Privately, she doubted Mairis would go along with that. "The other thing that worries me is that message from Yuan that Azevedo got this morning." The development had delayed Shanlun's departure by a few hours. Yuan's first refuge had been destroyed before he got there, so he'd gone on to his second choice, sending a message by a stray gypsy. Now, Shanlun was to be the first of Azevedo's regular messengers to call on Yuan.

"Look, Yuan's place is right on my way, and I can carry a message from Yuan to Mairis. Azevedo insists Yuan has a right to know of the baby—and your success."

Laneff didn't quarrel with that. And Azevedo was right that Yuan really could use the encouragement. "The Distect hideouts are all targets right now. It's dangerous to stay overnight with Yuan!"

"True. But Mairis is also a target."

Laneff had no idea why the Rathorites were so supportive of Yuan and Mairis both. When she asked Jarmi, the Gen had answered that Azevedo had been around ever since she'd met Yuan. It'd never occurred to her to question it. To Laneff, the Rathorites were gypsies that were nuttier than most gypsies, and there was no way to> fathom their motives. Yet it Was obvious that something deep in their way of life was congruent with Digen's dream of Unity—and Yuan's: Sime and Gen living together without fear or distrust. And to that end, they unquestioningly took all sorts of risks.

With a shudder, she turned into Shanlun's arms. "There are so many dangers!" But she held back the plea Don't go!

At that moment, the car nosed through the archway from the street and crept down the narrow alley between gypsy-occupied buildings into the courtyard, scattering children and weaving politely through laundry lines. It drew up before the door, a pale-beige jalopy lacking one fender and with a rack of empty chicken cages on the top. The front cargo compartment was tied down with hemp rope that dragged under the car. One shattered side window was taped, but the tires were new.

The Sime woman driving it got out. Laneff knew her as a Rathor instructor. "Shan!" said Laneff shocked. "You're not going Ito drive that halfway across this continent, are you? You'll never make it!"

He laughed," as did the driver. Shanlun said a few placating words to the driver in their dialect and told Laneff, "Selitta wouldn't give me a run-down car, Laneff!"

Laneff closed her mouth over her outrage and just looked at him. He laughed again and tugged her toward the rear of the car. "Start it up, Selitta!"

She got in while Laneff was treated to a view of the engine compartment. The engine housing was clean, and much smaller than the fittings had originally been designed for. Obviously new. The selyn battery was likewise of the latest design, and a spare battery also shimmered brightly with packed selyn. As Selitta started the Laneff zlinned the smooth clean running of the engine.

"Good!" called Shanlun. "Now run the jiggler."

Another, smaller selyn-powered motor coughed to life, producing noise and vibration such as the car had displayed on entering the court. Now the selyn fields wavered like those of a truly decrepit car.

"See? It's a disguise. The brakes and bearings are all new, but disguised. It's Selitta's specialty."

As the woman stopped the motor and got out, Laneff apologized. "It's a great disguise!"

Shanlun picked up a patched and stained canvas bag filled with his things and tossed it into the dirty-looking back seat of the car. His costume, like the bag, was worn and tattered-looking, fringes missing here and there. Nothing was left of the crisply formal First Companion in Zeor who had stood beside Mairis throughout the funeral ordeal. With his white-blond hair combed down over his forehead and the oddly gypsy mannerisms he could adopt in a moment, not one reporter would recognize him even if he were standing beside Mairis.

He turned to Laneff, letting his nager pale to a chalky white flecked with only an occasional blip of color and his stance degenerate into pure gypsy. "I'm just another wandering gypsy. I've even got legal border-crossing tags that say so! I won't be recognized, so stop worrying!" He kissed her quickly, then got in and started the motor, adding the vibrator to it.

As he moved the car out of the court, expertly maneuvering around children, dogs, chickens, and laundry, he waved goodbye.

To blot out the thought What if he doesn't come back? Laneff plunged back into the lab work, setting all their projects in motion at once, and then starting Jarmi on learning the visualization trick for synthesizing K/A. This required giving Jarmi an entire refresher course in organic reaction mechanisms.

Going through it all a step at a time brought back to Laneff how she'd played with the other isomer that could result—the one that ruined the synthesis when it occurred. Must research that thoroughly sometime,, thought Laneff. It was possible that this technique could make the other isomer pure just as it could this one. Maybe there's some use for it?

But she could only make note of it and dismiss it now. When Jarmi was sleeping, Azevedo joined her, showing her how to synthesize kerduvon from the raw extract of mahogany trinroses. The rich red-brown flowers were now grown in botanical gardens all over the world,) but Azevedo said, "Up in the mountains, we have ancient fields of them. Conditions are perfect there—and we get much richer yields of moondrop from those harvests."

"Does it make any better trin tea?" she asked, recalling the fact that the professionally grown ones didn't.

"No; tastes horrible." He showed her how to concentrate the extract from the dried flowers, steam-distill off the fraction of active kerduvon, cook it, then vacuum-distill it. Instead of a molecular mechanism, though, he had her concentrate on a decorative old starred cross he wore around his neck. It was jeweled, flashing a dozen colors like Shanlun's nager.

"Visualize the symbols picked out by the jewels," he commanded. "And the colors are extremely important."

"Is this your molecular symbolism?"

"Goodness no! Wellll—actually, there is a relationship. But just try it; visualize it while you work. "

She learned it under his supervision, then spent another whole night running ten simultaneous procedures, filling two whole benches with apparatus and doing everything the same except what she thought about while working on it.

The one she did without any of the visualizing came out black– almost devoid of the product according to the qualitative test Azevedo had provided her. They graded through dark brown, brown, light brown, all the way to nearly transparent yellow, the one where she'd given her all to the visualization. Azevedo's own product was a pale yellow, the color of Shanlun's nager.

She was staring at the row of vials when Jarmi came in, looking drawn and weary. "Jarmi, I don't believe this. I just don't believe it. It can't be happening—not by any theory of science I've ever heard!"

While looking over Laneff’s results, Jarmi said, "But isn't this what you've been trying to get me to do?"

"Yeah. I think I've been expecting you to fail—only then, what will become of K/A?" She sat down on a wicker stool, picking idly at a stray wisp of the tough fiber. "But if you succeed, how can we possibly report this in a respectable journal?"

"I don't think we'd be anywhere near that point, even if I succeed today! First you're going to have to teach it to several really respectable experts. When it's becomes something 'everybody knows,' then you can write it up."

Laneff slumped on her stool. "I probably won't live that long."

"You know what's wrong with you? Tomorrow is your turnover day —I'll just bet!"

"Three days early?"

"You are pregnant. You haven't been getting enough rest."