“It’s all right. It’s my duty to help.”

“No. I’m trying to ask you to be — off duty, when you do this. To-forget that you ever met whoever you meet.” He smiled, or grimaced. “You see. I trust you far too much, too.” He began to rub his arms; she realized he had come after her without a coat.

And she remembered his unease at her arrival, and understood it, at last. “She isn’t a mass murderer or anything?”

He laughed. “Far from it.”

“Then I’ve got a terrible memory. Come on, let’s go before you freeze. You can fill me in on the conspiracy charges on the way.”

They went on down the hill, into the wind’s teeth. Jerusha took them up in the patroller, heading north along the sere ribbon of the coast. “All right. I guess I can let myself put the parts together now. You did have something to do with that tech runner they zapped out here a fortnight or so ago. Your guest is a smuggler.” She slid back with a kind of relief into familiar patterns, familiar habits, their old uncomplicated relationship.

“Half-right.”

“Half?” She glanced at him. “Then explain.”

“You remember the — circumstances of our first meeting.”

“Yes,” with a sudden image of Gundhalinu’s face, full of righteous indignation. “He really had you nailed.”

“Your sergeant.” She felt him smile, and then remember. “I’m sorry about — what happened. For your sake.”

“At least it was quick.” And that’s all the mercy we can hope for in this life. “The girl—?” with a growing prescience.

“Is the Summer girl who broke your arm; the one who went off world with the smugglers.”

“She’s back? How?”

“They brought her back with them.”

Jerusha felt the patrol craft buck and swoop in a strong downdraft, reset the controls. “Which means she’s an illegal returnee.” And maybe a whole lot more. “Where’s she been in the meantime?”

“Kharemough.”

She grunted. “Wouldn’t you know. Tell me, Miroe — are you sure her being taken off world was an accident?”

His brows tightened. “One hundred percent. What do you mean?”

“Hasn’t it ever struck you that Moon Dawntreader Summer bears a remarkable resemblance to the Snow Queen?”

“No.” Utter blankness. “I haven’t even seen the Snow Queen in years.”

“What would you say if I told you the Queen knew who she was — was furious over her disappearance? If I told you all my troubles started because I let her get away. What would you say if I told you that Moon Dawntreader is the Queen’s clone?”

He stared. “You have proof?”

“No, I don’t have proof! But I know it; I know Arienrhod had plans for that girl… plans for making her other self the Summer Queen. And if she finds out that Moon is back—”

“They aren’t the same person. They can’t be.” Miroe frowned out at the sea. “You’ve forgotten something about Moon.”

“What?”

“She’s a sibyl.”

Jerusha started, as memory doubled the words. “So she is… But that still doesn’t mean I’m wrong. Or that she isn’t a danger to the Hegemony.”

“What are you going to do about it?” Miroe twisted in his seat until he was facing her.

She shook her head. “I don’t know. I won’t know until I get there.”

“Get those hides stripped off, there. Hurry up… a white one coming… shelter by dark…” Dogs barking.

Moon felt the words ebb and flow, like the cold tongue of the tide licking her feet, her ankles, her legs. She opened her eyes, to the memory that she did not want to open her eyes and see-But all she saw was the sky, meaningless cloud flotsam drifting. She did not move, afraid to.

“This one’s dead.”

“…is luck, praise the Mother!… never found so many hides…”

“Praise the Snow Queen.” Laughter.

“This one’s not.” A face blotted out the sky, shrouded in white. It knelt, dragged her up to sitting.

“Black.” Moon heard her own voice mumbling like a madwoman’s. “In black. Where… where?” She reached out; dug her fingers into the thick white shoulder for support, as she saw the body that lay beside her own—”Silky!”

The figure in white shoved her away, getting to its feet. “One of those mer-loving bleeders, I guess. Must’ve killed the Hound. Hounds left the job half done on her.” The voice was male, young.

“Silky… Silky…” Moon stretched to reach the ends of inert tentacles.

“Finish it.” A harsh, timeworn voice.

Moon struggled back onto her side as the youth squatted, picking up a rock. She clawed at the fastening of her suit, jerked it open halfway down her stomach as the rock arced over her head. “Sibyl!” She threw the word up like a shield.

The boy dropped the stone from twitching fingers, pushed back his hood. She saw his face lose its inhumanity, saw his confusion follow the track of dried blood upward to her wounded throat.

“Sibyl…” She pointed at the tattoo, praying that it was clear enough, and that he would understand.

“Ma!” The boy sat back on his heels, shouted over his shoulder. “Look at this!”

Other ghost-white figures materialized around her like a spirit tribunal, doubling and shining in her uncertain focus.

“A sibyl, Ma!” A slight female figure danced with eagerness beside her. “We can’t kill her.”

“I’m not afraid of sibyls’ blood!” Moon identified the crone’s voice among the glaring whites as the old woman struck herself on the chest. “I’m holy. I’m going to live forever.”

“Oh, the hell you are.” The girl shoved her brother aside, bending over to peer down at Moon’s throat. She giggled nervously, straightening up again. “Can you talk?”

“Yes.” Moon sat up, put a hand to her throat, one against her swollen face, hoarse with trying not to swallow. She looked across Silky’s sprawled body, saw beyond it more white figures using their skinning knives, mutilating the bodies of the dead mers. She swayed forward, clutching her knees, hiding from the sight of them. 7 didn’t see him. I didn’t. It was someone else! She moaned; her voice was the desolate mourning of a lone met song.

“Then I want her.” The girl turned back to the old woman. “I want her for my zoo. She can answer any question!”

“No!” The old woman slapped at her; she ducked her head. “Sibyls are diseased, the off worlders say they’re diseased. They’re all deceivers. No more pets, Blodwed! You stink the place up with them already. I’m getting rid of those—”

“You just try!” Blodwed kicked her viciously. The old woman howled and stumbled back. “You just try! You want to live forever, you old drooler, you better leave my pets alone!”

“All right, all right…” the crone whined. “Don’t talk to your mother like that, you ungrateful brat. Don’t I let you have anything you want?”

“That’s more like it.” Blodwed put her hands on her hips, looked down at Moon’s huddled grief again, grinning. “I think you’re going to be just what I need.”

“Gods! Oh, my gods,” more a curse than a prayer.

Jerusha stood silently beside Miroe on the lifeless beach, listened to the far, high skreeling of the displaced scavenger birds. Her eyes swept the death-littered field of stones restlessly, not wanting to settle anywhere, register any detail of the scene, but unable to look back at Miroe ashen-faced beside her. Unable to speak a word or even touch him, ashamed to intrude further on a grief past comprehending. This was the Hunt, the mer sacrifice — this stinking abattoir on the barren shore. This was the thing she had resented in principle, without ever trying to approach its reality. But this man had hated the reality.

Miroe moved away from the patrol craft began a path through the mutilated corpses of the mers, inspecting each hide-stripped, bloody form with masochistic thoroughness. Jerusha followed him, keeping her distance; felt her jaws tightening until she wondered whether she would ever be able to open her mouth again. She saw him stop and kneel down by one of the bodies. Moving closer, she saw that it was not a mer. And not human. “A— a dead Hound?”