“Naysay,” Shibo countered. “That Cyber ship that got you—it moved lot faster than Argo. Could’ve caught us easy.”

“It took off after me, though. Caught me on the other side the whole damn planet.”

“Only after we’d left in the Flitters,” Shibo countered.

“Guess they wanted me,” Killeen said lightly, trying to slip by the moment.

“For what?” Jocelyn asked.

“Gave me a lookover, let me go.”

“Sure that’s all?” Jocelyn eyed Killeen.

Was she trying to raise suspicions? “Can’t explain it. Just lived through it.”

Jocelyn picked at her coveralls and said nothing. Killeen felt some uneasiness seep out of his officers. The simple presence of a clear leader helped.

He had learned from Fanny the value of putting past errors and disputes behind the Family. Abraham had been a genius at that. Killeen knew he lacked his father’s lightness of touch at moments like this.

To break the mood he slurped from a cup of warm brown fluid—and then abruptly spat it out. “Send out a small party, the five with the best noses,” he said. “See if there are any jodharran bushes in this godforsaken place. We could brew a decent drink, at least.”

Cermo gulped his. “This stuff’s not so bad.”

Killeen wrinkled his nose. “Tastes like mechpiss.”

“Yeasay,” he agreed. “Got some good features, though.”

“Like what?”

“Well, it’s not addictive.”

They all stared blankly at one another for a long moment, and then from Cermo came a mild chuckle, and a guffaw from Jocelyn, and then they were all laughing, the yelps and rattling coughs issuing from them as though from deep internal pressures, bursting forth into the rain and chilly air like small cannon shots, explosive assertions, little gestures against bleak fortune.

SEVEN

Dawn of the next day brought a howling flurry of dust that sleeted through the stinging air. It came as work started on breakfast. The Family Niner campfire got out of control. A moaning wind swept it in angry gusts. The flames blew into tents and across the spare dry grass. A pall of smoke rolled through Family Bishop’s grounds and Killeen hurried to pull a team together.

Nobody wanted to come, of course. The wind snatched his orders away and that made a good excuse to not hear them. The fire was the Niners’ fault but that wouldn’t matter much when it reached them. He had to haul more than a dozen men and women out by the scruffs of their necks.

They advanced into the teeth of the gale, clawing away the grass before the tongues of orange that leaped forward with blurring speed. They couldn’t get control of it. They linked up with a brigade of Niners who were devoting most of their effort to getting tents and equipment out of the way.

Killeen argued with their lieutenant and got nowhere. He didn’t dare leave his own team and search out the Niner Cap’n, or he might well return to find that most of the Bishops had gone back to protect their own valuables. The biting dust made it easy to slip away into the billowing banks of grit that skirted along the ground like huge dirty brown animals. There was no good solution so Killeen sent a runner back with orders to muster the whole Family, and set to work.

With trenching tools they cut a broad gap before the leaping flames. It was impossible to face into the storm, with its smarting flame and stinging sand. They stopped the fire just before it reached a stand of dead trees, uprooted and dried out, that would have gone up in a rush, spreading cinders everywhere.

The wind trickled away as suddenly as it had come. They stomped out the remaining flames and went back to their camp and found dust everywhere. Every tiny crack in a tent let in powdery drifts of the stuff. Killeen and Shibo were sweeping out their little tent when Toby came ambling along, hands stuffed into his side pockets.

“Knew I’d be glad I pitched in the open,” he said happily.

“Yeasay, I saw you hunkered down under somebody else’s shelter yes’day, when it rained.” Killeen grinned.

“All dried out now.”

“You just sleep in a bag?”

“Got no bag, don’t need one. Suit keeps me warm.” Toby had on his full running gear—aluminum pelvic cradle and shin servos and heavy carbosteel shank shocks.

“Must get tired, haulin’ all that around,” Killeen said.

“I like ’em,” Toby said, sitting down and adjusting a compressor lock. “Traded some my ’quipment for ’em.”

“What’d you give?”

“Some backup chips I had in my shoulder.”

“Those’re Family chips.”

Toby looked edgy. “Well…”

“They ask for any old religious Aspects?”

“Huh? No, no, nothin’ like that.”

Killeen felt relieved. He was sure His Supremacy would eventually try to get chips away from the Bishops simply because knowledge was power. On the other hand, he shouldn’t mistake every minor incident as a vast portent.

“What’d you give?” he repeated.

“C’mon, Dad, I’m carryin’ tech chips nobody’ll ever use again.”

Killeen kept his voice flat. “Like what?”

“Buildin’ stuff. Puttin’ up walls usin’ mech parts, like that.”

“We might need that.”

“When? Can’t build anything here.”

His voice finally got away from him, turning sharp. “We’ll find someplace. Build a Citadel, one bigger’n the last. Better, too—only we won’t know how, ’cause you gave away the knowhow.”

Toby said sarcastically, “That time comes, I’ll just trade ’em back. If I’m gonna settle down, won’t need trekkin’ gear.”

“You’ll find whoever you gave the chips—”

“Two Niner guys, it was. And I traded ’em square, didn’t give ’em—”

“—and trade whatever you must. Just get those chips back.”

“Dad!” Toby sprang slightly into the air, driven by his compressors. “I can’t just go—”

“You will. Family property stays in the Family.”

“Look, other people’re tradin’. It’s natural.”

“Who?”

“How you expect we got runnin’ gear, tents, cookin’—”

“Make it, same’s on Snowglade. Who?”

“There’s not enough mechwreck around. And shapin’ it would take—”

“I saw parts over at the Niner camp. Scrounge some, set down, ’n’ start usin’ the craft you got stored in you. Now who else?”

When Toby had told him the names of four others, he called Jocelyn and gave her the job of finding them and getting back the gear they’d bartered. He could see from the stiff set of Jocelyn’s mouth that she didn’t like the job but she went off to do it without a word.

Killeen stood watching Toby making toward the Niner camp. He was vaguely aware that he could have handled matters better. Shibo came over and slipped an arm around him, nuzzling his cheek wordlessly.

He grunted with frustration. “Hard to switch back to father after bein’ Cap’n.”

She nodded. “Toby’s scared, like us all. Needs something that gives him a lift.”

“I can see that. But…”

“We’re all recovering. Lost Argo, need some direction.”

“Toby seems pretty steady.”

“He and Besen have helped each other.”

“You mean…?”

She nodded, making a sign that meant love, romance, courting.

“Oh.” Killeen blinked. “I hadn’t noticed.”

“Parents often don’t.” She smiled.

“Well, I…”

Killeen struggled to say something wise and firm, and gave up—his inner world was a muddle. He knew he was being absurd, but his first reaction to this news was a piercing sense of loss. To acknowledge that seemed to slight Shibo—he still had her, after all. And Toby’s growing up was inevitable.

He told himself that maybe this crisis had made him vulnerable, and the sudden pang he felt was a side effect of the greater concerns that weighed upon him. While he tried to sort this out he saw Shibo’s mouth tilt with compressed merriment, and realized that she could read his consternation. Finally, he gave a resigned chuckle and threw up his hands.