Flow always into Heaven City as you see the Star River flow into the Heaven River . Then Heaven City will always be as strong as you see this great river to be.

But if you flow in different ways, like the Star River does when it splits upstream into two rivers that pass on both sides of the hill I live on, then you become weak.

Not all the people understood me, but many did.

I did not tell them that J is God who made all these things. This is a thing I will keep without telling, for it is a hard thing, and I do not understand it yet.

I am no longer afraid to be Warden. For I know that J does not expect me to act always as he would act. Rather he expects only that I act in the best way I know how to act. And this I can do. And I make an end of writing for this time.

I have thought of J as a father.

Today Ciel spoke to me and said, Father let me come. I was going to shear the sheep and he said, Father let me come.

When he said this I knew that he would someday say other things, and I felt then that someday Ciel will grow wise like the Ice People, and a son of my body may speak to me as my friends speak to me.

And then as I sheared the sheep I thought of J and knew that he is to us as I am to my son Ciel. He is wise and knows many things, all the words and all the names, what to do, when to do it, why it must be done, and what will happen if it is not. None of us knows these things, and we only say to him the things he has taught us to say. Even as I do with Ciel who cannot say all that we can say, J must long to speak to us about things that we could not understand.

I tried to tell Ciel why he could not play among the sheep, for they might hurt him for he is small, but he did not understand.

I laughed and shook my head. This is also what J did when I did not understand. Laughed and shook his head.

J is a father with all the children. He has no one he can talk to as I talk to Sara. He can only talk as I talk to Ciel, in simple words that even then are not always understood.

J is like a father, but he has neither wife nor friends nor father of his own. Or is that where he goes when he leaves us? Is there a father for him inside the Star Tower ? I do not think so, for now I realize that J always looks sad and alone, not happy like I am with my son Ciel. I think J has no one but us to talk to, and we do not understand.

But I will try to understand, so that someday when J speaks to me I will be able to answer.

Then maybe he will take me into the Star Tower and show me all the secrets there and he will teach me how to make Ice People and all the other things he has made.

Sara is reading this and she is angry. She says that I am truly foolish to think that I will ever know all that J knows. She is surely right.

But still I hope. If the Star Tower can fly like a bird, will J not take me with him into the sky? When Ciel is old enough and wise enough I will take him with me everywhere I go, and teach him everything I know. Is this surely not what J intends for us as well? And so I say to J as Ciel said to me, Father let me come.

But for now I will only try to be wise and will study how to not be foolish like a child anymore. J will know when I am ready. And I make an end of writing for this time.

9

STIPOCK WOKE with the sleep helmet still on his head, and as he moved his arms to the sides, he realized to his surprise that he was still in his coffin. It had never happened before. His body was soaked in sweat from the waking drugs, and his mind refused to clear. Bright spots appeared in front of his eyes. He blinked. The spots went away.

He reached up to the sides of the coffin, pulled himself to a sitting position, and looked around.

Not a Sleeproom at all, he knew instantly. The mass of controls placed within arm's reach of a chair could only be a ship's control board. The space was cramped. Garol Stipock had never been in a warship before, but he had seen loops, and he recognized quickly that this had to be the control cabin of a ship of the fleet.

He also recognized the man standing at the head of the coffin, who said softly, "Is everything all right, Dr. Stipock?"

"Jazz Worthing," Stipock said, and his body flushed with heat as everything fit together — waking in a starship, and Jazz Worthing, one of the prime enemies of the people of Capitol, standing by his side.

"I'm in a colony ship," he breathed, the words not sounding real.

"Very quick," said Jazz Worthing.

"Why? I never volunteered —"

"Not so quick, then?"

"No," Stipock said. "We must have launched our little coup attempt. We must have lost."

"In a nutshell," Jazz said, "that's so. There are more ramifications, of course. But I doubt they'd interest you."

"They interest me very much. Who else was caught?"

"Everyone."

Stipock turned away, suddenly conscious of his nakedness, suddenly aware of how vulnerable he was. "Can I have some clothing?"

"The ship has it ready for you." The clothing landed in a pile in the foot of the coffin. Stipock clambered out of the box.

"Is there a shower first?"

The starpilot pointed, and Stipock went in, showered, urinated, and came back out and dressed. His thoughts began to settle down in the process. Colonies. Death. No more somec. The raw emotions never reached panic; instead he began to think: Adjust. Fit in. Get along. Survive.

"What kind of planet is this?"

"Agricultural," Jazz answered.

"Most are," Stipock retorted, "at first."

"This one always will be," Jazz said. "Fossil fuels are buried too deep to get to without metal tools. Copper and tin are extractable with wooden tools. Iron is only within three kilometers of the surface at one place, the middle of an uninhabitable desert. This planet will have a very hard time getting out of the bronze age."

Stipock was surprised at Worthing's attitude. "Don't you have any heavy equipment?"

"Yes," Jazz said.

"Then what's this about the bronze age?"

Jazz smiled. "Awake for three minutes, and already you know more than the captain."

Stipock flushed with anger, and grew angrier at himself because he knew that his pale skin always turned red when he was angry, making it impossible for him to hide his emotions.

"What am I supposed to do? Where are the others?"

"The others are all outside. You're the last."

Stipock didn't know how to take that. "Why last? Why in here, for that matter? I thought colony ships had a tape–and–tap."

"They do," Jazz said. "Ours isn't working."

"Why am I in here alone?"

"Your situation is unique, Dr. Stipock."

"Why? I wasn't even one of the leaders of the coup. I'm not about to cause any problems."

Jazz laughed. "Your existence at this moment is a problem. One which I created myself, I know, but I have to see what'll happen. Experimenting, you know?"

Stipock felt sick. He had seen the stolen loop, knew that Jazz Worthing was set to lead a rebellion of the Fleet to seize control of somec. But if Jazz's rebellion had succeeded —

"What are you doing here? I didn't think top level starpilots were exactly thrilled with colony assignments."

Jazz sighed. "That's the problem with using old tapes to wake you up with. You don't know a damn thing. Follow me." And Jazz turned on his heel and walked to the back of the control room, opened a door, and stepped through. Stipock followed, telling himself that he'd have to humor this man, but knowing that whatever his situation turned out to be, he'd hate it.

They went through a large storage compartment, with many large and small coffins, most of them empty and stacked out of the way. A few were still connected. "Ocelots just aren't needed in the ecology," Jazz explained casually, "and I decided skunks had no useful purpose either, just now. Avoid the nuisance, you know."