Agamemnon stood spread-eagled, head hanging, chest heaving, sweat steaming from every pore, air blasting through his nostrils with the force of bellows. A stock tank stood within five paces, and his belly ached with longing. But, throwing herself from his back before he’d even staggered to a lurching halt, Laurel had shouted “Stand!” So he stood, heaving and gasping, a Good Boy, doing as he was told.

There were significant benefits to being a Good Boy. Chief among them was Laurel. When Laurel was there, he knew Everything. He knew his Purpose. He knew his Rank. He knew that Nothing would harm him. He knew that there would be Hay. He knew that sometimes, if he was a Very Good Boy, there might be Treats. Agamemnon did not always understand why there could not be Hay now (or, for that matter, Water), but if Laurel said No, she meant No, and Hay or Water would have to wait. In any case, at the moment Agamemnon was chiefly preoccupied with Air, so even though he was fairly sure that he had been a Very Good Boy, he was willing to gasp and fix his rolled eyes on the ranch house door, through which Laurel disappeared with a bang that made him jump a little.

Agamemnon did not like Banging. In his memory, Banging went along with Screaming, which was of itself unpleasant, but where there was Banging and Screaming there was generally also an aching insufficiency of Hay, Water and Air, and the dread possibility of Biting and Kicking. However, at the moment, nothing unpleasant seemed to be happening, except for his thirst and the absence of Laurel, so he relaxed a bit. As he caught his breath he nickered once, in a low, snuffley, hopeful way, but the door remained steadfastly closed. So Agamemnon sighed, cocked one hip to rest the opposite leg, pricked his ears to listen for her return, and settled in to Wait.

Collie Orcutt sat, elbows before him, head in hands, hunched over accounts, the remaining litter of paper shoved to one side of his desk, near tears.

Beyond the window, through which he could not bear to look, sprigs of dead grass extended in neat rows from doorstep to horizon, crunchy with the heat. He had slaughtered or sold most of his stock. His wells were nearly dry. His stores were depleted. What had once been a mountain view was ground down to dust and slag, the line of haulpaks gone, the boom over, with nothing to show for it all but debt. He was in too deep to leave, he was in to deep to stick it out, and he was long past imagining real solutions.

So there he sat, silently damning the Land Man, staring numbly at the unrelenting columns of terrible news, listing to the terrible, drying wind, mourning for his dream, with no idea how to tell his friends, let alone his creditors.

He started from his chair at the sudden banging of the back door, followed by bootsteps thundering across the porch and through the kitchen. He had no time to react before his office door flew open, cracking against the wall behind, and a dust-caked Laurel, stinking of horse-sweat, burst in, shouting.

“They’ve come! They’ve tapped the Aquifer at Borrego Springs! There’s salt meadow growing from Butterfield Station to Ocotillo Wells! “

Orcutt stood stupidly, frozen in place. The Borrego seep was a pathetic trickle of alkaline water, supporting nothing but poisonous crustaceans. The aquifer beneath its ancient soil was a hell-worthy soup of sulfurous brine. Nobody went there. Nothing grew there. Nothing could grow there. It was a wasteland: a waste of space, and a waste of time.

“Uncle Collie!”

He looked at her, still uncomprehending.

“They’re making hay!”

Which was followed by a sharp whinny, accompanied by emphatic banging at the back door that made Orcutt jump.

Then he burst into tears of joy.

Then he plunked back into his chair, sobbing, “Praise Him for Salvation!”

A ripple wavered up the vast, mud-brick staircase as Longshanks, now a pall of matted grey fur, blurred past and upward, their chittering All Due Haste code preceding and following in a Doppler blur. Behind the ripple, Warriors snapped back into present-and-lock-arms position, rumbling in a dull roar, “Make Way, the Protector’s Courier!”

Their message delivered even as they ran; their encrypted Code for Lord Sargon’s Ears Only; the great Lord was roused from his accounting chambers and met them where they collapsed, spent, on the glassy floor of the entry hall.

Doctors converged, hovering without acting. Sargon clenched the gripping hand.

“Let them Eat!”

A sharp prick, and the Runners felt the sheer bliss of Manna, flooding calories, electrolytes, antioxidants, analgesics, and blessed, pure water into what passed for their bloodstreams.

Sargon bent over them, emoting so softly that only they could hear, and enwrapped each small head with two gentler, softer hands. Longshanks wriggled slightly.

“Let them Rejoice!”

The Runner’s eyes rolled, the only expression of which they were capable. Their bodies arced in unison as a new substance, sweet as pure euphoria, flooded every pore of their being. Their hair pulsed with all the colors of shattered light as they rolled upright, springing to their tiptoes as daintily as if they had spent the day merely Watching, and faced one another in ecstatic disbelief.

Holding light hands steady upon them, raising the gripping hand still clenched, Sargon roared or screamed  sounds lower and higher than all hearing. In frequencies felt (or heard) by every caste, The Sacred Words poured from Sargon’s very head and feet:

“Let them Marry!”

Longshanks 10 John leapt, and locked in union. They had been Very Good Boys, indeed. Their Messenger days were over. They were retired to stud, so to speak.

Fifty miles away, his hands buried in soil, Farmer John muttered at his plants. He hoped to far moons Lord Sargon quit mooning around, and gave him decent replacements for Post 10 until Longshanks’s first litter came of age. He had a thousand sar of manna to re-seed.

New Scotland , 3049

Alone, unwatched by anyone, Kevin Renner stopped playing the role of Kevin Renner, and instead sat, eyes closed, forehead resting on one hand, leaning on one elbow, propped against the wing of his formidable chair.

Absorbed in thought, by feel alone, with his free hand he opened the edenwood case beside him, and ran his fingers across the contents. Silky silver tongs, buttery resin chunks, the crusher, the clicker, the tin of fermented leaf, the rosewood cradle, the amber bit, and finally, the bowl itself. He rubbed one fingertip along the cool, soapy, luscious feel of spiral galaxies whirling away around the lip of his pipe, laser-carved at his direction from a pristine chunk of New Utah opal meerschaum by a Motie Engineer. Its draw was impeccable, as was its feel. He cupped it to his palm and felt it warm to his hand.

Sighing, he opened his eyes, turned, and assembled the pipe. With the tongs, he dropped a chunk of resin into the bowl, then used the crusher, first to powder it, then to evenly smear the powder around the inside. Laying that tool aside, he flicked open the battered tin, rolled a plug of leaf between thumb and forefinger, used it to blot up any stray resin powder, and tamped it into the pipe. Finally, he raised the pipe to his lips, and with one long draw lit the mass with the clicker. The resin flashed red from bottom up, then glowed with an even white light. Renner smiled, and cupped the pipe with both hands. That last warmth of body heat tipped the scale, revealing the magic of the stone. The soapy meerschaum became translucent, rippling with opalene fire. With each draw, the galaxies sparkled in a milky blue field, as colors played across variations in temperature and the depth of the bas relief.