Rebka was a slight, large-headed man with hands and feet too big for his body. He had the wan, slightly deformed look of someone who had suffered persistent childhood malnutrition and trace-element deficiency. But that early privation had affected his brains not at all. He had learned the odds early, when at eight years old he had seen a set of images from the wealthy worlds of the Alliance bordering the Phemus Circle. Strong anger was born within him. He learned to use it, to channel and control it to fuel his progress, at the same time that he learned to hide his feelings with a smile. By the time he was twelve years old he had worked his way off Teufel and was in a Phemus Circle government training program.

Rebka was proud of his record. Starting with less than nothing, he had risen steadily for twenty-five years. He had run massive terraforming projects, taking the harshest and most inhospitable planetary bodies and converting them to human paradises (someday he would do as much for Teufel); he had led dangerous expeditions to the heart of the mirror-matter comet region, far from any chance of help if things went wrong; he had flown so close to stellar surfaces that communications were impossible in the roar of ambient radiation, and his returning ship was ablated and melted past hope of further use. And he had led a crew on a near-legendary trip through the Zirkelloch, the toroidal space-time singularity that lay in the disputed no-man’s land between the worlds of the Fourth Alliance and those of the Cecropia Federation.

All that. And suddenly — at the thought, confusion was replaced by anger; anger was still his friend — he was demoted. Stripped, without a word of explanation, of all real responsibilities and sent to a distant, unimportant world to act as nursemaid or father-confessor for someone ten years his junior.

“Just who is Max Perry? Why is he important?”

He had asked that question during his first briefing, as soon as the planetary doublet of Dobelle became more than a name to him. For Dobelle was an insignificant place. Its twin planetary components, Opal and Quake, orbiting a second-class star far from the main centers of the local spiral arm, were almost as poor as Teufel.

Scaldworld, Desolation, Teufel, Styx, Cauldron — sometimes it seemed to Rebka that poverty was their only bond, the single link that held the Phemus Circle worlds together and separated them from their richer neighbors. And from the records, Dobelle was a worthy member of the club.

The records on Perry were transmitted to him, too, to be scanned at his leisure. Typically, Hans Rebka reviewed them at once. They made little sense. Max Perry had come from origins as humble as Rebka’s own. He was a refugee from Scaldworld, and like Rebka he had made his way rapidly upward, apparently bound for a job at the very top of Circle government. As part of the general grooming process for future leaders, he had been sent for a one-year tour of duty on Dobelle.

Seven years later he had still not returned. When promotions were offered, he refused them. When pressures were exerted to encourage him to leave the Dobelle system, he ignored them.

“A large investment,” whispered the distant voice beyond the stars. “We have trained him for many years. We want to see that investment in him repaid… as you repaid it. Determine the cause of his difficulties. Persuade him to return, or at least to tell us why he refuses to do so. He ignores a direct order. Opal and Quake desperately need people, and Dobelle law prohibits extradition.”

“He won’t tell me anything. Why should he?”

“You will go to Dobelle as his supervisor. We have arranged for a senior position to be created within the ruling oligarchy. You will occupy it. We agree that Perry will not reveal his motives as the result of a simple inquiry. That has been tried. Use your own strengths. Use your subtlety. Use your initiative.” The voice paused. “Use your anger.”

“I am not angry with Perry.” Rebka asked more questions, but the answers offerd no enlightenment. The assignment still made no sense. The central committee of the Phemus Circle could waste its resources if it so chose, but it was a stupid mistake to waste Rebka’s talents — he lacked false modesty — where a psychiatrist seemed more likely to succeed. Or had that already been tried, and failed?

Hans Rebka swung his legs off the bunk and walked over to the window. He stared up. After a three-day trip through five Bose Network nodes and a subluminal final stage, he had finally landed on the Starside hemisphere of Opal. But Starside was a bad joke — even before dawn there was not a star to be seen. At that time of year, close to Summertide, cloud breaks on Opal were rare. Approaching the planet, he had seen nothing but a uniform, shining globe. The whole world was water, and when Dobelle swung in at its closest to its stellar primary, Mandel, the summer tides reached their peak and the oceans of Opal never saw the sun. Safety lay only on the Slings, natural floating rafts of earth and tangled vegetation that moved across Opal’s surface at the prompting of winds and tides.

The biggest Slings were hundreds of kilometers across. The Starside spaceport was situated on one of the largest. Even so, Rebka wondered how it would fare at Summertide. Where would it go, and would it survive when the main tides came?

If his birthworld of Teufel had been Fire, then Opal was surely Water.

And Quake, the other half of the Dobelle planetary doublet?

Hell, from what he had heard of it. Nothing that Rebka had read or had been told in his briefings had had one good word to say about Quake. Events on Opal at Summertide were said to be spectacular and hair-raising — but survivable. On Quake they were deadly.

He looked up at the sky again and was startled to see that it was light. Opal and Quake were tidally locked to each other, and they spun around their common center of mass at a furious rate. One day in the Dobelle system was only eight standard hours. His morning musings had taken him well past dawn. He would just have time for a quick breakfast; then an aircar would carry him around the planet to Quakeside — and to the most stupid and least productive job of his life.

Rebka swore, cursing the name of Max Perry, and walked across to the door. He had not yet met the man, but he was ready to dislike him.