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“Good point,” Varian said, pleased and relieved that her coleader was reasserting himself. “And the sooner that is done, the better.”

“Agreed!” Lunzie’s single word was unexpectedly emphatic. “But, if doing that would use matrices required to reach the Ryxi . . .”

“No, I think enough are available,” Portegin said, blithely unaware of the consternation on the faces of both Kai and Varian.

“Kai,” and Lunzie turned almost brusquely from the technician, “how clearly do you recall the deposits of ore we’d already found?”

“Very clearly,” Kai said in a tone that he hoped Lunzie would interpret.

“Excellent. When I go back to the shuttle, I’ll run fiber through the synthesizer for writing material. Trizein never forgets anything he’s analyzed, so he can rewrite his notes.”

“Terilla could repeat those exquisite drawings of hers,” Varian said.

“Children do not adapt well to the trauma of elapsed time,” said Lunzie in a cool voice. “It’s hard enough on adults to realize that most of their friends, and probably all their immediate family are aged or dead.” The silence that greeted her remark caused her to glance at each of their faces. Her expression was kinder as she went on. “It’s hard enough for us, but at least we have a task to which we can devote our energies.” She paused again, looking about her. “I think we’d best get some sleep now. We’ve a lot to begin tomorrow.”

8

ABOUT halfway through that restless night, Varian realized that with the possible exception of Lunzie, no one was finding sleep easy. She was divided between the desire to talk out the day’s puzzles and the privacy of the night in which to sort out her muddled reactions.

The revelation that Lunzie had so subtly overlaid her consciousness with that of Rianav distressed Varian. Not because she minded assuming an alter ego but because, as Rianav, her reactions to the mutineers’ descendants, and even toward Tanegli, had been sympathetic rather than vengeful. As Varian, she ought not to have any compassion for the man, considering that he and his fellows had robbed her of forty-three years of the companionship of her friends and relatives. Not to mention the minor fact that the mutiny had probably placed Varian’s advancement in the Service in jeopardy. And the Service now constituted Varian’s anchor. Her parents could be dead. Her brother and two sisters, all her friends, would be entering their seventh or eighth decades and their thoughts would be turned to whatever retirement activity they had earned during their productive years. They would hardly be likely to welcome a youthful Varian.

How many times had this experience happened to Lunzie? The question popped unexpectedly into Varian’s drowsing mind and shook her out of the brief spate of self-pity. Lunzie had subtly altered since Varian awakened her. Or perhaps Varian, immersed in her xenobiology, had simply failed to take a proper measure of the medic. Lunzie had kept pretty much to herself and her duties before the mutiny. Lunzie’s Service profile had indicated nothing unusual. Nor was it unusual for a medic to be Disciplined. Lunzie’s posting to their expedition had all the elements of coincidence . . . but was it? She had revealed herself Adept, and showed a great deal of knowledge about the phenomenology of shipwreck, salvage legalities, and improper colonial takeovers. Had Lunzie been shipwrecked before?

Varian sighed, unable to correlate the nagging inconsistencies. She was deeply sorry for Kai. She’d seen his hands shaking and the occasional body spasms that everyone pretended not to notice. Would he regain his sense of touch and lose those disfiguring white patches from the fringe punctures? She wanted him whole, his old self, her friend and lover, as antidote to the attraction she felt for Aygar.

What were the fringes, for Krims’ sake? Aygar said they were warmth seekers. But she and Triv had unearthed the sleds and not been attacked. Warmth? The Thek, Tor, would have radiated more warmth than forty humans while it was plowing back and forth across the old compound in search of the buried