“Hey, slow down. I’m the one who has to carry the equipment.”

She spun around, teasing me. “Oh, come on, Max. Learn to have some fun. You don’t need any of that stuff. Leave it here — nobody will ever notice it’s gone.”

She made me smile, in spite of the growing noise around us and the sweat that covered my body. Quake was hot.”

“I can’t do that Amy — it’s official property. It all has to be accounted for. Wait for me.”

But she just laughed. And danced on — on into that funny blurring of the surface, the fragile, shimmering ground of Summertide…

…before I could get near her, she was gone. Just like that, in a fraction of a second. Swallowed up by Quake. All that I could take back with me was the pain…

“There is more, but it adds nothing.” Graves stopped the recording. “Nothing that you cannot guess, or should not hear. Amy died in molten lava, not in boiling mud. Max Perry saw that shimmering of heated air again, in the Pentacline Depression — but too late to save Elena Carmel.”

Hans Rebka shrugged. “Even if you know what drove Max Perry into his shell, that’s not the hardest part of my job. I’m supposed to cure him, and I don’t know where to begin.”

Rebka knew that his present sense of failure and incompetence should be only temporary, no more than a side effect of exhaustion following days of tension. But that did not make it any less real.

He stared at one of the wall displays, which showed a Sling floating upside down and shattered by the impact of mighty seas. All that could be seen was a wilderness of black, slippery mud from which jutted random tangles of roots. He wondered if anyone could possibly have survived when the Sling capsized.

“How?” he went on. “How do you pull someone out of a seven-year depression? I don’t know that.”

“Of course you don’t. That’s my area of expertise, not yours.” Graves turned abruptly and headed for the stairway. “Come on,” he said over his shoulder. “Time to see what’s going on below decks. I think those pesky aliens are plotting a mutiny, but we’ll ignore that for the moment. Right now we have to talk to Max Perry.”

Was Graves going crazy again? Rebka sighed. Oh, for the good old days, when he was flying through Quake’s clouds and wondering if they would survive another second of turbulence. He followed close behind the other man, down to the second level of the capsule.

J’merlia and Kallik were nowhere to be seen.

“I told you,” Graves said. “They’re down in the cargo hold. Those two are up to something, sure as taxes. Give me a hand here.”

With Rebka’s puzzled assistance, the councilor carried Max Perry and then Geni Carmel back to the upper level of the capsule. Darya Lang, still muttering to herself on the brink of consciousness, was left in her securing harness.

Graves placed Max Perry and Geni Carmel in seats at ninety degrees to each other and fixed them in position.

“Put extra bindings on those harnesses,” he said to Rebka. “Make sure you don’t touch Perry’s injured arms — but remember I don’t want either of them to be able to get loose. I’ll be back in a minute.”

Graves made one final trip to the lower level. When he reappeared he was carrying two spray hypodermics in his right hand.

“Darya Lang is waking up,” he said, “but let’s get this taken care of first. It won’t take long.” He injected Perry in the shoulder with one syringe and Geni Carmel with the other. “Now, we can begin.” He began to count aloud.

The wake-up shot given to Max Perry was full strength. Before Graves had reached ten, Perry sighed, rolled his head from side to side, and slowly opened his eyes. He stared around the capsule’s cabin with a dull and disinterested look, until his gaze found the still-unconscious Geni Carmel. Then he groaned and closed his eyes again.

“You are awake,” Graves said in a reproving tone. “So don’t you go falling asleep again. I have a problem, and I need your help.”

Perry shook his head, and his eyes remained shut.

“We’ll be back on Opal in a few hours,” Graves went on. “And life will start to return to normal. But I have the responsibility for the rehabilitation of Geni Carmel. Now, there must be formal hearings, back on Shasta and on Miranda, but that cannot be allowed to interfere with the rehab program. It has to begin at once. And the death of Elena makes the program very difficult. I feel it would be disastrous to let Geni go back to Shasta, with all its memories of her twin sister, until she is already on the road to recovery. On the other hand I myself must return to Shasta, and then go on to Miranda for the formal genocide hearing.”

He paused. Perry still had not opened his eyes.

Graves leaned close and lowered his voice. “So that leaves me with two questions to answer. Where should the rehabilitation of Geni Carmel begin? And who should oversee the rehab process, if I will not be around?

“That is where I need your help, Commander. I have decided that Geni’s rehab program should begin on Opal. And I propose to make you her guardian while it is proceeding.”

At last Graves had broken through. Perry jerked bolt upright in the restraining harness. His bloodshot eyes opened wide. “What the hell are you talking about?”

“I thought I was clear enough.” Graves was smiling. “But let me say it again. Geni will remain on Opal for at least four more months. You will be responsible for her welfare while she is there.”

“You can’t do that.”

“I’m afraid you’re wrong. Ask Captain Rebka if you doubt me. In matters like this, a Council member has full authority to proceed with prompt rehabilitation. And anyone can be pressed into service. That includes you.”

Perry glared at Rebka, then back at Graves. “I won’t do it. I have my own work — a full-time job. And she needs a specialist.

I have no idea how to deal with her sort of problem.”

“You can certainly learn.” Graves nodded at the other chair, where Geni was slowly waking in response to her weaker injection. “She’s starting to listen now. As a first move, you can tell her about Opal. Remember, Commander, she has never been there. It’s going to be her home for a while, and you know as much about it as anyone.”

“Wait a minute!” Perry was struggling at his harness and calling to Graves, who was already ushering Rebka out of the chamber. “We’re tied in. You can’t leave us like this! Look at her.”

Geni Carmel was making no effort to escape from her harness, but tears were trickling down her pale cheeks, and she was staring in horror or fascination at Perry’s mutilated hands and forearms.

“Sorry,” Graves said over his shoulder as he and Rebka started down toward the lower level of the capsule. “We’ll discuss this more later, but I can’t do it now. Captain Rebka and I have something very urgent to take care of on the lower deck. We’ll be back.”

Rebka waited until they were out of earshot before he spoke again to Graves. “Are you serious about any of that?”

“I am serious about all of it.”

“It won’t work. Geni Carmel is just a child. With Elena dead, she doesn’t even want to live. You know how close they were, so close they would die rather than be separated from each other. And Perry is a basket case himself — he’s in no shape to look after her.”

Julius Graves halted at the bottom of the stairway. He turned to look up at Hans Rebka, and for once his face was neither grinning nor grimacing. “Captain, when I need a man who can fly an overloaded, power-drained ship like the Summer Dreamboat off a planet that is falling apart underneath us, and take me into space, I’ll come to you anytime. You are very good at your job — your real job. Can’t you do me the favor of admitting that the same could be true of me? Isn’t it conceivable that I might do my job well?”

“But that isn’t your job.”