But what if we fail?

Survivors (if any) would hold Odrade in contempt.

I have often felt diminished but never an object of contempt. Yet the decisions I made may never be accepted by my Sisters. At least, I make no excuses... not even to the ones with whom I Shared. They know my response comes from the darkness before a human dawn. Any of us may do a futile thing, even a stupid thing. But my plan can give us victory. We will not "just survive." Our grail requires us to persist together. Humans need us! Sometimes, they need religions. Sometimes, they need merely know their beliefs are as empty as their hopes for nobility. We are their source. After the masks are removed, that remains: Our Niche.

She felt then that this ship was taking her into the pit. Closer and closer to awful threat.

I go to the axe; it does not come to me.

No thoughts of exterminating this foe. Not since the Scattering magnified human population had that been possible. A flaw in Honored Matre schemes.

The high-pitched beep and flashing orange light that signaled arrival brought her out of repose. She struggled from her sling straps and, with Tam, Dortujla, and Suipol close behind, followed a guide to the transport lock where a long-range lighter clung to its shiptit. Odrade looked at the lighter visible in bulkhead scanners. Incredibly small!

"It'll only be nineteen hours," Duncan had said. "But that's as close as we dare bring the no-ship. They're sure to have foldspace sensors close around Junction."

Bell, for once, had agreed. Don't risk the ship. It's there to plot outer defenses and receive your transmissions, not just to deliver Mother Superior. The lighter was the no-ship's forward sensor, signaling what it encountered.

And I am the foremost sensor, a fragile body with delicate instruments.

There were guide arrows at the lock. Odrade led the way. They went through a small tube in free-fall. She found herself in a surprisingly rich cabin. Suipol, tumbling behind, recognized it and went up a notch in Odrade's estimation.

"This was a smuggler ship."

One person awaited them. Male by his smell but an opaque pilot's hood bristling with connectors concealed his face.

"Everyone strap in."

Male voice within that instrumentation.

Teg chose him. He'll be the best.

Odrade slipped into a seat behind a landing port and found the lumpy protrusions that unreeled into web harness. She heard the others obeying the pilot's command.

"All secure? Stay strapped in unless I say otherwise." His voice came from a floating speaker behind his seat at the drive console.

The umbilicus went "Bap!" Odrade felt gentle motions, but the view in the relay beside her showed the no-ship receding at a remarkable rate. It winked out of existence.

Going about its business before anyone can come out to investigate.

The lighter had surprising speed. Scanners reported planetary stations and transition barriers at eighteen-plus hours but winking dots identifying them were visible only because they had been enhanced. A window in the scanner said the stations would be naked-eye visible in a little more than twelve of those hours.

The sense of motion ceased abruptly and Odrade no longer felt the acceleration her eyes reported. Suspensor cabin. Ixian technology for a nullfield this small. Where had Teg acquired it?

Not necessary for me to know. Why tell Mother Superior where every oak plantation is located?

She watched sensor contacts begin within the hour and gave silent thanks for Idaho's astuteness.

We're beginning to know these Honored Matres.

Junction's defensive pattern was apparent even without scanner analysis. Overlapping planes! Just as Teg predicted. With knowledge of how barriers were spaced, Teg's people could weave another globe around the planet.

Surely it's not that simple.

Were Honored Matres so confident of overwhelming power that they ignored elementary precautions?

Planetary Station Four began calling when they were just under three hours out. "Identify yourself!"

Odrade heard an "or else" in that command.

The pilot's response obviously surprised the watchers. "You come in a little smuggler ship?"

So they recognize it. Teg is right once more.

"I'm about to burn the sensor equipment in the drive," the pilot announced. "It will add to our thrust. Make sure you're all securely harnessed."

Station Four noticed. "Why are you increasing velocity?"

Odrade leaned forward. "Repeat the countersign and say our party is fatigued from too long in cramped quarters. Add that I have equipped myself with a precautionary vital-signs transmitter to alert my people should I die."

They won't find the encryption! Clever Duncan. And wasn't Bell surprised to discover what he hid in Shipsystems. "More romantics!"

The pilot relayed her words. Back came the order: "Reduce velocity and lock onto these coordinates for landing. We are taking over your ship control at this point."

The pilot touched a yellow field on his board. "Just the way the Bashar said they would." A gloating sound in his voice. He lifted the hood off his head and turned.

Odrade was shocked.

Cyborg!

The face was a metal mask with two glittering silver balls for eyes.

We enter dangerous ground.

"They didn't tell you?" he asked. "Waste no pity. I was dead and this gave me life. It's Clairby, Mother Superior. And when I die this time, that will buy me life as a ghola."

Damn! We're trading in coin that may be denied us. Too late to change. And that was Teg's plan. But... Clairby?

The lighter landed with a smoothness that spoke of superb control by Station Four. Odrade knew the moment because a manicured landscape visible in her scanner no longer moved. The nullfield was turned off and she felt gravity. The hatch directly in front of her opened. Temperature pleasantly warm. Noise out there. Children playing some competitive game?

Luggage floating behind, she stepped onto a short flight of steps and saw that the noise did indeed come from a large group of children in a nearby field. In their high teens and female. They were butting a suspensor float-ball back and forth, shouting and screaming as they played.

Staged for our benefit?

Odrade thought it likely. There probably were two thousand young women on that field.

Look how many recruits we have coming along!

No one to greet her but Odrade saw a familiar structure down a paved lane to her left. Obvious Spacing Guild artifact with a recent tower added. She spoke of the tower as she glanced around her, giving the implanted transmitter data on a change from Teg's groundplan. Nobody who had ever seen a Guild building could mislabel this place, though.

So this was like other Junction planets. Somewhere in Guild records there doubtless was a serial number and code for it. So long under Guild control before Honored Matres that, in these first moments of debarking, getting their "ground legs," everything around them could be seen to have that special Guild flavor. Even the playing field - designed for outdoor meetings of Navigators in their giant containers of melange gas.

The Guild flavor: It was compounded of Ixian technology and Navigator design - buildings wrapped around space in the most energy-conserving way, paths direct; few slide-walks. They were wasteful and only the gravity-bound needed them. No flowery plantings near the Landing Flat. They were susceptible to accidental destruction. And that permanent grayness to all construction - not silver but as dull as Tleilaxu skin.

The structure on her left was a great bulging shape with extrusions, some rounded and some angular. This had been no lavish hostelry. Opulent little nooks, of course, but those were rare, built for VVIPs, mostly inspectors from the Guild.