Yuan glanced from his two Simes to where Jarmi stood beside Laneff. "We can make it," he assured Azevedo. "Laneff, I didn't deliver on all my promises. I can't hold you to yours. It could be a year before I could again provide you lab space." He eyed Jarmi. "Though we could still provide your transfers—and you might live long enough to use that lab."

He wanted her to come with him. And there was a part of her that responded. Her hand sought Jarmi's fingers. The Gen tightened her grip reassuringly. Jarmi didn't want to betray Yuan, but her nager told Laneff that Jarmi's first loyalty was now to her. On the march, Shanlun had explained that Thiritees held labs as well equipped as Yuan's, if older, and Azevedo had the authority to emplace her there. Shanlun was sure he and Azevedo could provide her the pure killbliss transfer she craved, and he'd pledged to stay with her, letting Mairis and the Tecton presume him dead. Labs now, and probably good transfers against labs later and only Jarmi; Yuan had lost his best channel, and she had been virtually useless to Laneff. Suddenly, Laneff was unable to stomach such a cold-blooded calculated decision. She asked, "Yuan, are you going to pull out of the alliance with

Mairis?"

"Now it won't be necessary. We're going to disappear and let the world think we're all dead. At least for a while. That should help Mairis's political position. And, frankly, we couldn't help him much right now, anyway."

"You're going to rebuild—and so will the Diet."

"But it'll be years before they can do any damage. If Mairis's elected, by the time the Diet's organized again, there won't be a Gen in the world who doesn't have a Sime friend or business partner. The Diet's line doesn't work where people know each other."

"Do you still hate them?"

"Right now I'm too tired and hungry to hate anything but this rain."

Zlinning, she realized that his essential nature remained unchanged, though his spirits flagged now. Shanlun was glued to Azevedo's side, awaiting her decision tensely. He wouldn't go with Yuan. And she couldn't see herself chancing that, either. With only Jarmi–no. She turned to the Gen, squeezing her hand, "I'm sorry." Then to Yuan, she said, "I've got to go with Azevedo and Shanlun."

Yuan's shoulders slumped further, but he only nodded.

Jarmi looked to Azevedo. "Do you think you could take me along?"

Laneff found a smile blooming on her face, a grinding tension in her midsection letting go.

The channel answered, "It'd be awkward for you, Jarmi. Gypsy tribes don't mix with outsiders. You'd have no friends."

Jarmi shrugged. "If I have Laneff, it's enough. And, I do know my way around her lab work. I can be useful."

"She could," declared Laneff, surprised she hadn't thought of that. "It would take a lot of time to train a new assistant." But she also knew there was no way Jarmi could be trusted with the secret of the Endowment and all the rest. "But, Jarmi, once there, you'd probably have to stay for many years. They won't let you go back to Yuan– after I die."

"Maybe you won't die."

"You've got to adjust to that idea, Jarmi. Think. After I'm gone, will you be glad to have left your life behind?"

Jarmi stared down at the mud with a pained expression, and Laneff realized everything Jarmi cherished had been brutally destroyed just

hours before. Yet with an air of real decision, Jarmi said, "Yes. I want to be part of what you're doing." She looked apologetically toward Yuan.

Azevedo had zlinned her deeply as she spoke, and now he said, "Then I'll permit you to come with us."

As the two groups parted, trudging in opposite directions, Jarmi clung to Laneff both for balance in the slick mud and for security.

Laneff said, "I know why I'm glad you're coming. But why are you so happy, Jarmi? This is going to be hard on you."

"Laneff, you came back for me. It would have been saner for you to go directly to the hangar from the lab, but you went all the way back into the residence wing for me. I've never known anyone who'd do such a thing for me. I couldn 't turn my back and walk away from you —not even with Yuan."

They trudged through the unrelenting downpour, some of them resorting to bare feet when their shoes were soaked. At dark, the Simes each took the arm of a Gen, enduring the increased hunger, cold, and aching muscles. Shanlun walked with Azevedo, and Laneff had Jarmi, zlinning the path through trinrose fields, apiaries, and clumps of houses.

Twice, Tecton patrols flew overhead, and once they crossed a road where buses whizzed by at speed. Then they came to a slideroad bed and had to wait for a train to pass. Later, they followed a road, taking to the drainage ditch when cars approached.

After one such episode, Jarmi reamed muddy water out of her face and said, "I hate to complain, but does anybody have any idea how much longer until we find something to eat?"

Azevedo apologized. "We all know where we're going. With luck, we'll be warm and dry and fed before dawn."

At midnight, they broke for a rest. Jarmi and Laneff huddled under a deadfall while the gypsies and Shanlun made one of their salutes. Afterward, they seemed refreshed, but Jarmi's fatigue and hunger dragged at Laneff. They slogged across alfalfa fields, skirted a new vineyard, scrambled through another hedgerow old enough to have been there when the Ancients held the world, and eventually came out in a gully sloshing through a torrent of dirty water.

A large clay culvert pipe emerged from beneath a roadbed. Above, houses were packed as densely as ever one saw them in-Territory. One of the gypsies worked at the mesh screen that closed the culvert and it swung aside.

"Now only our feet will be wet," said someone.

"Yeah, but with what?" commented another.

Yet, gratefully, they trooped into the dark. The center of the pipe was a juncture of two sections, both tall enough for them to stand upright. Azevedo and one of the other Simes scrabbled at the seam, and then another door opened, a narrow slit leading into even deeper darkness.

With trepidation Laneff followed, towing Jarmi and reminding her, "They say gypsies go where they will, without regard of civilized rules. This must be one of those ways—and no doubt a tribe secret."

"I won't tell."

In a double column, Sime and Gen together, Sime zlinning the way by the Gen's nager, they worked their way along an Ancient sewer pipe. Where it had crumbled, modern masonry had repaired it. It still carried noxious moisture.

"At least now my appetite's gone," said Jarmi.

It was slow going. Several times, they climbed up into side pipes, then down into another pipe, a warren as complex as if this underlay a city.

And then, without fanfare, they emerged into light, warmth, dry-ness, and clean air.

It was an underground room, connected to some sort of power system. The walls were white tile, and the refugees dripped filthy water on clean white tile flooring. An open rack at one side held an assortment of clothing—both traditional gypsy buff and beige fringed garments and ordinary street wear. Couches and chairs were scattered about the room, with tables, magazines, and a trin tea service. Doors opened in every direction. Two of them were labeled toilets.

"Now," announced Azevedo, "we can clean up!" He opened the toilet doors for them. Shanlun and the other Gen man made directly for one while Desha helped Jarmi toward the other. Laneff could just make out a row of shower stalls within.

Laneff said, "What is this place? I think we must be under modern

P'ris!"

"We're on the outskirts, near the river," answered Azevedo.

"This is Thiritees?" asked Laneff.

"Just the entryway." He was zlinning her now, curious. "Come here, Laneff. I haven't zlinned you without the Gens around obscuring things. Let me make a contact ..."