"All right. March in there where we can see you." Livia walked into the rotunda, feeling exposed and more than a little frightened. She still had her hands up. The people sitting around the fire shouted to one another and several jumped up as she appeared.

"She was watching you, Ross," said the man who had caught her. "Recognize her?"

One of the men from the fire came over and peered at Livia. "Haven't seen her around the city."

"Okay. Well, sit her down and let's look at her." Rough hands pushed her down onto a chunk of stone. Ross stood over her with his arms crossed as the other man emerged from the shadows, firelight glinting off his pistol.

She recognized him. This was one of the peers, albeit of a crowd a few years older than Livia's had been. She couldn't remember his first name, but his surname, she was sure, was Bisson.

"Who are you?" he asked brusquely.

"My name is Livia Kodaly," she said. "Perhaps you've heard of me?"

She saw a flicker of surprise cross his face, then he veiled it with a sneer and a shrug. "Could be," he said curtly. "Then again, why skulk in the shadows? Besides, I've seen Livia Kodaly before, you don't look a bit like her."

She met his eye and managed a small smile. "Well, I did change my clothes while I was away."

He didn't laugh. "How much could she have overheard?" he asked the people by the fire. As he turned away Livia noticed that there was an ugly scar behind his ear. She looked at the man Ross, who was still standing over her. It was hard to tell from the angle, but it looked as though he had a similar scar.

The bone behind the ear was where inscape implants were usually embedded.

One of the men shrugged and said, "We were talking about Esther."

Livia sat up straighter. "Esther Mannus? Is she all right?"

Bisson stared at her for a few seconds. Then he said, "We'd best find out what this one knows, anyway."

She opened her mouth to object, but any argument would be a distraction at this point. After all, she'd come here for a purpose, one that had very few hours left in it. She had to take the chance that she had found the people she was looking for. "I'll only tell my story to Maren Ellis," she said.

Bisson crossed his arms and raised an eyebrow. "Oh, will you now?"

"But meanwhile I've some harmless questions of my own," she said. "Like: who are those silent people in the streets? What's Cirrus doing in Barrastea? What happened to Kale and the other ancestors? Is anybody in charge here anymore, or is it all the Book?"

They were looking at one another with varying expressions of surprise and suspicion. "She's just trying to convince us she doesn't know anything," said one.

Her heart leaped at that. "What would I know?" She looked from face to face. "Are there places in Teven that still aren't conquered? I've seen people skulking about after dark, looking like lost souls. Are you like them? Just hiding here from 3340? Or are you doing something about it?"

"Shut up!" Bisson grabbed her wrist and twisted hard. She gasped. He let go, and she pulled her hand back.

"Is this what the peers have become?" she said coldly. "Bisson, I've come to help you."

He blinked. "How do you know my name?"

"Take me to Maren."

A long silence ensued. The others were watching Bisson. Finally he nodded curtly. "Bring her."

They filed out of the library through a gap in the outer wall. Nobody was watching, yet Bisson took them by bidden ways through the city. Much of the journey was underground, through echoing caveways that had once been broad brightly-lit avenues underneath the streets. Above ground, they hugged the sides of buildings or walked beneath lattice-growths of bush and tree.

While they walked she repeated her questions about what had happened. Bisson threatened her halfheartedly the first few tunes. Finally he started answering, apparently just to shut her up.

Just why he and these others were hiding out here he wouldn't say. Nor would he explain the scar behind bis ear. But the recent history of Teven was an open subject, and he talked about it eagerly. So eagerly that Livia realized he must truly want to believe that she was who she said she was.

Thirty-three forty's attack on the manifolds had accelerated after the fall of Westerhaven. It seemed as if a chain reaction set hi, or perhaps that the tech locks shut down as the carefully crafted interfaces between realities disappeared. Bisson did not describe it that way, of course; for him and for most people in Teven, it was not that the manifolds had disappeared: it was that one manifold that allowed all technologies to coexist had absorbed all the others.

Some people could live in this manifold; certainly it was compatible enough with the values of Westerhaven, Cirrus, and a few other civilizations. But for the majority of citizens of Teven, this new reality was chaos.

Into this chaos had come the Good Book. Kale's forces ruthlessly stamped out any other organizational system, and they soon enlisted passionate new converts from the population to help them. Those people who could adopt the roles of the Book flourished; but whole microciviliza-tions remained shell-shocked, their citizens reduced to ghosts wandering the streets of the larger cities. The users of the Book tried to help them. Although Bisson did not say so, Livia knew that many more must be engaged in trying to rally them to fight back. She had no doubt that it was such a group she had stumbled upon in the library.

Where one of the great towers of Barrastea had fallen, hundreds of meters of white sail material lay draped over the lower buildings. Bisson brought them underneath a tall fold of the stiff material. Livia heard voices up ahead; then they emerged into a campsite built under the pale tenting. There were about twenty people here, all as ragged as Bisson and his companions.

Livia saw her immediately. Maren Ellis's face stood out from those around the fire — a serene blossom amongst the sunburnt, thin visages of the others. Just now she was surveying the others as they talked, her eyes guttering.

Bisson went over to her and bent to whisper something. Even as he did, she looked up and her eyes met Livia's.

Livia glanced around the camp, looking for a familiar face — and immediately saw one. Rene Caiser was standing up, brushing his hair back nervously. When he saw that she'd spotted him he grinned shyly. Livia laughed and shouted, "Rene!"

Ignoring the suspicious stares of many of the others, he ran around the fire and embraced her, lifting her off the ground in his enthusiasm. "You're back!"

"We don't know it's her," muttered Ross sulkily.

Bisson was arguing with Maren. She stood up, brushing him aside, and walked over to Livia and Rene. Circling Livia she looked her up and down. " ... Or a very good likeness," she said to Bisson.

Livia was tired of all this suspicion. There was one simple way to end it, and she took it: looking Maren Ellis in the eye, she said, "Choronzon is coming. He's going to destroy the tech locks once and for all."