through the floating-islands forest, the weak artificial gravity often tugging them into the trees. Their connecting cord kept tangling in the branches, until they found a transparent irrigation main they could hold onto and use to pull themselves toward the green section of a highway.
"I hope it works," Percival later muttered as they stood on the static edge of the highway with the green section of it jutting away at a right angle. The green section was a square tunnel, its side walls bulged outward and inward, making the view through its length take on a slightly threatening perspective. It looked like it was intended to shoot them away into the air.
"Should we untie ourselves?" Fidelity asked.
"I think so," Percival replied. "But stay a few feet apart, one behind the other." He and Rafael removed the cord that held them together. "There is some manipulation you will feel," he warned. "Don't resist. It has to feed us very precisely through the target."
"Target?" Daidaunkh queried.
"Gate target," Percival replied.
"There is a gate in this tunnel?" Daidaunkh asked worriedly.
"I don't think so," Percival answered. "This is just a device to collect us at a precise location, then trigger the gate to send us to another location."
"But we must pass through the gate itself?" Fidelity questioned.
"Nobody even knows where the gate is located. Maybe the Fleet does. We are left to only imagine how it works. I think we do pass through the gate itself but it happens too quickly for it to register on our senses. You should know. You have already been through a gate."
Percival stepped onto a green travel lane at the end of the other lanes, Daidaunkh hopped one-legged onto it with Rafael's help, and Fidelity carried Samson to follow them. The lane curved away from the others and into the square tunnel.
Fidelity hugged Samson to her chest and watched as Percival disappeared from in front of Daidaunkh, then Daidaunkh vanished, then Rafael. For a second the open end of the tunnel lay a few meters away, its view showing some of the floating forest they had just traversed. In the blink of an eye the entire green tunnel disappeared, and she and Samson stood on a slowly rotating disc in front of an opening in the wall of a building. Percival was off the disc and helping Daidaunkh hop off of it. She carried Samson behind Rafael to the doorway.
A man and a woman emerged from the opening, which had the nearly invisible seal of most hospitals that flowed around them like the skin of a soap bubble. They wore single-piece suits also common to most hospitals in the Union and carried small devices that had to be medical probes. They went directly to Daidaunkh and scanned his body.
"We'll take him," the man said. "Are there other injuries? The child?"
"No," Percival answered, when Fidelity shook her head. "How long? Can we wait?"
"We have a backlog," the woman said. "Industrial accident and two gang battles. Can't say how long. Come back in a few hours."
"How will you pay?" the man asked.
"The Quiet One told me to help him," Percival said meaningfully.
"She didn't tell me anything," the man said skeptically. "If she does, then we won't charge him. Otherwise, it looks like about two months full-time indenture."
Fidelity translated for Daidaunkh when he seemed puzzled. He nodded at her. "I've done that more than once in my life. No veterans' benefits for Rhyan military. Leave me."
Rafael grasped Daidaunkh's good arm. "We will come back for you, Daida."
"In spite of all the grief I've given you?" the Rhyan questioned.
"I threw Denna away," Rafael said sadly. "I should never have. You are all I have of her and I want to keep that. Maybe we can become friends."
"Get out of here before I become sentimental," Daidaunkh growled. He tried to turn away on his one good leg.
Fidelity moved in front of Daidaunkh. "If I never see you again..."
"It will be too soon," he finished for her.
"I will always remember you," she said, and very deliberately kissed him on the cheek. He tried to avoid it and the two hospital workers had to grab him to keep him from falling. They provided a sliding chair for Daidaunkh to sit in, and he stared back at Fidelity until he disappeared into the hospital.
"Where do we go now?" the old man asked the young man. "I guess we are not allowed to wait inside."
"Nowhere," Percival replied. "Anywhere."
"And then what?" Rafael asked.
Percival shrugged. "I would like to change out of my costume." He looked at Fidelity. "And I think your yellow dress is too noticeable."
"Yes," Fidelity agreed.
/
They had to be special people, these strangers to the Big Ball, but doubt still assailed Percival's new faith. As little as he knew of the Quiet One, he felt the dangerous woman did not fit the gentleness of what he did know of the religion. The Quiet One had always been described to be of opposite kind to She Who Must Not Be Named. The woman did seem to care about her companions, especially the boy. Her simple kiss of the Rhyan also made Percival doubt the woman and her companions were suited to take part in a struggle between gods. Did war need to be a reason for their arrival in the Big Ball? Did every unexplained event need to play on the hope that good would now triumph over evil? He had unwillingly and improbably begun to like these people and to trust them, even knowing how they threatened his life. He had to stop worrying about his theological ignorance and keep his mind on their survival. Maybe he would also be able to survive.
After many miles on the powered walkways and only a little flying they arrived at Percival's home neighborhood. He tried to imagine how his three remaining strangers might appreciate his choice of residence. It was his first home as an adult and he was rather proud of it. He led them down winding grass lanes between fabric houses of vivid colors. Some homes were mere tents, some were colossal assemblages of flexible planes of hue and texture, bordering on visual befuddlement. Every shape and size between the extremes seemed to exist in merry anarchy, no two exactly alike. The old man made several positive comments about the architecture and the woman agreed with him.
Percival welcomed them into the fabric-partitioned apartment he shared with two other young men, both of whom were fortunately not home. His roommates' manners were poor and their education was worse, but they were reliable friends. He changed into his normal work clothes: drab coveralls and a tee-shirt. He carefully folded and stored his 20th-century stage costume and hoped he would live to return it to the Actors Guild. An old shirt of a roommate and his last clean pair of pants he gave the woman to wear. She quickly changed but would not leave the yellow dress behind. She folded it and stuffed it into the waist of her pants, letting the shirt cover the bulge.
"We shouldn't stay anywhere too long," Percival warned. "I know you are weary." He addressed the old man, who was trying to rest on the floor of his apartment. "I don't know how soon the Fleet will respond to what happened to the two lieutenants, but you present a distinctive appearance. No one, except maybe a Fesn lives to be as old as you."
"What is a Fesn?" the woman immediately inquired.
"They are an alien people. I don't know if any are still alive."
"Alien?" the woman queried, intensely interested, as she ought to be. As far as Percival knew, citizens of the Union were unaware of real aliens, thinking the human races to be alone in the galaxy. "Intelligent beings who are not human?" the woman asked.
"You don't know about them in the Union. They were found by the Fleet while exploring beyond the hub. They were brought here, where they were examined by..." Percival stopped, unsure of whether to speak of those others whom even the Fleet feared.
"What do they look like?" the woman asked, perhaps sensing Percival's reluctance to expand the dialogue on aliens. "Are they dangerous?"
"No! Not the Fesn. Everyone likes them. They look almost like us, two arms, two legs, one head, but definitely alien. They are supposed to be protected but I know the Fleet has probably killed or injured some of them. Whenever I go to the Great Muse
um I try to find one of them. I've always wanted to speak to one."
"I, too, would wish to speak with one!" the old man declared, sitting up on the floor. "Where is this Great Museum? Is that where they like to be?"
"I spotted one there once," Percival said. "But that is a very public place, and perhaps a trap if the Fleet knows we are there."
The woman and the old man looked at each other. Percival remembered they had given their names to him, which he had entirely forgot. In the next moment the names were repeated.
"Rafael?" the woman said as an inquiry.
"Fidelity?" the old man responded in kind.
"I want to see a Fesn!" the boy demanded.
"I am only being selfish," the old man said apologetically. "I'm old, not much time left, and intrigued by this great secret of the universe. Another living intelligent species!"
"What are our chances, Percival?" the woman asked him.
"Of meeting a Fesn?"
"Or of getting caught by the Fleet," she said.
"Eventually they will get us," Percival answered. "It's a matter of policy, even if they care nothing for the lives of their junior officers. Is there some reason, besides the two lieutenants, that they would want to find you?"
"Possibly," the woman replied, "but I'm not sure. Where is this museum? What does it contain? Is it an important place?"
Percival tried to argue them away from the museum but everything he said only seemed to increase their desire to see the place. Even without the possibility of seeing a
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