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The cry came once more. It occurred to her that it might be some kind of distracting trick. She did not like being so hesitant. She thought of Lunae, snatched or slaughtered in her sleep while her guardian was lured off on some wild-goose chase. What if something happened to the kappa? Dreams-of-War imagined the kappa's wrin-kled body, pierced and probed, and her mouth was suddenly lemon-dry. She had no empathy for the nurse, but all the same… Silently, Dreams-of-War cursed her recently acquired emotions. They were supposed to apply only to Lunae, but they appeared to be spreading. It was an inconvenience that Dreams-of-War could well live without. She quelled the rising flood of worry with as much ruthlessness as she could muster and applied herself to more immediate issues.

"Separate," she whispered, drawing the gutting knife from the armor's thigh. The armor crept from her skin, to stand unsteadily on the rocking floor of the cabin, until she was clad only in the underharness.

"Remain. Protect."

Armed with the knife, Dreams-of-War locked the door behind her and made her way along the passage. The cries were coming at regular, breathy intervals from within the hold; it sounded like some small creature in torment. Dreams-of-War went down the stairway and found a pas-sage leading through the hold. This part of the junk was damp, the walls and floor salt-slick beneath Dreams-of-War's bare feet. There was an unwholesome seaweed smell that reminded her of the Grandmothers' chamber. At the end of the corridor lay a hatch. She hastened to it and looked in through a crack.

A woman lay supine on a long, raised couch at the center of the room, facing the opposite wall. She was naked. Both of the woman's legs were missing beneath the groin; Dreams-of-War could see the pale knob of the joints, protruding and polished. The woman's arms were thin spines of bone, fleshless from the shoulder down-ward, interlaced with gold and jet. Something was crouched over her.

Dreams-of-War saw faceted eyes in a visage half-human, half-insect, a molten black carapace, jointed arms pinning the woman's shoulders to the couch. A spiked spur the length and thickness of Dreams-of-War's forearm hammered between the woman's artificial legs, ro-tating like a screw.

Dreams-of-War had never seen anything like it; at least, nothing that was bigger than a beetle. Wasp or scor-pion? Ant or crab? It was all of these, and more. It should have resembled a patchwork abortion: instead, it pos-sessed a gaunt and unnatural wholeness, a glistening, sin-ister beauty.

Dreams-of-War had seen worse sights in battle, but this disgusted her. Her mouth filled with bile and she drew a short sharp breath. The woman's head rolled back. Dark hair fell in a shining sweep to the floor. The woman was grinning, but her eyes were as glazed as glass. The sounds came from deep within her throat. On her shoulder, Dreams-of-War caught sight of a curious symbol, etched into the flesh: a bristling gold-and-black star.

Slowly, the woman arched her spine and began to cir-cle her hips. Dreams-of-War backed away, fled down the corridor, and did not look back. The sounds followed her all the way to the cabin. She assumed the armor like one shutting herself inside a box, confining and safe, and sank down onto the seat by the porthole. She remained there until the sun was up, staring out over the great clean sweep of the sea.

Earth

When Lunae awoke, Dreams-of-War was sitting on the porthole seat, armored knees drawn up against her chest and bristling like a porcupine.

"What time is it?" Lunae asked.

"Almost eight," Dreams-of-War said.

"Is everything all right?" The Martians face looked pinched around the mouth and her eyes were gritty. Wisps of pale hair had come loose from her plait, giving Dreams-of-War an uncharacteristically disheveled appear-ance.

"Everything is fine," Dreams-of-War snapped.

"Where are we?"

"How should I know? The sea looks all the same; I have seen no land. Stay here, don't answer the door, and don't take it into your head to go wandering. I'm going to find Sek."

"Why? Is something wrong?" For Dreams-of-War was emanating a wire-taut sensation, a kind of psychic jan-gling.

In reply, her guardian turned on an armored heel and marched out.

Lunae crossed over to the porthole and looked through. Beyond the narrow line of deck and the railing, she could see nothing but ocean, stretching hazy and blue to the horizon's edge. Now that they were beyond Fragrant Harbor, the water had changed to a deep, rolling swell, flecked with foam. Lunae watched, enchanted, as each wave rolled up, green and clear as molten glass.

The junk lurched and swayed. Lunae kept waiting for sickness, but to her relief, it never came. She rested her el-bows on the rim of the porthole and watched the sea churn. Then something passed across her vision: a kind of blurring. Lunae frowned, wondering if her vision was af-fected, and thinking with dread of the Kami. It came again: a sudden dimming of the view of deck and horizon, as if two pillars of heat had passed by Lunae squinted up-ward and saw a strange thing.

A woman was hovering above the deck. She wore a short leather kilt. Above was a black metal bodice that reached down to her hips. Long dark hair, unbraided, swept to her waist. She was looking out to sea, so Lunae was able to see her profile: a pale, sharply etched face, with a sensuous mouth. The eyes were hidden behind round lenses, like the eyes of an insect. Her arms were nothing but bone and metal, the shoulders peaked like wings and the fingers skeletal and long, but her body ended at the hips.

She had no thighs, no shins, no feet. Lunae stared as the woman moved away, and now she could see that the woman was supported, after all: by two transparent legs ending in spiked heels. Artificial toes tapped across the deck. Despite the height of her heels and the motion of the deck, the woman moved quickly and with assurance. She was soon gone up the steps that led to the upper levels of the junk.

When Dreams-of-War marched back in, Lunae told her of what she had seen. By this time, the kappa had also awoken and sat blinking.

"This woman," Dreams-of-War said, frowning, "what did she look like? Did you see her face?"

"Yes," said Lunae. "She was beautiful, with long black hair. But her face was cold and closed, all angles. She did not look like anyone I have ever seen before. There was a—a foreignness to her face, yet it reminded me of some-one. And she had no arms, and no legs. They were glass, or plastic, and transparent. It didn't seem to hinder her in walking."

She was surprised to see an expression of distinct un-ease cross her Martian guardian's countenance.

"Do you know her?" Lunae asked.

"No," Dreams-of-War replied, too quickly. "But I have reason to believe that we are not the only passengers. Why should we be, after all?"

"There are many strange things in the north," the kappa said. She waddled closer to Lunae and patted her arm. "Do not worry. I am here. Dreams-of-War is here."

"And I'm grateful," Lunae said.

The Martian turned to the kappa. "Strange things? Have you seen this woman before?"

The kappa stared at her, bemused. "I have not. But you must know how common it is in the more primitive regions for children to come from the growing-bags with-out limbs."

Dreams-of-War looked at her with palpable disgust. "Why aren't such infants terminated?"

"Because it takes time and expense for poor folk to grow a child," the kappa said. "And some women do not regard that child as disposable." Lunae thought there was a hint of anger in the kappa's answer, but perhaps she was imagining it. The nurse's moon-face was as placid as ever.

"What about another kind of creature? A sort of gigan-tic dragonfly, with a hide like black armor? A scorpion's tail?"

The kappa's eyes grew wide with alarm. "I have never seen or heard of such a monstrosity, and I do not wish to."

Dreams-of-War acknowledged this with a nod. Turn-ing to Lunae, she added, "Are you still feeling sick?"

"A little," Lunae answered quickly. She longed to go on deck and watch the waves. "If I could go outside…" She faked a grimace.

"I will make tea," the kappa said, and began to busy herself over the cabin's small iron stove.

"Come with me," Dreams-of-War said. "If you are go-ing to be ill, best you are closer to the side."

Her face wrin-kled with distaste. The Martian did not, Lunae felt, approve of bodily functions. She wondered again whether the armor took care of elimination for Dreams-of-War, but it was not a subject that she felt able to broach.

She followed her guardian onto the deck. There was no land in sight, only the heaving sea under a clear, cerulean sky, but far on the horizon Lunae saw a smudge rising up from the water.

"What's that?"

"Smoke," Dreams-of-War said. "Hakodate, perhaps, or one of the more southerly volcanoes."

"Is Hakodate a rift-volcano?"

"No. The only rift still active is the one beneath the Shattered Lands—what was once known as the Western Continent. It is said that it was this rift that caused the fall of prehumans and precipitated the Drowning. There is only a fragment relating to it; it says that many folk died in the cataclysm and after, when the clouds of ash and smoke blotted out the sun. Diseases would have been rife. But ge-ologists believe that the Drowning was already well under way at that time. The great rift of the volcano merely has-tened matters."

"Do we know anything about the people of Earth at that time?" Lunae asked, scouring her memories.

"They were certainly nothing but savages—apes or some such, half-humans and men-remnants like the hyenae of Mars, all teeth and whiskers. But by then, Martians had developed spaceflight; we did what we could to sal-vage the remains of Earth." Dreams-of-War paused. "There were—experiments, at this time. A mingling of Martian and indigenous genes. Some of these experiments were perhaps unwise."

Lunae could tell from the sour twist of her guardian's mouth that Dreams-of-War hated to admit any misstep on the part of her people. "It took centuries for rebuilding to take place. But there are many such re-mains of the things that lived before the rift and the floods: the tailed women of the western tribes, the Mottled Elders, the Hollow Children."

"I have seen none of these. Are there pictures?"

"Yes, but why should you have an interest in such creatures? You are an advanced being, a made-human from the civilized East. Relatively civilized," Dreams-of-War amended.

"There is a story that Fragrant Harbor dates from be-fore the Drowning."

"Certainly, Fragrant Harbor is ancient," Dreams-of-War conceded. "But probably it was little more than a fish-ing village. When we reach the islands of the kappa, you will see the kind of thing I mean."

And with that, Lunae had to be content.

Earth

Yskatarina was certain that they were being watched. She had felt eyes upon them that morning, on deck, and she did not think that the crew alone were curious. Sek herself treated Yskatarina with a wary respect, but Yskatarina was confident that the captain's loyalties to the Matri-archy would hold.

The girl was, so Sek had assured her, confined to a cabin below with her nurse and her guardian.

Yskatarina set eyes on the Martian warrior later in the day, as she stood conversing with Sek in the prow. A formidable fig-ure, but perhaps no more than a hollow one; bound to the dictates of Memnos—rigid, unquestioning. She was not so stupid as to take this for granted, but Dreams-of-War ap-peared the typical Martian, and thus far, Yskatarina had not been disappointed by the race. Perhaps the earlier at-tempts to dispatch her had been unnecessary. And then there was Dreams-of-War's armor, a piece of haunt-tech that had traveled on the stolen ship… Prince Cataract had implied that the armor contained memories of that ship and its operation. Yskatarina intended to explore this at the earliest opportunity.

The nurse was a kappa, and as such, did not present a great threat, although after the previous assassination at-tempt, Yskatarina remained wary of the toad-women. Since the attempt to snatch the girl had ended in failure, she intended to try another tack, and perhaps it was better this way. She planned to intrigue Lunae, and then befriend her. The Martian would not interfere, if instructed not to do so by Memnos.

She rested bone-and-metal fingers on the railing of the ship and contemplated the churning sea. It was good to have a change of limbs once more. Her spare parts had fi-nally been delivered, arriving via a scow the previous day. But she did not like this expanse of water; it seemed some-how unnatural. And she wondered what lived beneath those waters. She thought of the Dragon-King, gliding along the seabed. What might it be thinking? Did any ves-tige of consciousness or memory remain to it? Did it re-member the cataclysmic rift that had shattered the world?

Prince Cataract had been elusive on the subject, but Yskatarina thought it more probable that he simply had not known. He had told her that the Grandmothers had raised the great machine from the seabed, deeming it a suitable place on which to hide. But he had not told her why they had quarrelled, and the idea continued to dis-tress her. The Animus glided to the railing beside her, re-garded her with dark lambent eyes. She reached out a hand to touch its claw. "I have put a call through to Night-shade.

Elaki is waiting."

Yskatarina smiled to herself. One could tell that they were far from home. On Nightshade, the Animus would never have dared to describe Elaki thus, without any hon-orific.

"More respect," she murmured, teasing.

But the Animus said nothing, and not for the first time, Yskatarina wondered whether he truly possessed thoughts and ambitions that were separate from her own. Elaki had claimed that such a thing was not possible, and indeed, she had never questioned this before. But then, that was before they had come across Prince Cataract. And Elaki and Isti, too, seemed less closely linked than the An-imus and herself. Abruptly, she turned away from the rail and the ocean's expanse.

"I'll talk to her, then," she muttered.

Elaki's voice crackled and spattered over the antiscribe like hot fat.