* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
"We'd like a look around, Mr. Ariela," the leader said. He walked behind the bar, sniffed at the hoses, glanced over the drinks and sampled the food. The rest found the flowers, cloths and dye in the cold storage bins but asked no questions, and they wandered about as though bored until one or two drifted upstairs to the hotel.

"Holy Fiya, captain!" someone shouted in Eyimalian. "We've hit the mother lode!"

"Get out," came Luz's voice.

Fuego bounded up the stairs, shrugging off the captain, who followed with his hands raised, grasping. Luz stood inside the first door on the second story, eye to eye with a longjawed Eyimalian who had drawn his shoulders together as if to leap. The corridor was dark, her face in shadow and his revealed by the light in the room. "They're all in there, captain. Dominguez, Fruehauffer, half the Della Porta gang, Maginini and her kid, Sierra--"

"Get out," Luz repeated. "They're sick."

"Please stand back, Lieutenant," the captain said. "Mem Ariela, I must ask you to stand aside as well. We wish to identify your patients. Naturally we do not assume you have knowingly harbored fugitives." He tried to step past her, pushing her away with one arm. Luz did not budge. He stood there a moment, one shoulder in the light and the other in darkness.

"She was trying to take them out over the roof," the lieutenant asserted.

"These people are ill and they can't be moved," Luz answered weakly.

"Luz Ariela, you are practicing medicine without authority. I beg you not to interfere," the captain said. "If you do, we will take you in for witchcraft."

Luz bowed her head. Policemen were coming toward them in the hall and on the stairs, leading their bandaged captives with the barest minimum of delicacy. Fuego drew his daughter aside and they watched as the patients were brought into the hallway and taken downstairs and away. They took everyone, wanted or not, even the youngest. "I may lose my job for not taking you as well," the captain told Luz.

She shook her head. "I don't understand. Why the clinic? You'll force us to fight to the death. You need my people, even if you hate them."

The captain raised one eyebrow. "My people? You are nearly as Eyimalian as I am." He smiled. "To the Outlander of course, not to the Eyimalian. Cheer up, Mem Ariela. How can we understand our enemies' thinking when we can't even understand our own? No more patients in the hotel, now. I'll be back."

So the clinic closed almost before it opened. Some of the patients were questioned and released, some were tried, one vanished for a few days and was found half-dead in an unused part of the municipal waterworks. Many people were afraid to come to Luz again and some even accused her of calling the police on her patients. Racial tension ran so high in the neighborhood that even when the Words of Love was permitted to reopen, the owner told Fuego not to serve intoxicants after dark. Luz was threatened on the street by a crowd of Outlander girls. After that she stayed in the neighborhood, where everybody knew she was neutral ground.

Suspicion of her died quickly. Luz was a soldier in the Armies of Daybreak and associated with the Uchide, long popular the Outland for their hatred of the Viyatos. She continued to treat patients on housecalls or at secret meeting places that doubled as Outlander magic houses. As people continued to be arrested in the streets and disappear, though, the Armies' funds went more and more for weapons so Luz could buy fewer and fewer medical supplies.

Greyesar returned to hold a seven-hour meeting in the ruins of Old Merced, then went back to Eyimalia City. Tiyar Kituman brought the news to Luz and Fuego the next morning when the cafe opened.

He leaned against the bar, twirling a little game stick between his fingers. "Sevit Uchide's family has received no notification of his death, or even of his imprisonment. We cannot, therefore, be certain that he is dead. Greyesar has attended a council of the Uchide. They are prepared to accept the story that he is dead and to content themselves with some compensatory tribute from the Nije clan."

"But that means they're killing him," Luz wailed.

"If he is alive now, it may," Tiyar concurred. "Greyesar and Adelaide argued this point for several days with the other Uchide. They are not unanimously with us, by any means. Many are undismayed by the thought of his death." He paced to the window and back. "They will regret this," he remarked.

"It's rotten," Luz said.

We're a good group, Fuego thought, listening to their mutterings. All three could differ vehemently or agree wholeheartedly without letting the emotion of one discussion carry over to the next. For the moment Luz and Tiyar were in accord, and they celebrated their solidarity with little comments.

"His family," Luz said.

"Family means nothing to them, despite their protestations. Power is what they cherish," Tiyar answered.

"He's the only one with real historic power."

"They are unable to see that."

A young Outlander couple looked in. Fuego hailed them. "Come on in, Mariposa," he called. "Coffee or beer with your breakfast?"

The two blushed as one. He waved them to one of the lower tables, noticing as he did so that the chairs of two heights, which he had used to intermix about the room, were now strictly separated. The couple paid no further attention to Tiyar, but sat looking at one another. Outland honeymoon, Fuego thought. Mariposa and her new husband would sit drinking all day at their table while friends dropped by whenever they could to join in a few rounds. He must bring them some food now and then. Mariposa couldn't drink on an empty stomach.

"So hold off on the funeral?" Luz was asking Tiyar when he returned.

"Yes, for the moment. You will receive guests in the next few days. Paula Maxwell is one. Another Resheborian will come with her, the one to whom Nije spoke last."

"Can we trust him?" Fuego asked.

The newlyweds were giggling.

"I rely upon your judgment, Fuego," Tiyar said.

* * "Wake up. We're here." Paula nudged Clark, carefully because they were on a smaller planet now where gravity was less and things likely to fly about. When he failed to answer, she shook him by the shoulders. He felt very light.

"Ow! Watch it. You're bumping my head...what do you want? Oh." He opened his eyes, squinting.

"Welcome to Eyimalia. Please remember that local gravity is two-thirds Resheborian mean. It is now l9:08 local time. If you are leaving us here, we would like to thank you for traveling with us and ask you to check for any personal belongings you may have placed under the seat or in the overhead luggage racks. Departing passengers are requested to use the rear exit only. Thank you and have a pleasant evening," a voice intoned.

"Thank you and go to hell," answered a young man. His companion, a younger man, laughed.

They set down their gear in the middle of the Merced Travel Center, a pressed stone building with one large room. The walls and floor were white. Inset ceiling lights were supposed to shine evenly everywhere, but some had gone out and some had lost their covers, so the giant clock on one wall received so much illumination Clark could barely look at it, while the little automatic restaurant and row of game machines on another side were in twilight. A painting of Darkbrother meeting Fairbrother, one of the Pravelany legends, decorated a gloomy corner. The earthly brother, his complexion green, embraced the celestial traveler, pink, amid lush foliage and fat children against a sky of disinfectant blue.

In the center of the room, some people stretched along benches and tried to sleep under glaring lamps, while others struggled to read in near darkness. Several frowsy women were knitting and talking loudly about their sons and daughters. A skinny woman flirted with a pasty-faced youth under a sign that said "Information" in several languages.

So this is the new world, Clark thought.

"I'll see if she can give us directions," Paula said. The information woman dropped her friend's hand as Paula approached.

Two little girls chased one another around a bench, screaming like hellions. One ran into Clark's legs and almost knocked him over. Forgetting the low gravity, he jumped back, sailed across the aisle and hit the bench where their mother sat with two more children. A wad of casheeks poked half out of her bosom. The girls hid behind another bench.

"Now sit right down or I'll smack you, you hear?" she said to them.

The girls climbed solemnly up beside her and the mother went back to rocking the least child, a boy, in her lap. One girl stuck her thumb into the other's ribs. The second jumped. Their mother slapped them both and they began to cry.

"Serena, Genevieve, shut up. Hi, did she hurt you?" she asked Clark.

"Not at all. Are you from Merced?"

The mother shook her head in answer. One of the girls hopped down and stood, smiling, at Clark's elbow. "We're going to El Agua," she announced.

"Serena, get up here," her mother hissed.

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CONTINUE.....................

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INDEX