Flag of the Deep Space Fleet

“All fleets are in position,” Admiral Bestyear told John Barnabas.

The Realm Master nodded. He knew as it were face-to-face, as even the prescient Chris Alan knew only “through a glass darkly”, what was coming their way. All things considered, they’d set up the best physical strategy they could as a counter.

The Deep Space Fleet, with its Kayai and Bruin allies and many Warboars and Cloners, had taken up position in one of the outer Colony star systems. Some Suidae mercenaries, paid and armed by the seemingly inexhaustible real wealth of the Nihehkim, had their own Warboars at the ready as well. There were even a few Nihekhi Super Freighters converted into massive warships and manned by Suidae, although a Super Freighter wasn’t a warship at heart and, when converted to one, did its best work by intimidation through sheer scale.

The bulk of the enormous Suidae fleet had taken up position in the million cubic light-years that formed the end of the Bottleneck sector closest to Consortium space. This Filter (as the volume of space had been code-named) was one thousand light-years long, one thousand light-years wide and one light-year deep. The Suidae’s incredible fecundity allowed them to put no less than two thousand capital ships – a whole sector fleet or more, by the standards of most Treaty Powers – in each cubic light year. Wherever the T’h’l’khim decided to put a foothold, in whatever star system, there would be a Suidae fleet ready to engage them, and more Warboars relatively nearby that could come to the aid of a given flashpoint.

Chris Alan could only shake his head all the same, when he looked at the statistics and the graphic layout. Space was big, and (thanks to Chris Alan’s Gift of Perspective) no organic sentient being knew that better than he. The Filter swallowed two-thirds of the Suidae Expeditionary Fleet like a planetary night swallowing the light of a million scattered, flickering candles.

The other third of the Suidae Expeditionary Fleet was the third stationed by the Deep Space Fleet, the Bruins, the Kayaim and the Aletheias. Against an enemy like the Crabs, there simply was no good physical way of defending even a single star system from a truly determined assault, but with the Pigs on one hand (for the Suidae were of the porcine archetype, a quarter ton of fighting boar each) and the Clones on the other, one could try. With the Sky Islands and their support ships acting as a framework, a globular defense had been erected around the so-called “habitable zone” of Ep-kalai’s star system. The Suidae regulars and the Aletheias formed the vast bulk of this outer defense. Most of the Suidae mercenaries had been put in an inner globe erected around Ep-kalai itself, with a relatively few guarding Ep-kalai’s dry, cratered moon on the off chance that the Crabs would try to form a staging area there.

Admiral Bestyear had relayed all the pertinent facts to the Starbards on Ep-kalai, who then relayed them to the Colony Council on Yllelyn. By the Realm Master’s own stated conditions, physical defenses alone would be employed on behalf of the Colony unless and until the Colony surrendered to the rule of Covenant Law. The facts of Admiral Bestyear’s report spoke for themselves, to those with ears to hear: the physical defenses at hand were wholly inadequate, compared to what the Crabs were capable in theory of throwing against them. The defenders were enough to fight a battle, but not to win a war. The only two beings that were powerful enough to stop the Crab assault had their hands tied, again by the Realm Master’s insistence, unless the Colony surrendered to the Covenant of Light.

Yet still, despite the alternatives, the Colony Council equivocated about surrendering.

Nihekhi psychology was not like Adami psychology. Among the Nikehim, those of the Improviser, Stabilizer and Theorist temperaments formed the visible triad of society, while the Catalysts worked as the almost invisible hand binding the others together. Catalysts were notoriously peace-loving to a fault – and the Colony Council was composed of Catalysts almost to a rat.

Chris Alan and Autumn were both Catalysts of different brands (Protector and Inspirer, respectively), and they sympathized somewhat with the Colony’s reluctance to commit themselves to Covenant Law, but Catalysts were also notorious for their belief in their own potential and that of the rest of their species, apart from any intervention or rule by a higher power. That belief could get the Colonists “seriously dead in a hurry”, as Chris Alan had told Autumn with a scowl.

Chris Alan and Amethyst were on the bridge of the *Nebular Dream*, which was positioned where the Crabs’ assault was most likely to come. The Bruins and the Kayaim were positioned nearby, along with a good number of Warboars and the reworked Super Freighters. This part of the defense was the Bait: the concentration of firepower that, hopefully, would draw the Crabs to a focal point. Nothing else but their hunger – or Nicholas Blackthorn’s – to destroy as many of their most dangerous enemies as quickly as possible before conquering the Colony would restrain the Crabs’ tactics in the end, unless the Realm Master intervened.

Now the Treaty Fleet could only wait for the onslaught. It did not have to wait long.

*****************************

“Admiral, we’re getting telemetry from the Filter,” said the Lady Bestyear. At the moment she and her Guardian were monitoring the communications channels, which gave the most important information at the moment. Both Hilo and Chris Alan had forewarned it would be so, and the Admiral knew good advice when he heard it.

“Patch me in,” the Admiral ordered his Guardian. What he heard and saw shocked him.

In one cubic light-year after another in the Filter, and in rapid succession, ships were vanishing. Fleet after fleet sent out brief distress calls, only to be silenced. Sometimes the silence was immediate; sometimes the speech, the shouting, the explosions and the other incoherent sounds intimated the violent and quick deaths the heavily armed and armored Warboars were suffering.

Raphael had the clearance to access the same information, and Chris Alan was no less shocked by it. It was one thing to predict what the Crabs would do (as he’d done in a meeting with the Fleet Admirals from the various Sky Islands, with Hilo giving supporting testimony and Autumn filling in with her particular brand of brainstorming); it was another to see it in action.

Within minutes, every cluster of Suidae ships in the Filter was gone, to the silent stupefaction of all the Lightchildren on the bridge of the *Nebular Dream*.

“Amethyst,” said Chris Alan suddenly, “I need to have a general picture of where the Crabs are in this sector *right now*. Balance out the uncertainties of position and momentum as best you can. Take Raphael with you, so we can get a plot.”

“The whole sector?” Amethyst asked, although knowing how Chris Alan’s mind worked, she was all but certain of the answer.

“Yes.”

“Done, Captain,” Amethyst replied, taking Raphael with her in Rest Mode.

[Chris Alan suspects what I already know,] the Realm Master thought as he looked over at the Lightchild. [Make haste, Amethyst – the holocaust is almost upon us all!]

“Something has just winked in from hyperspace,” a lieutenant reported from his station. “Something *big*.”

“Where is it?” asked the Admiral.

“The Henderson flash was *there*, Admiral,” replied the lieutenant, marking the location on the main tactical display remotely, “but we don’t see anything there now.”

“Keep watch for a cloak being lowered,” ordered the Admiral, “and start scanning for black-body radiation curves. Even after the cloak falls, you likely won’t see anything in visual light, unless you spot the Habitat occulting bright stars, or unless the Habitat has become very hot. I don’t think the Crabs are so stupid as to let either happen.”

Amethyst’s own Henderson flash of pale blue light marked her return with Raphael. Quickly Raphael displayed the plot of the Crabs’ probability cloud. Chris Alan’s eyes widened, even as he nodded grimly. “Admiral,” Chris Alan called out, “Raphael has something you all had better see.”

“Put it up on the main display,” the Admiral ordered. When he saw the plot and Raphael’s printed description of its meaning, he looked at Chris Alan and Amethyst, then at John Barnabas.

“You *might* have warned us about that, Realm Master,” said the Admiral. It was almost an accusation.

“The Undying Singer and the Girl Named After the Moon *did* warn you of this possibility, in your last staff meeting – as did Hilo and others,” the Realm Master replied calmly. “They warned you of many other possible things as well. Are you prepared to act on their insights now?”

The Admiral was, and the force with which he hit a button proved it. “All ships, this is Admiral Bestyear. Prepare for the Starbright-Hilo Worst-Case Scenario, beginning immediately. The tactical display I’m sending you will summarize what we’re up against. That is all.”

When Autumn and her Kayai crew heard the Admiral’s message and saw the plot made by Amethyst and Raphael, Autumn nearly vomited from fear. Every cubic light-year in the Bottleneck *already* had a Habitat in it, each containing billions of Crabs, each with a supporting cast of billions in smaller ships. The Filter had been cleaned of Suidae by ships that had already been lying in wait.

Autumn’s wildest speculation, and Chris Alan’s deepest premonition, had come true in spades.

And with that, the Habitat’s cloak dropped, its guidance transmissions were fully enabled, and the Worst-Case Scenario exploded against Ep-kalai’s star system.

Blue flashes of light, all over the *Nebular Dream’s* bridge and throughout its many decks, announced the arrival of lean, long-armed, leather-winged, nearly five-cubit monstrosities with vampire bat heads mounted on humanoid bodies and long twin sabers in their hands. The sabers burned with red fire, as did their terrifying eyes.

[*Daimonae*!] Chris Alan exclaimed to himself in horror. Like Amethyst, these seemingly numberless servants of Nicholas Blackthorn could pass through a Fleet ship’s shields, or even a Guardian’s shields, as through empty air. Only the Node Field could stop them, as it stopped and destroyed every other rebellious dual-phase being that tried to pass through it. Guardians in Alpha Mode with Blades Drawn could engage the Daimonae, as could Lightchildren wielding Starblades or Sunstaves. Every Lightchild on the *Nebular Dream* was wearing his or her Starblade, just in case such an attack like this came. Those on the bridge (including the Admiral, the Lady and Chris Alan) were already drawing their blades and sending their Guardians against their foes. Flashes of Light were popping all over the bridge, and indeed all over the *Nebular Dream*, stunning or else destroying every Daimon they touched. Even the Realm Master was engaged blade-to-blade with a Daimon, even though he had the ability to obliterate the Daimonae with a word.

Suddenly Chris Alan put his hands to his stomach and screamed. Just as suddenly, and only seconds later, the second part of the assault was unleashed.

It is almost impossible for matrix-driven ships to fight each other at virtual velocities. Conventional space battles are waged in normal space, and at relatively low space-normal velocities. The weapons of choice are directed-energy weapons (lasers or particle beams), projectile weapons, and missiles. These last two normally send objects moving at mere kilocubits per second, not at sizeable fractions of the speed of light.

One stipulation of the Markus IV Treaty outlaws the use, in Treaty Power space or by the Treaty Powers, of massive bombs or missiles moving at relativistic velocities. Such “r-bombs” take long periods of acceleration using tremendous amounts of fuel to prepare, but the kinetic energy of an r-bomb released on impact is phenomenal. Worse, by the time such an r-bomb is spotted by a target, the r-bomb is all but upon the target. Even matrix-driven ships, when at space-normal speeds, usually can only hope to jump to virtual velocity in time and escape.

These r-bombs were filling local space like a mammoth locust plague multiplied a thousand times in number. Each r-bomb was guided by a single Crab integrated with its hyper-tech controls, and each was moving at ninety percent of lightspeed. It was as if the ships of the Bait were being hit by a giant buzz saw, one with a black hole for an engine and its fast-rotating accretion disk for a blade.

The *Nebular Dream* was rocked back on its axis by the onslaught of r-bombs. Its Guardian-generated shields and darkened windows deflected the radiant energy produced by the impacts, but its visual passive scanners were made useless by the constant nova-like flashes of light. Raphael caught Chris Alan as he was knocked off his feet.

“Amethyst,” he yelled as the Sky Island’s artigrav generators compensated for the onslaught’s pressure, “find Autumn and Amber and bring them here, *now*!”

Amethyst hesitated, then nodded. Autumn was just one of thousands of Lightchildren defending the Deep Space Fleet’s mortal allies, all under the Realm Master’s and Admiral Bestyear’s ultimate authority. If the greatest of Lightchildren (by certain important measures) decided to bring the legal consequences of such a decision on his own head, that was his business. Amethyst winked out, then returned within moments with Amber. Amber was in Alpha Mode, carrying a mortally wounded Autumn in her arms. Amethyst was carrying Autumn’s Starblade, which had fallen with her to the deck of her *Rover*.

“*Autumn!*” Chris Alan cried out as Amber laid her on the deck. Autumn, despite her now heavily scored A.N.T. exoskeleton, had been pierced through multiple times and almost decapitated by the sabers of her Daimonae opponents. Blood had stained her A.N.T. everywhere, and her fading heart was still sending the last spurts of blood it could manage out of her neck.

As Autumn lay there bleeding to death, the third part of the triple threat emerged from hyperspace: thousands of phalanxes of Crab capital ships, each phalanx containing a million battleship-carriers each.

Suddenly John Barnabas sheathed his sword and raised his hands; they shone with dazzling Light, and they were forked in the ancient hand-sign representing *ha-Shem*, the Name of the Lord of the Realms.

“*Let there be Light! Banish the Darkness!*” cried John Barnabas, summoning a level of Power that made what Power Chris Alan had wielded heretofore pale by comparison.

For one incredible moment, the bridge and all the decks of the *Nebular Dream*, and all the decks of every ship where Lightchildren were battling Daimonae, were filled with almost palpable white Light. If one were far enough away from the *Nebular Dream*, one could see a shell of white Light pulsing outward in all directions from it, consuming every r-bomb, Daimon and Crab battleship-carrier that it encountered in an instant, as well as the Crab Habitat. Unlike a normal electromagnetic pulse, the pulse of Light Without Measure didn’t weaken according to the square of the distance from its origin; rather, it became more powerful accordingly. Only those Daimonae who sensed the buildup of the pulse before its launch and winked themselves far, far away from it escaped its effects.

The *Nebular Dream* recovered itself on its axis. Its scanners returned to normal operation.

On the bridge, both of Chris Alan’s hands blazed a blinding sky-blue. Autumn’s Gift of Healing Within Measure at Will shockingly had been no match for the effects of the Daimonae’s sabers, but no created being was a match for the White Hand when it was fully engaged. Chris Alan knelt quickly by Autumn’s side, crying his heart out even as he had faith in what the end of the matter would be.

“Let there be Healing!” Chris Alan prayed fervently as he laid his hands on Autumn. “By Your stripes, let the Girl Named After the Moon be healed!”

Healing Without Measure at Need enveloped Autumn Harvest Selene in blue radiance, healing her wounds, cleansing and mending her exoskeleton, dissolving the pooling blood into sparkles of white light. In moments she was as Chris Alan had always known her – and she was now fast asleep.

Chris Alan lay down beside her, still crying, whispering her name, stroking her hair and kissing her face all over. “Thank You, Lord,” he added with renewed tears.

To Autumn it seemed at first as if she were in a bed, if an unusually hard one. She liked it when her husband awoke her with a shower of kisses, and she liked to pull him with her arms and legs into a deep embrace and return the favor. She responded to Chris Alan’s unusual urgency as wholeheartedly as her exoskeleton allowed, even as she became troubled by the tears that fell on her cheeks. When they drew back enough to look each other in the eye, full memory returned to Autumn, and tears of her own came with it.

“Oh, Alan,” Autumn whispered, too stricken with grief and horror to say anything more for the moment.

“You’re safe now, darling,” Chris Alan whispered back, then kissed her face several times more. “Let me help you up.”

Chris Alan pulled Autumn to her feet and helped her disengage her A.N.T. Once she was free of it, she clung to him like ivy to a wall.

“Amethyst,” asked Chris Alan, “what happened?”

“The first part you can guess,” Amethyst replied grimly. “Autumn’s would-be decapitator felt the sting of my diamond blades. Before I could deal with the others, they vanished, and the *Rover* was already getting hit with those r-bombs. Once we all got off, of course, there was no hope; the next r-bomb or two probably took out the *Rover*. I don’t know how the other *Rovers* are faring.”

“We should know quickly,” said Chris Alan, nodding toward the tactical display.

The Admiral’s crew quickly gathered the statistics. None of the Battlebears or Cloners in the vicinity had survived the r-bombs sent against them. Most of the Rovers had, thanks to the shields of the Guardians aboard them, but all but a very few of the Kayai Packmates that manned them had been killed almost immediately. Even many of the Lightchildren aboard them had been wounded, some seriously.

Elsewhere, Habitats and their accompanying fleets were attacking every inhabited star system and preparing to colonize every suitable uninhabited star system in the Bottleneck. The outer defenses of Ep-kalai were being smashed ruthlessly and quickly from all directions; billions upon billions of T’h’l’khim, Aletheias and Suidae were dying within moments. In a few minutes, unless they were stopped, the Crabs would destroy the inner defenses as well, and then the surface of Ep-kalai itself. And Yllelyn was now facing immediate invasion or annihilation, along with the rest of the Colony worlds.

“Chris Alan,” John Barnabas said suddenly, “help me reset the timeline.”

Chris Alan gaped. “*How? WHY?*”

“The Colony has surrendered to the Kingdom of Heaven,” replied the Realm Master, “and now our hands are untied. That’s what allowed me to counterattack just now – and I’m not going to stop there. This situation should never have arisen, the Lord knew it, I knew it, those still fighting in this battle and the Colonists now know it, and now you and I can *do* something about it. Autumn, come here and take my left hand; Chris Alan, take my right.”

Chris Alan and Autumn came over with wonder mixed with tears on their faces. The Realm Master didn’t need *their* help for whatever he had in mind, surely.

“Yes, I do,” said the Realm Master, and for all his lingering upset, Chris Alan was amused despite himself that *he* was the subject of a mind probe for a change. “You are the Undying Singer, the Locus of the Metacosmic Realms, and now the destiny of the Girl Named After the Moon is interwoven with yours. Mistress Bellatrix, prepare for a massive adjustment of the web of causality. Admiral Bestyear, sound the *shofar*.”

The Admiral pressed a button, and the recorded sound of a great antelope horn resounded through every deck of the *Nebular Dream* and through every Sky Island and Fleet ship then present. Everyone who could do so stood and bowed his or her head in prayer.

John Barnabas raised his arms, and Autumn and Chris Alan raised theirs with him. Their hands shone a dazzling blue-white.

“*Reset the parameters!*” shouted John Barnabas to someone or something that (as Chris Alan somehow sensed without understanding) was *not* the Lord of the Realms, although it was associated with Him. Was the Realm Master speaking to the Metacosmos itself?

As the pulse of Light mixed with Healing went out in all directions, it set up a ripple in hyperspace that traveled at infinite virtual velocity, and Chris Alan sensed that the future of the Realm was being altered. Autumn’s and Amethyst’s sense of connections between past, present and future events was jolted right off its mental foundations, making both of them feel dizzy.

“It is done,” said the Realm Master, letting Chris Alan’s and Autumn’s hands drop gently. “Admiral, Milady, have your crew reassess the strategic and tactical situation.”

They did. To Autumn’s growing wonder, relief and finally tear-filled joy, the tactical display and the reports from the various bridge personnel showed that the Deep Space Fleet, the Kayai Pack and the Bruin Paw were intact and unharmed. Their crews had full memory of the battle – but they were likewise unharmed otherwise.

The Fence was gone, as was the Cork – but from all the signs, according to reports from the Octagonal Array and (in short order) from Manikin scouts, so was the Consortium. Transmissions started being picked up by the Array that had not been tracked for decades or even centuries. It was as if the Crabs’ inexorable advancement (or most of it) from their home star system had been erased from the history of the Realm.

And most strangely of all, the Aletheias and Suidae in their billions were nowhere to be found.

“Incoming transmission from the *Hind*, Chris Alan,” said Raphael suddenly.

“Open a pane and let’s have it,” Chris Alan replied.

“Blondie!” Slate broke into a wide grin when he saw his Captain. “That blast of yours came none too soon – and the follow-up was even better.”

“All that wasn’t me, Slate; that was the Realm Master. Status report.”

“We had our hands full with those Daimonae. Per my earlier plans with Bakbuk, Sledge took us into cloak right after their arrival, and seconds later I took a Daimon on hand-to-hand. Old Bakbuk was fighting *three* with his Sunstaff, and I thought Aletheia and the Bruin would shoot the bridge to pieces trying to hit the others. Hilo turned into a copy of *you* and distracted the lot long enough for us to get the upper hand. Meanwhile, with the cloak on, the r-bombs whizzed by us and virtually through us with no problem. Then came that blast of Light, and after it that incredible ripple in space-time. Wait until you see the sensor log on *that* one, Captain, you won’t believe it.” Slate shook his head. “Are you and the missus all right?”

“We are now, Slate, but Autumn went through a lot, and for once I don’t think she’s in the mood to talk. We’ll update you later. Where’s Bakbuk?”

“I am here, Undying Singer,” said Bakbuk as the bridge’s camera system changed its point of view. “Thanks to the Realm Master, the bridge is now undamaged, although for a while I thought it would need very extensive repairs. When the Daimonae weren’t trying to skewer *us*, they were trying to skewer the consoles, and some consoles were hit by friendly fire. At any rate, we are now de-cloaked and holding position with the rest of the Fleet.”

“Very well – and well done, everyone. Stand by for further orders within the hour. Chris Alan out.”

After that, Autumn cared nothing for decorum or paramilitary discipline, and the relatively low illumination of the bridge at battle stations played to her advantage. She pulled Chris Alan as close as Adami anatomy allowed and watched the still-changing display with him cheek to cheek, tapping his back with their special hand code so that they could both relax and enjoy his inadvertent arousal, encouraging him to kiss her and to stroke her wherever his hands could reach, letting herself cry unashamedly and rejoicing that she had a husband “mushy” enough to let himself cry with her.

Spiritually, emotionally and physically, Chris Alan and Autumn had never felt more intimate.

[Don’t be afraid to take your wife aside for as long as you need to,] said John Barnabas’ voice in Chris Alan’s head. [The length of your lives in this Realm won’t be diminished if you do.]

[That’s what I wanted to know, and what no one could tell me for certain. Thank you, Realm Master.]

[You’re welcome.]

“Raphael,” Chris Alan ordered quietly, “open the primary otherspace closet. Set the time ratio to one day per second.”

“I obey.” And when the otherspace closet opened, Chris Alan swept Autumn off her feet and carried her through its door.

“What are you doing?” Autumn asked.

“Finishing our honeymoon,” Chris Alan replied.

They found themselves inside the supernaturally equipped living quarters that Chris Alan had been given when he’d gone through the Sign of Resurrection. Chris Alan didn’t put Autumn down until he’d carried her to the marvelous variable-gravity bed. As much as Chris Alan (and Autumn for that matter) would’ve liked to lay Autumn down flat there and then, now was not yet the time.

“What happened?” Chris Alan asked as he sat at Autumn’s left; she too was seated on the bed’s edge. Chris Alan was clasping Autumn’s hands.

“Does it matter now?”

“It matters to me. I need to know what you went through.”

“Oh, Alan,” Autumn choked out, barely able to keep from breaking down entirely. “It was a massacre, a complete massacre. My Packmates never had a chance.”

“*What happened?*”

“Those *bat-things* happened,” Autumn replied sobbing. “They came without warning, just as you said they would. But there were so many…they almost didn’t fit on the bridge, there were so many. Before I could draw my Starblade, before I could engage Healing in my crew’s defense, before I could even *blink*…every Kayai on the bridge was dead.

“I could see some of the bats vanishing, probably going to slaughter the rest of the crew, when the rest came after me,” Autumn went on, regaining control of herself as she went. “I drew Uriel, and Amber went into Alpha Mode at once, but there were just too many of them. Amber fought off some, but more got past her and started slashing me with their sabers. Then, when the pain from my wounds became unbearable, I dropped my Starblade, giving them an opening, and I got stabbed through by four sabers at once. Then one of them tried to scissor my head off, and I lost consciousness while he was trying.”

“Well, you heard that Amethyst got that one, and the rest winked out after that. I guess they know better than to mess with *her*.” Chris Alan let a note of grim satisfaction color his voice. “She says she can keep fellow teleporters from using their powers; they must’ve left while they still could. Anyway, Amethyst then brought you and Amber back, and the Lord healed you through me. And Amethyst was right: once Amber’s shields were gone, your *Rover* was totaled immediately by those r-bombs.”

“Worst-Case Scenario, indeed. Sometimes I really hate it when you’re right, and even more when we’re *both* right.” Autumn’s banter helped her keep some measure of self-control; her capacity for tears was not quite exhausted.

“I felt you getting stabbed, you know, right before those bombs started hitting.”

“Really?”

“Really. *Not* something I want to feel again – or to let *you* feel again.”

“We may have no choice. You know what they say about those who have great power.” Autumn did her best to look brave. “So just why *are* we sitting here, now that the Realm Master’s ‘reset the parameters’?”

“Like I said, I think it’s time we finished our allotted honeymoon, and now we can. One Standard Day is passing in here for every second that passes outside. Raphael can adjust the passage of time in here, relative to outside. It’s at its maximum ‘slow’ setting now.”

Autumn sniffed, but she managed a smile. “So now we’re going to play house for nine subjective months, whether anyone else likes it or not.”

“Exactly. Well, for *your* sake we could sneak out every so often for proper social contact, and to get updated with ongoing events. I ought to kick myself for not having the nerve to try this sooner, no matter the cost.”

“I don’t think I’ll need to do any sneaking out, not this time. So we’ll still live our allotted span of days in the ‘real world’, once we return there?”

“Yes. And if I have anything to say about it, you’ll never be put in a position like the one you just faced again. People like *you* shouldn’t be sent to war – least of all *total* war like *that*. It’s crazy enough that you *volunteered* for military service, before you met me.”

“Hey, ‘join the Pack, see the Ring’.” Autumn smiled ruefully. “I’ve always wanted to try as many different things as possible, and in my three hundred Standard Years I’ve tried quite a few. Military service was just one more thing. I turned out to be pretty good at it, on the hand-to-hand level; the talent comes from my Levani side, I think. The Kayai Pack was glad to have me, as I could serve as a liaison between it and the Sphere too.” Autumn’s eyes teared up again, and she made to wipe them. “But never in my worst nightmares did I expect to face a battle like the one I just faced. Tech, hyper-tech, meta-tech, even Gifting – they were all useless.”

“I think I know why, in the case of your Gifting,” said Chris Alan grimly, “and when I find Nicholas Blackthorn and Cascade, I’ll take it out of their hides.”

“You sense they’re still alive?”

“To coin a phrase, *depend* on it. I think Nicholas sent a task force specifically to find *you* as a test case for the Daimonae’s new power level, and thereby to hurt *me* as well.”

“What do you mean?” Autumn asked.

Chris Alan told her. When he was done, Autumn said while squeezing Chris Alan’s hands, “Then you and Raphael should’ve sterilized Callista’s Planet when you had the chance at fifteen. You had the power then to destroy Nicholas’ secret weapon at its root.”

“That choice just didn’t seem right at the time, Autumn. I sensed that it wasn’t the Lord’s time. I still sense so. But if I’m guessing right, through a link with the Crabs Nicholas had gained multiple millions of times more power than the Chalice of the Maids could’ve hoped to give him. His link has been all but erased – but the more powerful Nicholas gets, the more dangerous his Daimonae get.”

“I see,” Autumn said. “Meaning they get more dangerous for *you*, too.”

“That might actually work against Nicholas. The more power he throws at the White Hand, the stronger the White Hand becomes in response. He could come on with enough power to destroy whole star clusters, only to be met with enough power to obliterate a whole *galaxy*.”

Autumn’s wonder and her concern for Chris Alan overcame the memory of her own pain. “Alan, how in the Realms can you live with yourself, knowing you have the potential to do such things?”

“Because the Source of that Power never lets me forget from where it comes,” replied Chris Alan, “and because wielding such Power’s the last thing in the Realms, literally, that I want to do. I could never live with the loss of countless lives that had no vested interest in such a battle.”

“It’s a good thing that the Realm Master took on that responsibility, then.”

Chris Alan was silent for a moment. “What do you think happened to those countless Crabs, Clones and Pigs? I know the future’s been changed, so I suppose that the past and the present have been changed with it. Do you sense that?” Autumn nodded her agreement. “I’m not sure why, but John Barnabas had *us* stand with him for a *reason*. It’s as if *we* had an importance in the Grand Scheme of Things that billions of billions of mortals did not. And somehow, that seems obscenely unfair.”

“I understand. So does allowing that attack, in its own way. But you heard him: you’re the Locus of the Metacosmic Realms,” Autumn pointed out. “Sometimes I think that I sense that more clearly than *you* do. Your brand of intuition’s subjective, symbolic and future-oriented. Mine ‘connects the dots’ between objective data and events, past, present and future. I *felt* the Grand Scheme shift around us, Alan, when the Realm Master ‘reset the parameters’. I’m pretty sure that Amethyst did too, being who and what she is.”

“What do *you* think that means? All *I* tend to think – and always have – is that if I really am some kind of locus for causality, then that’s a responsibility I didn’t ask for and don’t want.”

“You’ve always said that the laws of chance don’t work normally around you, no more than they do around Amethyst. Maybe it’s because what *you* do or don’t do *really is* seminal, somehow?” Autumn squeezed Chris Alan’s hands again. “Have faith in what the Lord Davidson said before His departure,” she went on tenderly. “Your destiny, your potential, is magnificent beyond words. One day, *you* will be the Hooded Man instead of John Barnabas. And be honest now: is there anyone in known space who could wear the Hood with greater grace, or with greater compassion for those he serves?”

Chris Alan looked down. “I still worry at times about failing before I get there, I guess.”

“You won’t fail, lover, if you stay the course…as everybody keeps telling you.”

“And what about my other question? What about all those other lives that were lost today, among allies and foes alike?”

“Lost, or never begun?” From the look on Autumn’s face, it seemed she’d been thinking through the answer on her own. “I know enough about physics to know of real and potential existence. Either they had *real* existence and therefore are now in the Realm of Judgment, or they had *potential* existence and therefore were never really lost. I know you rely heavily on your intuition, and I trust it implicitly, so I hope you can trust mine by now. *I* infer that *our* existence is *real*, while *their* existence was *potential*.”

“Otherwise the Realm Master wouldn’t have taken pains to work with and through us. Yes.” Chris Alan nodded; he too understood the basic structure of the Realms and its implications, although by different means than Autumn did. “Then I’ll take his word and yours for it, sweetheart.”

“Good.” And Autumn teased him with kiss and a flicker of her tongue in his mouth.

They talked about other things for a while, and then about nothing at all, before Chris Alan finally laid Autumn on her back. They did again what they had done on the deck, until Chris Alan was sure that Autumn was comforted emotionally.

And then, Chris Alan made love to Autumn again and again…and *again*…in low artificial gravity, until they fell asleep with Chris Alan resting lightly on top and with Autumn’s limbs wrapped contentedly around him.