Cley pressed her palms to her ears. The din of talent-talk drummed on. As soon as they got through with their labyrinthian logic, they would notice her again.

             And talk down to her. Reassure her. Treat her like a vaguely remembered pet.

             No wonder they had not recalled the many varieties of dogs and cats, she thought bitterly. Ur-humans had served that purpose quite nicely.

             Her people . . . They had labored for the Supras for centuries, tending the flowering biosphere. The Supras had known enough to let them form tribes, to work their own small will upon the forest. But drawn out of that fragile matrix, Cley gasped like an ancient beached fish.

             She staggered away, anger clouding her vision. Conflicts that had been building in her burst forth, and she hoped the blizzard of talent-talk hid them. But she could avoid them no longer herself.

             She was like a bug here, scuttling at the feet of these distracted supermen. They were kind enough in their cool, lopsided fashion, but their effort to damp their abilities down to her level was visible— and galling. Longing for her own kind brimmed in her.

             Her only hope of seeing her kind again lay in these Supras. But a clammy fear clasped her when she tried to think what fresh Ur-humans would be like.

             Bodies decanted from some chilly crucible. Her relatives, yes, clones of her. But strangers. Unmarked by life, unreared. They would be her people only in the narrow genetic sense.

             Unless somewhere, some Ur-humans lived. They would know the tribal intimacies, the shared culture she longed for.

             If they existed, she had to find them.

             Yet every nuance of the Supras' talk suggested that they would not let her go.

             They were not all-powerful—she had to keep reminding herself of that. They gave Seeker an edgy respect, clearly unsure of what it represented.

             Their very attainments gave them vulnerabilities. Immortals were enormously cautious; accident could still destroy them. Caution could err. They could have missed some of her kind in the dense woods.

             Nobody from the crystal elegances of Diaspar or Lys could be worth a damn at tracking in the wilderness.

             Very well, then. She would escape.

24

             Surprise and diversion are tactics best used swiftly. In Cley's case the surprise had to come at the perimeter the Supras had erected around the wrecked Library. Yet she had no idea how to do this.

             She confessed her thoughts to Seeker. She was sure that it would not betray her. It seemed unsurprised by her news, or at least to Cley the beast showed no visible reaction, though its fur did stir with amber patterns. She had hoped for some laconic but practical advice. It simply nodded and disappeared into the night.

             "Damn," she muttered. Now that she had decided to act, the hopelessness of her situation seemed comic. She was, after all, the least intelligent human here, surrounded by technology as strange to her as magic.

             The party continued across the camp. Waves of talent-talk frothed in her mind, making it difficult to think clearly. She hoped this torrent would also provide cover for her plans.

             A loud, groaning explosion rolled through the dark. Seeker was suddenly beside her. "Walk," it said.

             Shouts, flashes of purple radiance, a chain of hollow pops. Luminescent panels flickered out.

             They simply slipped away. Seeker had executed some trick to deflate the screens near the Library and instantly Supras and robots reacted. For all their mastery of science the Supras reacted in near-panic to the noisy folding of the screens. They truncated all standing robot orders and directed every effort toward erecting the defenses again.

             Seeker watched warily as they walked unhurriedly across the camp to the side nearest the forest. "The moment was approaching," was all it would say.

             "But the robots—"

             "They will not expect this now. They never see the moment."

             They moved silently out of the Supra camp, keeping to the shadows. Everywhere robots hurried to restore the bulwarks of the Library but took no notice of them.

             They reached the forest beneath a moonless sky strung with a necklace of dense stars. Cley tweaked her eyesight to enhance the infrared and bring color forth from the pale glow of a million suns.

             They ran steadily for the first hour and then slowed as the terrain steepened. Whatever Seeker had used to gain them freedom would not last for long. She had been restless under the lofty and distracted restrictions of the Supras and she could not for long conceal from them her feelings. She suspected that Seeker had sensed her restlessness and had prepared to get the two of them out, before Seranis could read Cley's intentions and tighten her hold.

             After a while all this complication fell away from Cley and she gave herself over to the healing exuberance of the forest. She knew from Supra talk that her kind were not the true, original humans which had come out of the natural forces of far antiquity, but that mattered little. Though her genetic structure could be easily modified, as the inclusion of the thought-talent showed, the Supras had kept her kind true to their origins. The simple enfolding of forest could still reach deeply into her.

             Seeker did not slow its rhythmic pace, four legs seeming to slide across the ground while its hands swept obstacles aside for the both of them. "They must be looking for us now," Cley said after a long time of silence.

             "Yes. My effect will wear away."

             "What was it?"

             Seeker looked at her, opened its slanted mouth, but said nothing.

             "Is it something I shouldn't know?"

             "A thing you cannot know."

             "Oh." She was used to Supras making her feel stupid. Seeker, whose kind had come well over a hundred million years after Ur-humans, made nothing of its abilities, but this somehow made them seem more daunting.

             "They can find us, though," she said. "Supras have so many tricks."

             "We must seek concealment. Something more works in the sky."

             She looked up and saw only a low fog. She puffed heavily with the effort of keeping up with Seeker as they plowed through dense thickets. "Why can't they see us right away?"

             "We swim in the bath of life."

             With each step the statement became more true. They moved deep into the embrace of a land bustling with transformation. Fungi and lichen coated every exposed rock. This thick, festering paint worked with visible energy, bubbling and fuming as it ate stone and belched digestive gases into a hovering mist. Where they had done their work webbed grasses already thrived.

             Cley stepped gingerly through a barren area speckled with bile-green splotches, afraid one might attack her feet with its acidic eagerness. Not all the vapors that hung over the fevered landscape were mere bioproducts intended to salt the atmosphere with trace elements. Buzzing mites abruptly rose from a stand of moldyweed and swarmed around them. For a terrified moment she batted them off until Seeker said calmly, "Stand still. They are thirsty."

             The cloud was opalescent, its members each like a tiny flying chip of ice that refracted pale starlight. Yet they seemed clever, buzzing with encased fervor and quick skill. They banked in elaborate turns around her. She realized she must seem like a mountain of chemical cropland. "What do they—"