“The legend will grow,” he said.

“It’s the way religion is,” said Digger.

“I suppose. But I prefer to think of it as the way human nature is. It’s a great story. On the night when they most needed her, Lykonda came. It tells me that they are a lot more like us than would make some folks comfortable.”

“I suppose,” said Digger. “All in all, we’ve gotten a lot of use from her tonight.”

“Maybe,” he said.

“How do you mean?”

He shrugged. “Sometimes it’s hard to be sure who’s using whom.”

BILL WAS PICKING up bits and pieces of transmissions from the omega monitors, and also from satellites placed in orbit by the Jenkins.

The cloud was such an amorphous object that it was impossible to say precisely when it made contact with Lookout. But what was clear was that, by midday on the Intigo, the planet was in its embrace. Rain and high winds swept across the Goompah cities.

The Jenkins stayed in contact. Giant storms, they said. Some loose rock that had been traveling with the cloud was coming down. The ocean surged from the west and, as they’d expected, submerged wide parcels of land. The river that flowed out of T’Mingletep overwhelmed its banks and spread out in all directions. The city on the island went underwater.

They were getting ready to depart Mt. Alpha when Bill reported an earthquake on the floor of the eastern ocean. “ Tsunamis coming.”

“How bad?”

“They look relatively small. I can’t be certain at the moment because they’re in deep water. But they’re approaching an island chain, and I can let you know then. Just a few minutes.”

“When are they going to get here?”

“Hour and a half.”

He relayed satellite pictures of the islands. The weather seemed quiet. In fact, the sun was out and the beaches were gleaming. Long-legged birds strutted on the sand, which was bordered by forest. “This where the tsunami’s headed?” Digger asked.

“Yes, Digger.”

The picture broke up, came back, broke up again.

“There’s a lot of interference,” said Bill. “The wave should be imminent,” he added.

They saw the sea beginning to rise. A large wave became a wall of water and kept getting bigger. It raced across the surf. The birds scattered, and the ocean spilled onto the beach, submerged the trees, and crashed against a series of ridges.

“About twelve meters,” Bill said.

Marge’s voice broke in: “It’ll be about the same when it gets to the Intigo.”

Digger breathed a sigh of relief. It was high, and it would raise hell with the cities, but most of the refugees should be out of reach.

“There are at least three follow-on waves,” Marge continued. “All appear to be less of a threat.”

“What about the other direction?” asked Whit.

“How do you mean?” asked Julie.

“The round-the-world mission. Are they still cruising the coastline?”

“Skies are heavy in the region.” said Bill. “And we don’t have a satellite in the area.”

“They’d have to be,” said Digger. “Is that a problem?”

“Pretty much,” said Marge. “They need to be in deep water.”

Avery Whitlock’s Notebooks

I cannot help wondering what has been, for the Goompahs, the more terrifying aspect of this business: The threat posed by the omega, or the appearance of the goddess?

— December 15

On board the Regunto on the eastern ocean.

Ninety-fifth day of the voyage.

TELIO HAD BEEN hardly a week at sea when he was ready to turn and go back home. That reaction had surprised him, because he’d spent much of his adult life as a sailor and fisherman, moving up and down the coast of the Intigo. He’d even been on an exploratory mission ten years earlier, when they’d pushed into the regions where the sun was in the middle of the sky and the air became hot beyond what one could bear. It was the longest foray in modern history, made under Hagli Kopp, as fine a captain as ever sailed. He wished the current captain, who commanded all three vessels, were of his quality.

Not that he wasn’t competent. But Mogul Krolley lacked the fire and presence of Kopp, whose sailors would have followed him anywhere. In the stifling heat, Kopp had called them together. Scholars maintained that the boiling air did not go on forever, he said, that if one could break through the barrier, the seas would become cool again. The captain did not know for certain what conditions were like farther on. He suspected the scholars were correct, but he told the crew candidly they had reached a point from which going ahead would, in his view, be foolhardy. He did not wish to risk their lives. Or, he admitted with a chuckle, his own.

And so they had turned around and, as the first mate put it, lived to go home.

There were no natural barriers to an east—west voyage, no heat in one direction or ice in the other. But there was the haunting possibility that they were sailing on an endless sea. Or that there was an abrupt edge of things, as some warned. The notion that they could proceed east and eventually would come upon their own west coast had seemed plausible, and even likely, back in the cafés and sloshen. But out here, on the broad sea, it approached absurdity.

They had indeed found a continent, and they’d spent sixteen days examining its harbors and rivers, looking for Saniusar or Mandigol or T’Mingletep. But this was Korbi Incognita. Unknown country.

Should the occasion arise, Telio did not think Krolley would have the self-assurance to admit failure, to recognize reality and accept defeat. It was more likely that he would press on, that if this wasn’t the Intigo, he’d look for a way to pass through it, a river, a series of lakes, whatever was needed. He was rumored to have considered the possibility of abandoning the ships, if necessary, to travel overland, and build new vessels when they found the sea again on the far side. If indeed there was a far side.

That had led to talk that the world might not be constructed in the form of an infinite sea with scattered landmasses, that Korbs only thought that because they lived near ocean. But it could well be that it was land that went on forever, with occasional stretches of water. Who knew? Telio was certain only that he was ready to concede failure and go home. He thought of himself as being as courageous as the next person, but he also knew that, when the evidence was in, it was prudent to draw the proper conclusions and react accordingly. There was no point being an idiot. The way was blocked.

Which brought him back to Captain Krolley.

The thought of a mutiny never crossed his mind. It would never have occurred on any Korb ship. It wasn’t that authority was held inviolate, but that a contract entered into voluntarily was sacred, regardless of circumstance.

They had adequate water and stores on board, having just filled up a few days earlier. And the only immediate problem they faced was that many of the sailors, like Telio, had had enough of the open sea and simply yearned to go home.

Telio missed Moorka, missed all the females in his genus, missed the evenings on the Boulevard with his brothers, missed his son, now about to have a child of his own.

He hadn’t realized it would be this way. He’d expected to be gone for a couple of years, but he’d thought the time would be spent pushing forward across an open sea, and not poking into endless bays and rivers along a vast landmass. Moorka had asked him not to go, but he’d explained how he’d always wanted to sail past the sunrise, to be part of the great mission that people always talked about but never seemed to get around to launching. He had joined a group years earlier for such an effort, but funding had never appeared. And he’d spent his life since regretting the lost opportunity.

Well, he’d gotten past that piece of stupidity, at least. When he got home, he’d stay there and enjoy his family, and never again sail out of sight of the Intigo. And he’d leave the adventuring to those young enough, and dumb enough, to want it.

He wondered what Moorka was doing. That was most difficult of all, lost out here on the sea and no one near with whom he could slake his passions. No luminous eyes watching him in the night, no soft cheek on the pillow beside him. It was an unnatural way to live, and it reminded him of the old argument that the gods had given the Intigo to the Korbs with the understanding that everything else was a divine realm, that the Korbs were to stay in their assigned lands. And to remind them of that truth, the gods had sealed it off, heat to the north and ice to the south, and the boundless ocean on either side.

He looked up at the sky. The sun was bright, but a storm was coming. He could smell it in the wind. And he was almost grateful. The heavy clouds would conceal them from the thing in the night sky. Almost everyone believed that the apparition was intended to warn them to go back. To remind them of the Covenant.

It was impossible to know what Krolley thought. Few of the men would have dared mention their doubts to him. Although Telio had made up his mind that he would do it, next time he had the opportunity. He’d asked the officer of the rigging whether he thought they’d come too far, that they’d offended the gods, and the officer had smiled and shrugged it off. Ridiculous, he’d said. Don’t worry about it, Telio. If a divine ordinance prohibited what they were doing, did he think they’d still be afloat?

But afterward he’d seen him talking seriously to the executive officer.

The ships had been moving south along the new continent. And, as at home, it was getting colder with each passing day.

Telio watched the wild coastline drift by on his left. The Hasker was running behind them, closer to shore and out of their wake. The Benventa stood farther out to sea.

The plan was to proceed south until they could round the continent, or, as the crewmen said, until they froze. Whichever came first.

If any candidate for a passage through the continent presented itself, they would try that, but there’d been nothing even remotely promising for several days. Many of Telio’s compatriots back home would be surprised to learn there was another major landmass. Most thought there was only the one on which the Korbs lived. It had, at one time, been an article of faith.

They’d sent landing parties in twice since arriving on these shores. The water was good, and there was plenty of game. But the animals were unlike any they had seen before. The trees were different; as were many of the bushes and shrubs. And one of the crewmen had been attacked and killed by a terrible creature of enormous size. His companions had riddled it with arrows, and they’d dragged the thing down to the beach for everyone to gawk at. It had fangs and claws and fur the color of the woods in which it traveled. Witnesses to the attack said it had reared up on its hind legs.