"No. Five this time. And find a reason for being out of sight longer. We will not be able to make an ascent and return in time to get you home in one night."

"That may be difficult. Maksche keeps a close eye on Marika."

"If you do not appear I will know that you were unable to make the arrangements."

"I will manage it. One way or another."

She did so by feigning ill health. She began three days early, pretending increasing discomfort. Grauel and Barlog aided in the deception. She received offers of help from the healer sisters, of course, but she put them off. Before departing, she told Grauel, "They will want to treat me when you tell them I am not feeling well enough to come out. If only so they can report my condition to my enemies. Stall them. I expect to be tired enough to look thoroughly ill when I get back. We can let them at me then. I'll make a swift recovery."

"Be careful, Marika." Grauel was both in awe and dread of what Marika was about to do. "Come back."

"It isn't that dangerous, Grauel." But, of course, she could not convince the huntress of that. Grauel was only a few years past not even being able to imagine walking among the stars.

Marika began assembling her saddleship, eager to be airborne, eager to be free of her mundane duties, eager to mount the voidship, and more than a little frightened. Her insides were tight with anticipation.

"This coming and going ... " Grauel started, then tailed off.

"Yes?"

"I think some of the sisters are suspicious. You move at night, but the night is the time of the silth. Even at night there are eyes to see strange things moving above Maksche's towers. There has been talk about strange visions in the moonlight. Whenever strange things happen they somehow become attached to the name Marika, despite the evidence. Or lack of it. I may not be able to keep the sisters from entering if-"

"You may go to any extreme but violence. This has to be kept quiet as long as possible. A leak could bring both the Reugge and Redoriad into direct confrontation with the Serke. That would mean the end of us."

"I understand."

Marika finished assembling the saddleship. She bestrode it, strapped herself into a harness she had modified, lay down behind the windscreen she had installed. Windscreen and harness adaptations made it possible to fly at great speeds.

She reached for ghosts. The saddleship lifted and drifted through the window, brushing its stone frame. She glanced back once to wave to Grauel, and saw Barlog come rushing into her apartment. What did she want?

No matter. Nothing could be more important than tonight's flight.

She set her ghosts to work with a vengeance, raced away.

She thought she heard a far voice call her name, but decided it was just a trick of the air rushing around the windscreen.

Snow-splattered earth whipped past below.

III Softly, Kiljar said, "Just stand there on the axis, the same as any passenger on any darkship."

"Will we get cold?" Marika asked question after question, all of which she had asked before and had had answered. She was too nervous to control her tongue. She recalled Grauel or Barlog telling her, long ago, that she betrayed her fear because she talked too much when she was frightened. She tried to clamp down.

The senior bath left the Mistress of the Ship and came to Marika and Kiljar carrying a pot like a miniature of the daram cauldron that stood inside the doorway to the grand ceremonial hall at Maksche. She held it out to Kiljar. The Redoriad took it and drank. The bath then offered it to Marika, who sipped till Kiljar said, "That is enough."

"It tastes like daram, but it is not as thick."

"There is essence of daram in it. Several other drugs as well. They make it possible for the Mistress to draw fully upon everyone aboard. You will see."

A feeling of peace crept over Marika, a feeling of oneness with the All. She turned into herself, went down through her loophole, watched as the Mistress gathered ghosts and drew upon her bath. The giant cross lifted slowly. Marika sensed the strain required to elevate so massive a darkship. She was tempted to help, overcame that temptation. Kiljar had admonished her repeatedly against doing anything but remaining an observer. There would be ample opportunity for participation later. First she had to experience being separated from her birth world, to explore a new realm of those-who-dwell.

The darkship rose straight toward Biter, which stood at zenith, glowing down from his pockmarked face. Higher and higher. For a time Marika did not realize how high, for there was no change in temperature nor of the rarity of the air she breathed.

Then she could see all TelleRai spread below her. She had flown very high aboard her saddleship, but never so high that she could see all the city and its satellites in their entirety. The satellites lay scattered over hundreds of square miles. To the west, clouds were moving in, rolling over the islands of light.

The Mistress of the Ship was surrounded by a golden glow. Turning, Marika saw that the same glow surrounded each of the bath. It was not intense, but it was there. She could detect nothing around Kiljar or herself.

She started to ask a question.

Touch, Kiljar sent. Use nothing but the touch.

Yes. The glow. What is it?

The screen that restrains the void. What some sisters call the Breath of the All.

We are surrounded, too?

We are. Watch now. Soon you will begin to see the horizon curve. Soon you will see the moonlight shining off the snow in the north. No. Not tonight. It is snowing there again. Off the backs of the clouds, then.

It is a rare night when it is not snowing north of Maksche, mistress. The darkship was gaining velocity rapidly. What is that glow along the horizon? The horizon had developed a definite bow.

Sunlight in the atmosphere and dust cloud.

Marika lost herself in growing awe. She could see almost all the moons. More than she had seen at one time before. She could discern a score of the satellites put up by the brethren and dark-faring sisterhoods. They were brilliant dots moving against the darkness.

What is that? She indicated a bright object rising from the glow along the edge of the world. It was too small to be a moon, yet larger than any satellite.

The Serke-brethren voidship Starstalker. Just in from the dark this week. We will pass near it. By design. The Redoriad ship is out, but Starstalker is similar.

Won't they ... ?

Be upset? Perhaps. But they have no basis for a protest. We can look. Inside Biter orbit is convention space.

Marika glanced back at the world-and was startled. The Mistress had reoriented the voidship. The planet was down no longer. The darkship was moving very fast now.

She was in the void. If the glow she could not see failed her, she would die quicker than the thought.

All sense of motion vanished, yet the world continued to grow more curved. The bright spark of the voidship Starstalker drew closer, though the ship upon which Marika stood seemed at rest.

She looked upon the naked universe, sparklingly bright, clearer than ever she had seen it from the surface, and surrendered to awe.

Kiljar touched her. Over there. The darkness where there are almost no stars at all. That is the heart of the dust cloud. The direction our sun and world are traveling. It will become more dense before it clears. It will be five thousand years before we finish passing through.

That is a long winter.

Yes. We are getting close to the voidship. Do nothing to attract attention to yourself. They will be displeased enough as it is.

The darkship turned till its long arm indicated a piece of sky ahead of the swelling voidship. It began to move, though Marika could tell only because the voidship skewed against the fixed stars. As they approached the shining object, she detected lesser brightnesses moving around it. Closer still. The voidship resolved into something more than a bright glow. Looking over her shoulder, Marika saw that the sun had risen above the edge of the world. The world itself, where it was daytime, was extremely bright-especially at the upper and lower ends of the arc of illumination. The snowfields, she supposed. The cloud cover looked heavier than in any photograph she had seen. A quick query to Kiljar, though, told her that it was a phenomenon of the moment.