"'You are a fisherman no more! If you ever again venture out onto the water, for any reason, then I shall send demons to tear you to ribbons and feast on your screaming soul!'

"And then the waterspout vanished as the sun appeared in the east, heralding secondlight, and he found himself alone and naked, cast up on the beach with nothing at all, his boat gone, his clothes gone, everything that he had had, lost…"

– from the tales of Atheron the Storyteller

Light sparkled from the rippling water around the invisible turret, and Geste blinked; the glare was too diffuse for his optic symbiote to handle readily, leaving him to the more primitive methods of his own reflexes and eyelids.

“Has it ever occurred to you,” Anna demanded, glaring at him as harshly as the scattered sunlight, her hands on her naked hips, “that maybe Brenner brought this on himself? You know as well as I do that he probably started the fight himself, took a pot-shot at Thaddeus over some stupid little squabble. That would be just like him-him and that damned arsenal of his. Only this time, Thaddeus was ready-or maybe he had Aulden ready, I don't know. But it was probably Brenner. You just think it's Thaddeus who's at fault because of what he did on Alpha Imperium, and that's not fair, holding all that against him. That was hundreds of years ago. And not only was it hundreds of years ago, but it was on a different planet and in an entirely different situation. He hasn't caused any trouble here on Denner's Wreck, has he? He certainly hasn't bothered me."

“He's causing trouble now,” Geste pointed out.

“No,” Anna corrected, waggling a finger. “He's involved, but you don't know he caused it. I'll bet Brenner started it."

“Maybe he did,” Geste conceded desperately, blinking again, “but it's getting out of hand. If you don't care about Brenner, what about Sheila, and Sunlight, and Rawl, and Khalid, and O?"

“Khalid and O probably aren't even there,” Anna retorted. “They're probably off somewhere together by themselves with an airskiff of sex toys. It's been decades since I saw either of them play with another human being, unless you want to count Khalid's little flings with the native girls, and they're both of them overdue for a bit of quiet companionship."

“Mother tracked them to Fortress Holding, though.” The rippling sunlight was unbearable; he darkened the lenses of his eyes, even though it left him half-blind and reduced Anna to a shadow. He did not really care to see the details of her nude body, in any case, nor did he need to watch her expression for nuances of emotion; her words made her attitude perfectly clear.

“Maybe they left by the back way, shielded. They went there of their own free will, didn't they? How do you know they aren't staying there as Thaddeus's guests?"

Geste saw that he was not getting anywhere on that tack, and rather than chase any further through Anna's unlikely scenario he switched his ground. “All right, we don't know about them, but what about the others?"

Anna snorted in a manner hardly befitting the dignity of a demi-goddess. “Rawl deserves a little trouble, the way he keeps poking his nose into other people's business! He came by here a few years back and ruined my entire day, lecturing me over some stupid argument I'd had with a fisherman.” She waved in the direction of the nearest village.

“But Sheila and Sunlight…” Geste began.

“All right, all right,” Anna said, raising her hands briefly in mock surrender, as if she were making a great concession, “I guess they got caught in the middle, but I'm sure Thaddeus isn't going to hurt them. He probably won't even hurt Brenner, just teach him a lesson by blowing apart that stupid castle of his. It would serve him right."

“But how do you know he won't hurt anyone? Thaddeus does have a pretty nasty record, even if he's behaved himself lately."

“I know that, but give him a chance! You… Look, Geste, I know you mean well, and I suppose you're sincerely concerned about this, but it's none of my business if he and Brenner are having a fight. You're a lot younger than I am; maybe you can still get worked up about what's right and wrong instead of what's comfortable, but I'm just not interested. It's not my problem. If one of them starts interfering in my business, then I'll be glad to help, but if they only pick on each other, why should I care?"

Geste had no clear answer to that. “Honestly, Anna,” he said, “I really do think Thaddeus is trying to do here what he did on Alpha Imperium. I think he may be recruiting troops from the short-lifers for building a new empire. A lot of people could get hurt if we don't stop him."

“Just short-lifers and trouble-makers like Brenner. He's not going to bother me, Geste, and he's never going to be able to bother any of the civilized planets-where would he get the firepower? And as for the people here, what do I care about short-lifers?"

“Well, they're people, too, aren't they?"

“I suppose they are, but they're all going to die anyway. What difference will a few years make?"

Exasperated, Geste burst out, “Don't you have any sense of responsibility toward your fellow creatures?"

“No,” Anna retorted, “I don't. I have my own problems."

“Ha!” Infuriated, Geste turned away and marched across the turret roof, back to his waiting platform. The turret was a hole in the lake beneath him, leading down into Anna's hold, but with his eyes dimmed he could see nothing but darkness below.

The instant he had both feet aboard the platform it lifted him upward, sailing toward the island that floated above Lake Anna.

He looked up sullenly at the jagged black rocks overhead, undimming his eyes as he did and wishing that the Skyler had put her hold further east, where it would have blocked the sun and left him debating Anna in its shadow, instead of half-blinded by the sun.

He had never expected unanimity in opposing whatever scheme Thaddeus might be hatching, but he was still distressed by the results of his excursions. He had thought at least some of his fellows would join him, if only as an amusing diversion.

No one had. He had spoken to them all, now-all who would agree to listen, at any rate. Anna had been the last, and his only companions remained Imp and the Skyler. Two, out of twenty-seven.

No, he corrected himself as the platform slid up past the sharp stone edge of the Skyland's disk and green lawns appeared before him, Thaddeus did not count, which left twenty-six, and seven of those had vanished or were under attack. Two out of nineteen had chosen to join him.

That was still a really lousy ratio. He grimaced, wondering if Thaddeus had intentionally attacked those most likely to resist, or whether it was just luck.

The other seventeen might well come to regret their decision. Arguing that Thaddeus might kill them all had seemed so melodramatic, so impossible, that he had not even suggested it to most of them, but nonetheless he believed it to be true. Thaddeus was a vicious, ruthless killer, a sociopath; he had demonstrated that repeatedly on Alpha Imperium. That he had harmed no other immortal for five hundred years proved nothing. For all they knew he could have killed dozens of short-lifer natives. Besides, he had lived for seven thousand years, which was plenty of time to learn patience.

The others must know that, being immortals themselves, but still they refused to acknowledge that one of their own comrades might be a danger. To them, Thaddeus was not the Imperial Butcher, the man who had been reputed to eat small children; he was just old Thaddeus, Shadowdark's kid, arrogant and foul-tempered, but harmless.

If they had thought otherwise, how could they have justified not turning him in centuries ago, back on Terra?