Apparitions

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Cereda had absolutely no interest in any of the petitions before the Clan Council. Really, all she wanted to do was curl up with some mist, a pair of simnulls, and the latest males to capture her attention.

It was bad enough that her distressingly orb-shaped, half-breed granddaughter had come back from Jason's damnable rock so quickly. It was even worse that she'd brought her whiny voice to the Council and worst of all, her complaint had to do with a danger to Cereda's favorite pastime.

Cereda writhed uncomfortably upon the gilded throne. "We...supposed we could be prevailed upon to have words with the Marigren...?"

Lida's face was all contorted. No, that wasn't going to be enough. Best to increase her bid before the brat started whining again. "We'll have our best healers look into it personally." Cereda allowed herself a brief, nervous smile. Yes, that should keep her more unpleasant offspring quiet.

As for herself, she was going to personally supervise a detailed molecular scan of all of the mist on the ship.

Seleyn had taken his mask off. Granted, everyone in the room knew who he really was, but Katya couldn't remember the last time she'd seen him unmasked in front of others. He'd certainly stunned Christopher and Shanin seemed disturbed by the condition of his ears, which was far more noticeable now. The costume was more or less permanent there, being the product of Katya's own flesh-shaping. The ears were the same texture as a Ferengi's ears, and the color of midwinter rot. It had to be difficult for another Athmari to see.

Lukaya's healer, Leeli, had brought Kado over to the ship's medbay. She had some minor amount of experience with substances that reacted oddly to magic, but was making little headway.

"...so now they think I'm dead," Seleyn was saying to Christopher. "The political climate back home has gotten decidedly worse since then, and I have no interest in going back anyway. It seems that Tien Kessel and Thelyssa Marigren have allied with Srana Sobhara, and that gives Clan Betandi's enemies a decided advantage even without this sort of backstabbing against our outside interests."

Seleyn's expression was grim. "They know that Shanin deals with me. They know that Kado is here too, and that both of them are up to their elbows in the drug trade hereabouts. If any of them doubt my questionable 'death,' that makes the two of them even better targets."

Christopher shook his head. "I thought the rivalries between our Athmari troops were bad..."

There was a crazed look on his face. "You were just talking about how intimidating we must seem to outlanders. It made me think of the elves. I've never seen one other than Arrowsflight, y'know, and she's pretty tame from what I hear. Why not get a strong sender in here and see what she can do from the inside?"

Seleyn glanced at Shanin, who said, "That's a better idea than any of the others I've heard...but where do we get an elf that powerful who'll shut up about all this?"

One of the computer access terminals in the dream-ship's engineering department displayed two timelines. One of them was marked on the left side of an arrow pointing down and had the names of characters Kado recognized from these newest dreams, as well as others she'd known all her life or seen in her previous visions. To the right of this as another line, an incomplete one pointing up and listing all of the major events of Athmari history up to the present. Caden, hopelessly mirthless, had just explained to her the significance of the leftmost timeline.

Apparently, he was convinced that he and the other founders of the Athmari Empire had come from that universe.

"You can't understand the significance of this; it's not possible for one who hasn't been that closely tied in her own lifetime to a different reality."

"I wouldn't underestimate me; I spend half my off-duty time simming and using mist. Is that enough of a different reality for you?" Such remarks were her only solace at this point; she couldn't walk away, or hit him, or do any of the other things that came into her mind. She had a fairly normal range of movement within the room, so long as she looked where he told her to look and didn't try to ignore him or injure him. Still, the Terran author Herbert had an expression for the way she felt about the closed room and mandatory lecture: Any man who retreats into a cave which has only one opening deserves to die.

It was unbearable. "Oh, I see you're thinking about Herbert!" And his ability to worm his way into her thoughts was the worst part. "Good, good...you're familiar with God Emperor of Dune?"

"Yeah. Muad'dib's son turns himself into a giant Sandworm and gets divided into a billion little Sandworms so that they can make a new desert planet and have the spice-drug from the worms again," she synopsized sullenly.

Caden leaned toward her. "I divided my consciousness among your House so that I could try to prove a theory of mine. I knew I wasn't going to live long enough to see it for myself - even if I wanted to live that long."

Kado stared at him bleakly. She knew he wanted her to ask, so she did: "What theory?"

Caden said nothing. On the edge of the console lay a stylus with which he had drawn a curve from the end of "his" timeline to the beginning of the one that had the real history next to it. He picked it up, drew the rest of the arrow for the timeline representing Kado's universe, and made another curve from the end of that arrow to the beginning of his own.

Sweet Mother Sea, here I come! Katya thought as she plunged into Kado's mind. The best sender out of the group, she had volunteered for Tarlen's plan once it became clear that they could not risk letting an outsider into the mercenary's mind. And, of course, there were her other abilities to consider.

Practical considerations aside, this was Seleyn's family at stake. Considering what the Empire had done to Katya's own family, it was an inevitable decision.

There was no sign of anything other than the most basic bodily functions being carried out reflexively. Breathe, burn glucose, circulate blood. Katya let herself sink deeper. There was a great blackness where the virus existed, absorbing all of the magical energies she sent toward it. Katya knew that the inorganic and harmless chemicals of the mist had been replaced with a viral organic structure, and that structure ought to be at least vaguely visible to her senses. Nevertheless, the gaping darkness did not even reveal the shape which could be found by a tricorder. Inferior to a lifeless, mechanical device! It was almost unbearable.

In the midst of the patchess of nothingness, Katya felt something alive. She swam toward it with all of her strength.

Kado was startled to see the doors of the engineering compartment slide open. It was Katya, and she seemed real. "Kado!" The half-human immediately noticed Caden. "Who's that?"

"You know, I might be able to help if you were to actually pay attention to me," Caden said.

Katya quickly explained what had happened, then opened her mind to the ghost. Frustratingly enough, they managed to discover the cure in minutes.

"Nngh!" Kado felt as if they were ripping her apart from the inside. The dream world began to fade around her.

Gritting her teeth together, Kado replied, "I'll tell you later," and passed out.

"We can draw the antibodies from her blood. Here." Katya took the hypospray and pressed it to Kado's arm.

As she explained the entire ordeal to an astonished Christopher, the pair replicated the cells and began to cure the others.

Katya slit open a wrapstuff coccoon. "He was tall and looked like Shanin. Except his skin..."