced; her skinlight glowed a proud mauve.

There was a polite silence for a moment.

"Of everything that"s happened, I find her involvement the most disturbing," Inigo said. "It was inevitable Living Dream would be corrupted and manipulated after I turned it over to the Cleric Council-that was the point of me abandoning it as I did. But I never envisaged anything like this. Ultradrives, unbreakable force fields ... this was not meant to be."

Aaron turned to Ozzie. "Do you know anything about these technologies?"

"Not really my field," Ozzie said quietly. He waited.

"It used to be," an omnidirectional voice spoke up. Ozzie let out an exasperated breath. It was his own voice. "Just shut the f.u.c.k up," he told it.

"You"d like that, wouldn"t you? n.o.body can run from their past. Not forever, dooode dooode."

"What is this?" Aaron asked.

"I told you, dude," Ozzie said with an edge. "I"m ancient. Human bodies aren"t designed with this kind of life span in mind. Grab the "in mind" bit there? Back in the first-era Commonwealth when all we had was rejuve, we used to edit memories and store the ones that weren"t important weren"t important. Then there was memorycells and neural augmentation chips. Biononics added a whole load of new memory capacity. And there"s always an expanded mentality network." He raised his head and glared at a random point on the ceiling. "That"s if you want to carry all that junk around, contaminating your body. I didn"t. Not anymore."

"So he dumped me," the voice said. "Literally. I"m Ozzie. The real Ozzie."

"You"re a G.o.dd.a.m.n me-brain-in-a-jar, and don"t you forget it," Ozzie told it crossly.

"Seriously," the voice said. "I"m one and a half thousand years of memories, while you"re what? Twenty years" worth? Who"s the most real of them all?"