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Masters Of the Mortal God

Yesterday, four more people died.

I stared at the glass in my hand, watching my splintered reflection in the crystal. The blood red liquid muted the pallor of my skin. I slouched in the cushions of my acceleration couch, just as I had the day before.

Today, four more people would die.

"Gibs, we have just entered normal space. The Forma quarantine area is just ahead," a woman's voice informed me.

I exhaled, and could barely notice the vile alcoholic stench when I breathed again.

Fortunately, there was no one aboard my impregnable hospital ship to be horrified by the smell, or to be shocked by the appearance of a once-great mindshifter. Only Safire, the ship's computer, could see me; perhaps only she cared.

I waved my left hand; the drink sloshed over, to puddle in the couch. "Thanks, Safire, let's see the place." Safire lit the overhead viewpanel. I gasped despite myself. I understood why some people thought Forma might be an artifact of an alien civilization.

The most striking characteristic was the Eye: the huge circle of permanent white clouds that stared forever back at the star Pelocampus.

The Eye existed because Forma rotated once for each revolution around Pelocampus. Beneath the Eye it was always high noon. Beneath the Eye the ocean simmered despite the protection of clouds of steam.

Theoretically, the planet should have lost its atmosphere millions of years ago. All gases should have either boiled off at the Eye, or frozen at the Pole, on the far side. Indeed, Forma was losing its atmosphere, but much more slowly than expected: clouds reflected much of the heat at the Eye. Fierce currents of wind and water carried heat around to the wasteland at the Pole. Even the planet's core, with a thinned mantle at the Eye and the Pole, acted as a heat exchanger.

Between the winds and the water, the weather sometimes whipped wicked. Therefore a large research expedition had come here soon after the development of the Hawking stardrive. For a long time they had been beyond even the Frontier.

Eventually civilization expanded to surround Forma. Yet Forma remained quarantined: the descendants of the researchers liked to be alone. Intruders were not welcome. The Federation respected their wishes.

"It is beautiful, is it not, Gibs?" Safire's soothing contralto interrupted my reverie.

I turned away from the scene, tossing down the rest of my drink. My head ached. "Yeah." How I hated beauty! All beauty now reminded me of beauty now gone forever.

How could I have lost her! I had been a god, giving life and death throughout the reaches of space, and still I had not been able to change one woman's fate. "Safire, another drink," I said.

"Very well." I heard the sound of a mixer humming.

I shook my head. "Wait. How long before we can set down?"

"On Forma? We can't land there. It's quarantined."

I stared at the Eye again. Did Forma have what I needed? The people were rumored to be bright, friendly, and cheerful. I needed that; I needed to surround myself with people who were happy.

But more importantly, the people of Forma had never heard of Transfer, or immortality, or Gibs Stelman. They were innocent. I needed that more than anything else.

"I don't care about the quarantine. I want to land."

"What about the warships?"

I cursed. "What warships?"

Spaceship representations grew around the image of the planet. A fleet of detector satellites sailed in a symmetric sphere. Two starship task forces hovered above the Eye and the Pole.

I squinted at the cruisers. "Earth?"

"No. Sirius and Omegar."

"What?! I thought Sirius and Omegar were at war."

"So they are, Gibs. When Sirius offered to enforce the quarantine, Omegar demanded a joint force."

"Why would either of them care about a weather research outpost?"

"I don't know."

Forma's innocence would end suddenly, it appeared. I was a little drunk. I closed my eyes to prevent the tears. I had come here to escape the troubles of Man, not to solve them! Yet, perhaps there was still time. "Do they know we're here?"

"I don't believe so," Safire replied. "We're flying dark, using only passive sensors. I only saw them because they're using active sensors."

"Good." Well, I couldn't sneak a behemoth like Safire past the cordon without being seen, but I might be able to sneak through in my sport boat. "Prep Glitter for me, Safire."

"Very well, Gibs. But from this distance I won't be able to operate her."

"What? Oh, I guess not." The relays would be a bit slow for outmaneuvering hostile warships. "I'll fly her myself."

I could feel Safire's sensors scanning me.

"What's your problem?" I continued, "I can handle her."

"Very well, Gibs." The voice was perfectly level, and Safire was a computer after all—but still I thought I heard a note of doubt.

A robot rolled in with my drink. "Thanks," I said as I leaned forward. But I faltered before gripping the glass. Reluctantly, I withdrew my hand. "Safire, is Glitter's bar well stocked?"

"All the bottles are topped off."

"Um. Well, uh, maybe you should empty them out."

"Very well, Gibs." This time, I knew I heard relief in the voice. Safire cared. It was part of her programming.

A mindshifter's skill, such as mine, can put an old man into a young body. Such skill is too rare and valuable to be purchased with money. The coin with which one purchases such Transfer is technology—the most advanced technology, often the most secret technology, of the planets.

Thus Glitter was an extraordinary vessel, almost as extraordinary as Safire herself. Her engines were built on Athens, her sensors on Cassandra, her shields on Mary Jane. Glitter could beat any one of the cruisers in the fleets around Forma. Safire could take a whole task force with ease.

But I hadn't come for fighting; I had come for surcease. All I wanted was a quiet landing. So I used minimum power, and I used a single tight beam to Safire for tracking. I almost made it through.

One of the unmanned satellites pinged me just outside the atmosphere. Vessels converged from all sides. "So much for the quiet approach," I muttered as I applied full thrust and plunged toward Forma. Two muffled ion beams lanced my hull before the atmosphere thickened enough to scatter space weapons.

I sat back in the pilot's seat, rather pleased with myself. "I told you I could get through," I told Safire through the tight comm beam.

At that moment the ship jerked to the left and started tumbling. A clap of thunder sounded in my ears, and lightning tried to turn half my cringing instruments to junk parts.

Unbelievable! Here I was, in a spaceship impregnable to the fiercest blasts of a battleship, getting whipped around by a little rough weather!

The landing still shouldn't have been difficult, but my head ached, and my body trembled from three years of fervent abuse. So Glitter tumbled and spun and hurtled into the ground at a crushing velocity. It was an ignoble ending to a life over seven lifetimes old.

Today, four more people would die.

Minutes later I realized that I was still alive. The viewplate was shattered; I skittered over the crazy-tilt floor and starboard bulkheads to the airlock and threw it open.

Powdered snow poured through the opening. The draft numbed my fingers even as I let the lock snap shut. I and Glitter lay buried beneath several hundred feet of snow.

With that information, several of the instrument readings took on meaning; they were not broken, just surprised. And the engines still worked.

An hour later, Glitter rested snug in an arctic valley. I needed a drink.

No chance, of course, since I had denied myself any sensible refreshments in a moment of Safire-induced self-retribution. I settled for a breath of fresh air.

It took me less than thirty seconds outside to realize that I'd made a mistake. Like the cat that stuck his nose through the door into the blizzard, I scurried back inside.

Dammit, I had come prepared with a bathing suit, not a snow parka. I had planned to land some thousands of miles closer to the Eye. I suppose I was lucky I landed here; the snow saved my life. Nevertheless, now that I was saved, the snow should have had the decency to evaporate.

It took me another day, with Safire's help, to fix enough of the viewplate so I could see to navigate.

I started Eyeward, taking Glitter into the air for a few minutes, skimming along for a hundred miles or so, and grounding once more to look around. On my second landing I saw the skeleton.

At least, it looked like a skeleton, floating high in the freezing air—the skeleton of an airplane, with wings of gauze. I lifted and ran Glitter as fast as I could; it was not in my plans to be found by the authorities. I left the skeleton far behind, then turned a few times at random to throw off any trackers.

When I landed again, I quickly spotted another skeleton floating in the distance.

With an oath, I roared away again. Three times I landed before finding a place where I wasn't in line of sight of one of the damned things.

The climate was milder here; I could inhale the outside air without a burning sensation in my lungs. There wen- scattered clumps of pine-like trees. I parked Glitter beneath one clump and pulled a camouflage net over the top. The netting had been designed to camouflage her in the deciduous forests of Springform; it looked obscene here, but not as obscene as a flashy chrome spaceyacht.

"How long will the repairs take, Safire?" I asked as I watched robots scurry about.

"Three or four days. The damage reports are incomplete as yet."

I had no intention of being cooped up that long. "Is there anything I can do to speed things up?"

"Yes, Gibs. You could relax."

"Ha! Better yet, I'll get out of your way." I smiled. "I'll take the slipjet. When Glitter's ready, she can catch up."

There was a long pause. "Very well, Gibs."

It started as a chilly ride, which was not much of a surprise. What I had forgotten was how much colder it is to sit still in a strong wind, than it is to be throwing camouflage netting in calm air. Damn! I had coddled myself too long aboard starships and inside protected buildings. How could I have forgotten the meaning of weather, and the coldness that crept slowly into your bones?

By the time I realized I had made a grave error, I knew it was too late to get back to Glitter; my hands would be frozen before I returned.

I landed and ran in circles around the slipjet, but I couldn't get really warm again. I climbed aboard and flew a few more miles before I lost feeling in my hands and landed.

"Safire," I yelled into my wristcom; the wristcom was linked to Glitter, which was in turn linked to my beautiful starship, "I'm stuck in the middle of a wasteland." I quickly explained the situation. "Can you send Glitter after me?"

"I can fly Glitter, Gibs, but her instruments are a wreck. I can't locate your position with anything she has left."

"Well, fly her in the right general direction. I can tell if she's gone past me." At least my wristcom showed Glitter's direction. "If I see her, I'll yell."

"She's lifting now," Safire replied.

All I could do was wait. I ran in circles, and yelled, and held my hands inside my jacket. My current body was tough and healthy, but it wouldn't last long here. My teeth chattered.

Today, four more people would die.

This was my second fatal mistake in two days. Yet neither fatal mistake was as unforgiveable as the mistake I had been making for the last three years. For all the deaths in all those years, this silly ending was richly deserved.

But Death missed me again. I saw a vehicle float out of the crisp blue-blackness of the horizon. "Safire, I see her!" I cried joyfully. "Turn about 10 degrees clockward, and—" I stopped in horror.

"Gibs? What's wrong?"

"Belay that order, Safire," I replied thickly. "It's a skeleton." The machine drifted closer, turning 10 degrees clockward just as if it had heard my order.

Thunder roared behind me. I turned to see a different kind of vessel descending. As it landed I saw the emblem of Winterform on its side.

A hull section snapped down, and a uniformed woman stepped out. "You're under arrest for unlawful trespass and malicious interference with a research task," she stated in tones as crisp and cold as the winter winds.

"Great," I said with a shiver, "Throw me into confinement." I ran toward her. "And hurry."

"Freeze," she commanded, drawing a lethal-looking instrument from her belt.

"You can count on it, my lady." I stopped. She came nearer and ran a second instrument over my body. She stopped at my wrist.

"What's that device?"

"It's a wristcom, to let me communicate with my ship."

"Put out your arm, slowly."

I did, and she removed my communicator. Her fingers felt surprisingly warm as they brushed my hand.

She nodded to tne ship. "Better get inside. I have medication for frostbite."

I lay on a couch not unlike an acceleration couch as she smeared excruciatingly hot cream over my arms, legs and nose. I kept my teeth clenched and winced occasionally.

"Go ahead and scream," she said gently—her voice sounded so concerned that I opened my eyes to see if it was the same person. "I know how painful this must be."

I suppressed a spasm as she rubbed my nose again. I groaned. "My body was made for sandy beaches and warm summer nights, not for arctic blues." It was true: I typically wore a tan, lean body with soulful blue eyes and an enigmatic smile. More recently my smile was grim, my eyes were bloodshot, and my body was an emaciated ghost, but I still wasn't suited to cold weather.

She snapped the medikit shut. "It looks like you'll survive. You won't even have to re-grow any toes, amazingly enough. You were lucky."

"You were my luck, my lady. Thank you." I felt very warm toward this cold savior.

"Yes." She stood up. "Now tell me what you're doing here."

I sighed. How much of the truth should I tell? "I have come seeking surcease. I require gentle harmonies and melodious laughter, to return from the edge of insanity."

The hard outline of her face did not change. "You sound like a half-baked poet. Is that what you do when you're not cavorting around the galaxy in your toy space-yacht? Or is poetry the latest fad among the Federation's playboys?"

I winced. "Even playboys contribute more to mankind than I have of late," I whispered.

"Hmph." She started to soften; then she thought better of it. "And you came all the way to Forma for surcease?"

"The Federation is such that I cannot rest, no matter where I go."

"I see." Her voice chilled so deeply that my frostbite returned. "What crimes did you commit in the Federation that forced you to flee? Besides stealing a space-yacht, that is."

My jaw dropped. "Unkind maiden!" I protested. I suppose this wasn't the time for bantering, but I couldn't help myself; I was a Shakespearean actor in my first lifetime, and the style still haunts me. "An' do thou wound most deep with thy unjust accusations!"

As it happened, my approach was precisely right. Her icy expression somehow caught the light in a new way, and her smile sparkled. "Nay, sad sir. Excuse me my distrust, but pray tell me in truth thy purpose in the lands of Winterform." Her eyes, dark and beautiful in contrast to the smooth whiteness of her skin, held me in trance. As her expression changed and changed again, I perceived depths to this person, layers like an onion, of closeness and distance, compassion and ruthlessness, warmth and coldness.

I was in love.

Perhaps I should explain. In my first lifetime, and even my second, I sought my mates in the normal manner of mortal men. But after a few lifetimes I developed an eye for the woman who was just right for this life. In short, I became capable of recognizing love at first sight. It has never failed me since.

In my seventh lifetime, which had just ended prematurely, I had known who my mate should be. I had never touched her. I could see her in my mind's eye now . . .

No! I shook my head; memories only serve if they are not overloaded with emotion.

I jerked as my newfound love clapped her hands in front of me.

"Are you all right?" she asked.

"At last, at last." My laughter rang with joy for the first time in a lifetime. I knelt before her, taking her hand in mine, kissing it. "My lady," I crooned, "please, please marry me."

Perhaps this was rushing things a bit, but I couldn't help it. Ihope has always been my master.

Besides, I believe you should always be honest, because the truth is usually unbelievable. If the truth doesn't work, you can follow it up with a good lie and people will believe that.

Sadly the truth in this case was quite unbelievable. And though I may recognize love at first sight, my mates-to-be do not always recognize it with equal facility.

She drew back, looking stern, shaking her head, and laughing all at the same time. Clearly, she did not perceive Fate's handiwork here. "You don't even know my name!"

"It matters not, my rose who would smell as sweet. I have held a thousand names, yet I am who I am, though the river of labels flows onward."

That was the wrong thing to say; when I mentioned having held a thousand names, she became very suspicious.

She drew her gun. "You seem to have recovered some feeling in your hands. Hold them out, slowly."

"No, you don't understand," I started to explain. "I have the power to recognize love at first sight. We are destined to spend this lifetime together."

"We are, huh? I have some disappointing news for you, mister." She circled my hands with a pair of force cuffs. "Wait a minute." She moved in front of me, looking me in the eye. "You said 'this lifetime.' " Her eyes narrowed. "Have you had Transfer? Did you waste a mindshifter's time and ability?"

"No, you don't understand," I continued, "I am a mindshifter! I have saved thousands of lives! Come with me, I can give you lifetimes beyond measure as well."

She froze there, a statue of hatred. "I see. So that's why you've come to Forma, the only world where there's never been a mindshifter. You'll milk us dry before we join the Federation." Her fists clenched. "Then let me tell you something. It is a felony to try to buy a government official. And it is . . . immoral to try to buy a woman."

She slammed the hatch that connected her cockpit to my compartment.

Thus ended the honest approach; she thought I sold my services to the highest bidder. Unfortunately, there was just enough truth in her opinion to make it hard to disprove.

Mind transplant surgery remained a true art. Oh, it required extraordinary engineering abilities too, in everything from complex connectivity theory to axonal counterstimulus. But if Transfer had just been an engineering problem, Man would have programmed a computer for it. Safire could perform other kinds of surgery more quickly and more accurately than I. Her powers of pattern recognition and reconstruction were superb.

But beyond the facts and the formulas and even the patterns, mindshifting required a special gift. It required the ability to know, for this one unique human being, which neurons needed to be transplanted, which needed to be replaced, and which needed to be reconnected. Each Transfer was a new challenge, a labyrinthine problem in both pattern recognition and learning. Each Transfer offered the surgeon a million tiny moments of indecision, a million chances to fail. If his gift were strong and pure, the surgeon might be able to do four Transfers in a day.

This special gift, the oddball genius demanded for mindshifting, belonged to a tiny handful of men. Even on Earth, there were too few mindshifters to go around. Even on Earth, they commanded huge prices for their labors.

And of the handful of mindshifters in the universe, only a spoonful of the most dedicated, adventuresome, foolish mindshifters ventured to the Frontier. Each took a star sector with dozens, even hundreds, of scattered planets, and bounced from place to place in a desperate race to save human lives. They did not necessarily save the wealthiest, or the most powerful, but they tried to save the best, and the most needed human beings they encountered.

Of course, sometimes saving the best people is akin to saving the wealthy and powerful: the best often achieve wealth and power. And those who received Transfer inevitably became wealthy and powerful in their second or third lifetimes.

I could understand why my lady thought I had come to Forma to squeeze her people. What she didn't understand was that the price I could command on Forma would be equally great wherever I went. I offered the gift of life itself; it was beyond price.

Re-educating my loved one would have to be postponed. My current situation needed to be changed.

I contemplated the matter from every angle. I was, after all, a mortal god; I would find a way to escape.

I owned a lockpick toolkit, but it was on my slipjet. I had my laser ring, but it was powered from Glitter, and I had no way to light it since my captress removed my wristcom.

Eventually I realized I was trapped. All I had left was my guile.

"Queen of my life!" I yelled into the cockpit through the closed passage. "Please grant me the kindness to know thy name!" She did not answer. Guile would have to wait.

Eventually we landed. There was little I could do, with my wrists in the forcecuffs, except stumble into my lover-to-be as we went out the hatch.

"My name is Keara," she answered my question of hours ago.

I stumbled.

"Can't you even stand up on your own?" She propped me up and pushed me forward with a grunt.

"Keara." I smacked my lips. "Keara is a beautiful name." I had the keys to the cuffs in my right hand, plucked from the lady's clothing in our moment of ecstatic embrace. "How do you think it will look on a marriage license?"

She shook her head. "You are impossible!"

"Of course," I cried, slipping the cuffs from my arms. I cut her legs out from under her; she cut my legs out from under me. We wrestled in the snow. My greater size, and my black belt in modkido from 6 lifetimes earlier, gave me a great advantage.

I was deeply annoyed when she pinned me and refastened the cuffs. "Perhaps you're not impossible after all," she chuckled. "Perhaps you're just difficult."

The snow numbed my cheek. I grunted, staggering to my feet. "How'd you do that?"

"I keep fit," she muttered.

I nodded my head. I still had the reflexes and physical strength of a lush.

We walked toward a sleek, black building that stretched to the horizon. "What city is this, by the way?" I asked.

"You're in Whitepeak." Keara rolled her eyes. "You really are lost, aren't you?" She laughed. "Well, a jail is a jail, I imagine."

It was ridiculous, being jailed because of a bunch of aerial skeletons. "Say, what are those skeletons?" I asked.

"Skeletons?"

"Yes, my lady. The ghosts of aircraft which followed me."

"Oh." Keara laughed softly. "Those are weather sensors. Solar powered."

"Fascinating." It was also obvious, for a colony that had started as a weather research station.

A flash of sky-flooding lightning blinded me for a second. "Wow, that lightning is beyond belief!" I told her.

She pushed me into the building. "Hurry," she cried.

"What's wrong?" I asked as she rushed me down a descending corridor.

"It's a blizzarcane, you fool—" the building shook as the thunderclap arrived.

From the corner of my eye, I saw another blast of lightning tear through the ceiling to the floor. The sound deafened me. I was thrown toward a widening seam in the concrete. Hunks of roof fell all around, and Keara slid with me toward certain doom. "Keara!" I cried, though I could not hear my own voice.

She held her hands over her eyes, scrabbling against the floor. She had been looking in the direction of the bolt when it struck.

I tried to pull her aside, away from the heaving edge of the disintegrating floor, but she fought me.

I had no choice in the matter if I was going to save her life: I kicked her until she stopped moving. I couldn't pull her effectively with my hands behind my back, so I knelt beside her and used my teeth to drag her farther from the hole. More chunks of roof fell around us. I regained the cuff keys from her pocket, and released myself.

She was awfully quiet. Her eyes . . . her current body was probably permanently blinded. Her pulse fluttered. I might well have hurt her badly in my haste to save her life.

Two men in uniforms like Keara's came running down the hall; I waved frantically. "She's hurt!" I yelled, "Get a doctor!" I could almost hear what I was saying again.

One held back as they came up to me; the other pushed me aside as he stepped forward. "It's Keara," he said grimly, "the spy must have knocked her out when the attack started." He felt her pulse. "He may have killed her."

The other soldier lifted his lazegun; not coincidentally, it had been pointed at the ground beneath my feet when they arrived.

My reaction time improved with the excitement: as his weapon steadied I leaped to the side, putting the other man between myself and the gun. He fired; I smelled the smoke of burning flesh as the man who had examined Keara took the hit. With a moment's struggle, I pulled him into my arms, and his weapon into my hands. The man who had fired circled to get a clear shot, but I shot first. With a scream he went down.

Looking up, I saw four more men running down the hall.

I looked down at Keara. There was nothing I could do for her here. Angry at myself and my situation, I jumped away and headed outside.

Stepping through a breech in the wall, I quickly learned to appreciate the meaning of "blizzarcane." Gale winds blew snow in my nose and mouth so fast that the snow caked up, choking me. I stepped back toward the shelter, wondering what to do when they found me again.

Abruptly the weather cleared. The wind died, though I could see snow swirling in every direction. Dazed, I concluded we were in the eye of the storm. I raced to the shipyard with Keara's keys still clenched in my hand.

On most worlds I would have been doomed to hang around outside the locked vessels, waiting for someone to recapture me. But on Forma, retinal patterns hadn't yet replaced more primitive safeguards. One of Keara's keys opened the hatch. In seconds I was at the controls of Keara's ship. In minutes I was airborne.

Taking off might have been the stupidest decision of my life, had I not so recently made so many stupid decisions.

There was no way out of the storm's eye; at all altitudes the wind buffeted the ship back to the center, or down toward the ground. All I could do was watch the holocaust.

And holocaust it was. The blizzarcane ripped through the city, sleek, buried, and invincible though Whitepeak seemed. Nothing would have been left had the storm continued for over an hour.

But before that happened, a soft, glowing aurora settled around the blizzarcane. A last blanket of snow fell, as though the storm had collapsed to the ground. The sun appeared, throwing long shadows across the jagged pieces of the city.

Whitepeak was in trouble, and I did not even know if Keara was alive. I wanted to return, to help rebuild.

But if I returned I would probably be shot. First I would need to make some preparations on board Glitter. Keara had left my wristcom on board this ship; with some digging I finally found it. With guidance once more, I headed for Glitter again.

A skeleton wafted through the air, in my direction. I sank low, and maneuvered around it. Another one appeared.

In my efforts to keep out of view, I was herded, slowly but surely, away from my ship.

II I couldn't go back to Glitter, I figured I better at leust grt out of Winterform. That was easy enough since the skeletons were forcing me Eyeward. Moreover, I would feel more comfortable if I had some mountains between me and the skeletons, so I also flew clockward, toward Hayes' Rift.

I cruised low until I reached the Rightcut Mountains, which separated the Rift from the rest of the continent. I hopped over Rightcut with no skeletons in sight and breathed a sigh of relief.

Two cruisers, utterly unlike the one I commanded, popped over the mountains just behind me.

An alarm sounded as my ship shook and spun out of control.

There weren't any jumpbelts on Forman ships, I discovered; but there were glidechutes, another relic of past lifetimes. With some trepidation, I grabbed a purple one (I would have chosen something more discreet had I had time to be selective) and popped the hatch.

The ships sailed overhead. My old one left a trail of bright orange flame and dark brown smoke. It made quite a beautiful color stroke against the crisp blue sky. It crashed far down the side of Rightcut, into thick forest. The two other ships curled around, and came back for me.

I was already looking for a way down that was quick but not hard. This is always a difficult combination to find on planets that are not made of foam rubber. Still, I did well enough; as I passed over a lake I slipped from the chute harness and prayed the water was deep but not cold. The chute drifted onward, attracting attention to its graceful, confident descent.

The water was deep as I had hoped. It was also cold. I swam for the shore with enthusiasm.

I dragged myself out of the sucking mud on the bank and lay with my teeth chattering, watching the cruisers that had nailed me as they watched the glidechute. With the flick of a ship's beam, the chute turned to purple smoke. The cruisers departed.

How delightful! Now I could die of hypothermia in peace. I shook quietly, though violently. "Safire," I stammered into my wristcom, "I don't suppose you can get Glitter to me within an hour, can you?"

"No." Safire had such a way with words.

I tried to put myself into an autohypnotic state where I could be more comfortable, and failed. I opened my eyes again.

Clearly, it was autumn here: the leaves were multicolored, red and yellow and green and auburn, and I could smell the pulp of the leaves decaying as I lay upon them.

Yet, it couldn't be a real, Earth autumn. Here in Fallform it was always autumn. There was no change of season, no reason for the trees to change colors. The trees had to be like this all the time.

Closer inspection showed that each tree and each type of leaf had a distinct color. They were not changing with the season; they were that color forever.

A pair of mud-spattered boots appeared before me. Looking up, I saw a reddish leather jacket and a yellow scarf. Looking higher still, I saw bright blue suspicious eyes. "Hi," I said with a smile, trying to look harmless for the lady staring down at me.

"He looks harmless enough," one of the men accompanying the brown boots said.

"At the moment, sir, I am so harmless that I may die of exposure. I hate to ask favors of strangers, but do you have dry clothes I could borrow for a day or two?"

"I don't like it," said another voice from the shadows, "He's from Winterform. He's still not a friend of ours. Kill him."

"Wait." The woman in brown boots knelt beside me. "What's that?" she asked, pointing at my wristcom.

Telling the truth seemed easiest. "It's a communicator that lets me talk to my ship."

"Your ship just got blown out of the sky."

Silence seemed more appropriate than too much truth.

She touched me. Her mouth widened. "Jurn, get a fire started, and bring a sleeping bag." She stretched out next to me and held me close, bringing me into her win mth. "You were serious about the exposure."

"I intend to survive," I muttered, still shaking, though her cheek was warm against mine.

They bundled me up and fed me hot soup, and I did in fact survive. The lady sent the others away. "Who are you?" she began the interrogation. "Why are you here?"

Never ask a person two questions simultaneously: the person will answer the question of his choice, which will be the one that gets you the least information. "I came here to escape from Winterform. I fear the authorities are eager to preside at my funeral."

"I see." She smiled. "Did you come seeking help from the authorities of Fallform?"

Her smile seemed out of place; I realized I was standing on the brink of a cliff. Calmly, very calmly, I shrugged. "Not particularly. I guess it's too late to ask, but: weren't those Fallform ships that fried my ship?"

"Every vicious bit of them." She trembled with anger, then touched her hand to the side of my head. "You must sleep. In a few hours we must travel fast, and deep, before they come looking for you."

As she touched me, I felt tired. I realized that I'd been up for . . . I didn't know how long.

"Damn these planets that don't have a decent night/ day sequence," I muttered. "How am I supposed to know when I'm supposed to sleep?"

"What?!" Alarm rang in her voice, but I hardly noticed. "What's your name?"

"Gibs. Stelman," I yawned. "What's yours?"

"Sharyn."

"Sharyn. Beautiful." With her name on my lips, I passed into oblivion.

I awoke groggy, from a nightmare.

I smelled cooking.

Rolling out of the bag, I stalked the chef. Jurn turned to me with a plate. "Here," he offered, with only a hint of hostility. It was scrambled eggs (I didn't ask what kind) and coarse bread, and it was the best meal I'd eaten in a lifetime.

"You're an outstanding cook," I commended Jurn.

He turned his head to me, scowling. "You're a leech."

I gagged. Was he right? No. Or at least, he was only almost right. "You're wrong," I said quietly. "Only recently have I been a leech." I had almost forgotten, in my joy of a moment's living.

Today, four more people would die.

I walked away from the fire.

Sharyn stole silently into the clearing. "Get packed," she commanded.

"How far do we have to go?" I asked.

Her head snapped up. "Too far," she said. She turned Eyeward. "Walk with me," she said, signaling. I hesitated for a moment out of philosophical opposition to being given orders; but in this forest she was the boss. We walked together.

Soon we came to a trail and the going became brisk. "I must thank whoever lent me these clothes for being so close to my size," I said. I waved my hands in a theatrical expression of grandeur. "And I must thank whoever designed this incredible scene for us to walk through." I pointed forward. "The sky, forever poised near sunset," I said.

Sharyn looked at me strangely. "We are near the city of Sunset," she granted, puzzled.

I bit my lip. "And the pink backlighting for curling tendrils of clouds. I've never seen anything like it before." Indeed I hadn't. It reminded me of a mackerel sky, but with long, tapered clouds.

"You've never seen a filament sky before?" The more I talked, the more I put my foot in it.

"Not for many moons," I said, then realized what a mistake that was: Forma had no moons, and no calendar based on them.

"Who are you?" This time she didn't make the mistake of asking a second question; this time my life hung in the balance.

"I am no one you need fear."

She laughed. "And whom do you think I fear?" she asked.

I looked across at her. She walked lightly, with the grace of one who knew her own power, her eyes uplifted in defiance of the Universe. I had once known her feeling well, the feeling of confidence in your ability to meet your own Destiny. It was a feeling I had almost forgotten.

Suddenly I was in love. "Sharyn," I said, holding out my hand.

"What?" she replied, reaching her hand in turn toward mine.

Startled, I jerked back. "Nothing." I stared intently at the ground.

There was a pause, then curt words. "You must answer my question. You must tell me who you are."

"Yes, I must." I looked up at the filament sky, and refused to let my eyes water. "Who am I? I am the remains of the man whom once I was." I took a deep breath. "A man who was a mortal god. He was one who could save life or bring death."

"Hm." Sharyn didn't know whether to be impressed or not. "Sounds like a doctor to me."

I barked a laugh. "Yes, I was a doctor. But a normal doctor cannot save a man's life."

She looked at me, puzzled.

"The best a doctor can do is save a few more dusty hours to be appended to a man's life. A doctor cannot grant a 60 year old man more than 20 or 25 more years. He cannot grant a 40 year old man more than an equal 40 years." I held up my hands, stretching them wide before Sharyn. "But I, my lady, once I could grant eternity."

"You're the Sirian mindshifter," she said.

"What?"

"We heard that a Sirian mindshifter had landed without authorization. You really are a hunted man."

"I'm not Sirian!"

"Well, if you're not Sirian, then you're Omegaran."

"No."

She shook her head in exasperation. "Then why are you here?"

"I came to find a peaceful place where people were happy, yet where they had never heard of mindshifters or Transfer." My voice turned bitter. "I can see I am too late." I started to reach for her again, and stopped. I smiled. "Instead I found you."

I was deeply confused. I had first learned to recognize love at first sight near the end of my second lifetime; always since then, I had fallen in love with exactly one woman each time I mindshifted. I had never understood the pattern, but it had always run true.

Yet here, in a span of 48 hours, I had fallen in love twice! And I did love them both, Keara and Sharyn. What should I do?

"You certainly didn't find a peaceful place," Sharyn said with bitterness similar to mine. "Fallform and Winterform have been at war for years now. And it looks like Summerform has finally decided to unite with Fallform, since the Sirians arrived."

"What? I don't believe it. I watched Forma from space, and I haven't seen anything like an army anywhere." I thought back on the blizzarcane. "Frankly, the weather here seems more dangerous than the people."

She looked at me in disbelief. "Stelman, don't you remember who we Formans are? This was a weather research station! How would you expect us to attack each other?"

"Omigod. Of course." A number of pieces fell into place. Not only did that explain a storm so powerful it could wreck a fortified city like Whitepeak, but it explained why Glitter had been so badly crisped by a mere lightning bolt, when I first landed. "So that's why the Sirians and Omegarans are here." What an extraordinary weapon weather control would be against the rest of the Federation! Throughout history, the winners of wars had been those who used the longest-ranged weapons. But imagine using a weapon your enemy didn't even know was a weapon!

"The Sirians want to trade mindshifts for information on weather control. Both the Sirians and the Omegarans promise to leave a mindshifter here to keep the authorities—whichever authorities give them the best deal—immortal. Needless to say, the leaders of all four Forms are dancing as fast as they can to the Sirian tune."

I snorted. "Whoever wins Sirian support will be in for a big disappointment. The Sirians may be able to persuade a mindshifter to come to the Frontier once to make a few Transfers, but there's no way they'll persuade a surgeon to move out here permanently. The only mindshifters who'll serve Forma on a regular basis are the Frontier mindshifters—and if Forma gives all its best technology to Sirius or Omegar, no Frontier surgeon will touch Forma, because Forma won't have anything worth trading for."

"Well, the leaders of the Forms don't know that, and wouldn't believe you if you told them. The Sirians have them convinced that they'll get a Sirian mindshifter permanently stationed here." She pointed back at her handful of followers. "That's why we're here. Bardon, the President of Fallform, is the most dangerous leader: he's old, and his position is tenured. He's desperate to win the Transfer." She clenched her fists. "We have to unite the people of Forma, and we have to start by stopping the people like Bardon."

The scenery had changed as we spoke: the percentage of green-leaved trees increased as we dropped to lower altitudes. More interesting, I noticed a number of clumps of trees that looked suspiciously like they could conceal more technological installations.

So I wasn't surprised when Sharyn stopped. "We're here," she announced.

"You keep your ships well hidden," I commented, pointing at the three closest hiding places.

She turned sharply toward me, then smiled. "You have keen eyes after all."

"I have more than that. I have centuries of experience with societies such as Forma's. I have realigned many of them." The "realignment" of societies came with being a mortal god: at each planet I touched, I chose between life and death for the most influential minds of that planet. And a society reflects the thinking of its most influential minds. "Rather than leading a small rebel force, which is what you seem to have gathered here, why don't you let me simply assassinate the most troublesome individuals?"

She shook her head. "You don't understand. The problem is deeper than that. Even if I killed all the present leaders, the next ones would be just as bad. The whole planet is crazy with Transfer fever."

I waved her objection aside. "An experienced assassin never needs to kill more than twenty people to end a war or unite a planet. It just requires skillful executions. You have to make sure that the next twenty people, the successors to the dead, know three things: First, they must know that the first twenty were killed intentionally. Second, they must know why their predecessors were killed. Third, and most important, they be completely convinced that they are just as easy to kill as the others were."

As I was speaking, I got more and more wrapped up in my words. So I was surprised by the effect I had wrought.

Sharyn's mouth dropped open in awe. "Of course! What a brilliant idea!"

I started to disclaim any brilliance, but she continued.

"I'll get them all," she laughed, so wickedly I was surprised by her malevolence. Then her laughter ran the scales, from light amusement to near sorrow. "I'm sorry," she said.

"For what?" I asked.

"Never mind." She danced close, to kiss me on the cheek. I tried to put my arms around her, but she danced away again. "I have to go," she said, turning.

"Wait!" I cried.

She stopped. "What?"

"You can't do this alone."

"Why not? You've done it several times before, or so you said. Why would I fail where you succeeded?"

I closed my eyes. I knew what would happen: she wouldn't believe me when I explained. Yet, I would explain anyway. "I have lived seven full lifetimes. I have had experiences beyond you imagining. There is both wisdom and power in growing older, my lady." I stood straighter, letting my stage presence fill the clump of forest around us.

"Perhaps." She nodded her head from side to side. "But I think I can handle it."

My power and the presence evaporated; I felt like an old man.

How can you explain to a first-lifer the lessons you learn the fifth or a sixth time around? How can you express the little ways you are always aware of the world around you, sensing places where things lie hidden beneath other surfaces, knowing danger in a lifting eyebrow, touching an unfamiliar surface in a careful examination before grasping it?

I had been a Frontier mindshifter, often a target of the corrupt and the fanatical. In hundreds of tests of survival I had won. To pit me, in my eighth lifetime, against a whole army of first-lifers was to seal their deaths in a sure stroke.

But Sharyn herself was a first-lifer. Though she might destroy several of her enemies with her prowess and competence, yet her advantage over any one of them was just a narrow margin. One of them would get her, before she could complete the job. "Please," I begged, "let me handle the repair of Forma."

She put her hands on her hips, and cocked her head. "Wait a minute." She walked around me, slowly, judging. "Who saved whose life yesterday?" she asked. "Who is currently the captive of whom?" Her voice held no mockery, just objective observation. "I will do this job my way." She turned and trotted off.

"Wait!" I yelled.

She turned long enough to blow me a kiss.

"I love you!"

She continued on, as if she hadn't heard.

I sat on a fallen tree trunk. I marshalled my arguments for my next meeting with Sharyn; I couldn't go back to Keara until I was sure Sharyn wouldn't get herself killed.

I sat for a long time. At last a bright yellow blur bounced out of the forest from my right.

"Hi," said a golden-haired girl of perhaps seventeen years. She held out her hand. "My name is Wendy."

I stood up, wiping my hand before shaking hers. "And I'm Gibs Stelman."

"I know. You're the mindshifter."

I nodded.

"I'm supposed to take care of you while Sharyn is gone."

I see.

Wendy seemed determined to do a good job. She took my hand and dragged me down the trail. "Let me show you where everything is," she said. "At least, everything that isn't classified," she continued with a hushed whisper.

"Aren't you a bit young to be a rebel recruit?" I asked.

She frowned, but she never had the chance to answer.

The sky turned gray, and six cruisers in formation descended from the clouds belching destruction.

"Come on," Wendy cried. She dodged through the thickets and started pulling back a camouflage net.

I helped her unveil the vehicle: it was a two-man skycycle.

Under other circumstances I would have grinned broadly; four lifetimes earlier I had been a skycycle racing champion. I hadn't seen one in a couple of lifetimes, since the invention of the slipjet.

Unfortunately, with battlecruisers all around an obsolete skycycle was not my first choice vehicle. But when Wendy tilted the clear plastic bubble open, I climbed through the top and into the webbing.

Frenzied, Wendy pushed the jump throttle, and we smashed into the tree branches above us. She cried out.

"Let me run this baby," I commanded. "I know a few tricks nobody else on this planet knows when it comes to skycycles."

A skycycle is a perfectly circular, very tiny machine. The thruster is externally mounted. It is connected, not to the hull of the ship, but rather to the seat assembly inside through a gimballed fuel tank separated from the main hull by magnetic bearings. The ship literally goes the way your chair points; you spin your chair to face your destination, and zoom! you're off.

The standard commercial skycycles of centuries before were controlled by swinging your chair manually, using handholds around the rim of the hull interior; acrobatic and racing machines used hydraulic controls. This one was hydraulic.

With supreme confidence I nudged the jump throttle. The ship smashed into the tree branches above us, just as it had for Wendy.

"Whew! This baby has power, doesn't she?" I asked rhetorically. If the old skycycles had jumped like that, they might never have been replaced.

A broadsweep beam carved through a swath of trees just meters from our hiding place. With blood pumping in my ears, I pointed the cycle into the clear and let the thruster rip.

We were up a thousand meters before I could retard the thrust. One of the cruisers turned toward us. "Do we have anything to shoot with?" I asked.

"A pair of lazeguns, pointing forward from the thruster mount," Wendy's hands were clenched around the arms of her chair. She broke one hand free and flipped several switches. "Push the red button on top of the gimbal control, and they fire."

I scampered to the side as the cruiser blew apart the piece of sky we had recently occupied. We whipped down toward the beast and fired the lazeguns. "Damn," I muttered. "Why did we bother?" We had scored a direct hit, but we had merely polished the cruiser's armor.

Again they fired; again I dodged.

Down below the scene was grim, though I could see very little through the smoke. The smoke seemed to offer a hint of protection, so we plunged back down toward the thickest patch.

I spotted Sharyn.

At least I was pretty sure it was her. She was running toward the biggest ship left, a true cruiser as big and potent as those above us.

Next I saw three of the enemy ships converge above her. "Sharyn!" I cried, and rammed the skyeycle forward, into the lines of sight of the three cruisers to divert their attention, firing wildly in all directions.

They paid no attention. In unison they poured fury into the cruiser below. It disappeared in a blaze of energy.

"No!" I cried. I circled twice, but saw no sign of Sharyn.

"Look out!" Wendy yelled. We dodged another attack.

I whimpered. "Sharyn."

Wendy pulled on my arm. "We have to get out of here," she pleaded, her voice cracking with sorrow.

I closed my eyes for a moment. Sharyn was gone. I wanted to die.

It would have been easy to die there; but Wendy would have died with me. She didn't deserve to die for my failures.

I felt another tug on my arm. There were tears in Wendy's eyes, tears for Sharyn.

There was no time for grief, not yet. We dived for the forest, just in time; another cruiser had run out of other things to do, and followed us enthusiastically.

We dropped through the forest canopy. Blaster fire sizzled past.

I peered through the shadows. The forest was too thick to maneuver through, for normal skycycle pilots. The cruisers should have had us trapped.

But we would be a bit more difficult to kill than that. I tilted the skycycle edge-up, and laced my way delicately through the trees. I concentrated on careful maneuvering until I and the cycle were one being, with no other thought or purpose in life.

Wendy cried for both of us.

A few hours later, I poked the cycle's bubble through the foliage. The sun was higher in the sky; we had been traveling Eyeward. We were alone.

Wendy lifted her head from her hands, shifting her head from side to side to expunge the cramp: it is not comfortable, riding sideways in a skycycle for hours on end.

I spun the ship and pointed in a new direction. "I think there's a stream over there, where we can wash our faces." I looked at my companion in sympathy. "Your eyes are bloodshot. You could use some new life."

We landed. When Wendy knelt near the stream, I splashed a wave of water at her. "Stop that," she said mournfully.

"Only if you promise to worry about what's going to happen to you now. It's too late to worry about the people we left behind." Ha, how ironic it was that I should play this part. I would mourn for Sharyn in my own self-destructive way, at a later time. For the moment, Wendy needed uplifting. Sorrow looked terrible on one so young.

"I don't know what will happen to me. All my friends . . ."

I hugged her. "It's all right. You and I, we'll do fine."

"We'll kill Bardon!"

Revenge is not a pretty thing; but it has kept more than one person alive when all other meaning has been stripped from them. "Yes, we'll kill Bardon. He's the man responsible for Sharyn's murder, right?"

Wendy looked puzzled. "I—I'm not sure. I would have sworn it was, until Sharyn and I talked just a few minutes before—" she looked away, "the attack."

"What? What happened then?"

"Sharyn said, she was afraid that the apparent leaders of Forma were not really the powers of Forma. She suspected there was someone behind the scenes: a 'Playmaster.' " Wendy looked into my eyes. "Does that mean anything to you?"

A Playmaster? I knew what it meant—or rather, what it had once meant, in the time of Earthjump, just after the hawking Stardrive was developed. Playmasters were writer/producer/director/actors, who toured with small bands of actors from planet to planet, showing the great plays of history, developing updates suitable for the times. I myself had, for a nonce, been a Playmaster.

Could there be some one person on Forma controlling all the strings? The idea wasn't testable in an important sense: you couldn't prove that there wasn't such a person. Yet I couldn't believe that Sharyn would just imagine something like that. "Wendy, do you know why Sharyn thought that?"

"No." Wendy plucked a tiny yellow flower from a nearby bush; I plucked another and slowly caressed it into her hair. "She had planned for us to go to Skycrest, where she'd meet us in a few days. I know she planned to go to Summerform; she thought she might find clues there to the Playmaster."

"I see. Then we'll go to Summerform." I looked at Wendy. She looked exhausted, and I know I looked worse. "But first we need a place to rest." And a place to meet Glitter, if Safire ever got her fixed. "Where's Skycrest?"

She pointed Eyeward. "It's the capitol of Springform. "It's not very far. We've been traveling more or less toward it the whole time." Wendy shook her head, and almost smiled. "I have money and identification to get us in."

"Great." Why had Sharyn planned to send me to Springform? I winced. Sharyn! It no longer mattered what her plans had been. I would take Wendy to Skycrest, and then . . . I didn't know.

Wendy's finger traced a line over the ridge of mountains. "Fly over Rightcut and head Eyeward. Skycrest is close to the top of the ridge, on the far side."

"Aye aye, my lady."

We flew in slow and low, and we stopped at the city perimeter. They identified us as Gibs Alhart and his consort, Wendy Levitine, both from the city of Lily, far counterward from Skycrest. "Is your name really Levitine?" I asked.

Wendy laughed. "Is your name really Gibs? I don't believe it."

We took a suite in the most expensive hotel in the city. The bedroom had about an acre of satin-covered foamwater, which I promptly turned over to Wendy; I fell on the couch in the other room.

Lying there in the dark, I sorted through the nightmare of my life. Still there remained a bright spot: Keara! I would return to her. "Safire," I mumbled at my wristcom, half asleep, "how's Glitter coming?"

"She's ready," the machine replied. "Shall I send her after you?"

"Not yet." I would tell Wendy about the ship after she had rested. "But you better get her into my general vicinity. Be careful of the skeletons." I described a meeting place outside of Skycrest

"Glitter will be there in sixteen hours, Gibs," Safire signed off.

I tossed and turned and could not sleep; images of burning trees and blinding lightning followed me through an endless series of contorted positions on the couch. At last I gave up.

One wall of the living room was a huge video screen. I punched buttons by the couch until video images came to life. I kept hitting buttons, watching dozens of programs go by, until one forced me to stop and back up and add volume.

It was a scene of forest burning, and cruisers screaming through the air. A reporter droned in the background.

"Fallform airborne troops today discovered and destroyed the main base of the Forma Reformation Organization. Though all the installations and ships were destroyed, only one rebel body was found. That one body, however, belonged to the rebel leader, Sharyn Mirlot, and the RFO is believed by authorities to be completely broken." A picture of Sharyn appeared next, ebullient and, in my eyes, beautiful; I stifled a sob.

"The discovery of only one dead, and that one being the key to the whole organization, has sparked considerable speculation. There is some evidence that the Sirian mindshifter, now believed to be a Sirian assassin, had been near their encampment prior to the attack." The announcer looked up at the audience with profound earnestness. "Could it be that Sharyn Mirlot was not killed in the attack, but rather before the attack, by the assassin? There is no acknowledged reason—but it does form a pattern. The Sirian seems to be murdering all political leaders who might stand in the way of a favorable agreement between Sirius and Fallform." I gagged on the announcer's stupidity.

"No one knows for sure, but this is the possibility the experts are now considering in the light of the past two days' events. Yesterday, as you know, Keara Delgodon, the Subdirectress of Security for Winterform, was killed attempting to bring the Sirian in for deportation." Another picture of a woman I loved appeared. I ran to the screen in horror.

"Keara, wait, I love you," I whispered.

"Funeral services for the Subdirectress will be held tomorrow at one P.M.''

I beat the video screen with bare hands until I could feel pain. But I did not scream. Wendy still slept.

I dressed, and slipped down to the bar. I knew I would not sleep again for a long time.

Today, four more people would die.

I had only started to admire the sparkle of the glass in my hand when a platoon of news-types, minicams and microphones in hand, spilled into the lounge. There was the abrupt sound of a lady's laughter, and in a burst of color such a lady forced her way through the reporters to a middle table, where she coiled easily into the molded chair.

The colors of her dress dazzled the eye. They were meant to distract the viewer's concentration from any betraying facial expressions: I had seen this kind of performance before, and even though I entered a drunken stupor, I was not deceived.

I looked up, into her almond-shaped eyes. They were hard eyes, swift but cynical. For a moment I felt sorry for her; she too had been scarred by encounters with a reality too terrible to be a part of a rational universe. The body she wore was older, with the skin tightening across her cheeks. Wrinkles radiated from her eyes when she smiled.

Yet when they asked her their first question, her smile made me smile. Her voice carried clearly above the din: "Of course I'm going to lower the people's tuitions, yet raise the funding grants. That's what every Chairman for the past decade has promised, and a Chairman would never abrogate on a promise, would he?"

There was a subdued pause; the reporters weren't sure whether she was being sincere, or whether she was just joking!

For a moment, her cynical eyes lost their bitterness; she was laughing, a laughter no one in her audience could note or appreciate.

Her eyes met mine; for that moment, we shared the secret joy.

No, not again! I was in love.

I should have left the bar. When I looked at this bitter woman, I could feel myself teetering on the edge of a pit; this lady could hurt me, scar me, and walk away.

But I could not leave. I lacked the will power. I have never had the discipline that springs unaided to those who do what they should do, just because they know they should. For me, strength of character has always needed an outside crutch: always I have leaned on the woman I loved.

I don't think I was a clinging vine. Yet without the sense of love and being loved, I had always been a bit broken inside. The beginnings of lifetimes had always been painful transitions for me, for my life was always loveless then. But none of those transitions had been raw hells like this.

Since I lacked the discipline and wisdom to leave, I did the opposite: I approached the lady. A bodyguard-type male calmly moved to intercept me; I calmly tipped him off balance and tossed him to the side.

I fear the toss was too blatant to go unnoticed; everyone turned to look at me. I poised myself before my new love, and bowed in the Victorian manner. "We must share more moments, my lady," I offered.

Her laughter seemed a bit strained. "Heavens! I've never been propositioned so elegantly before!" She turned to a bank of minicams. "Should I have an affair with this man?" she asked. "He seems nice enough." She eyed me carefully, "Though perhaps a bit inebriated."

One of the men leaned over a radio/calculator device. In a moment he looked up and shook his head. "I think the voters prefer their leaders to be virgins," he said with a smile.

My lover-to-be sighed. "It's tragic, the frequency with which I must turn down my admirers."

Three bodyguards moved in on me this time. I could have taken them all, but it would have been noisy, and probably of no avail. My lady seemed trapped by the cameras. I accompanied her boys out of the bar, with effusive apologies (and a tip for the one I had accidentally caused to slip earlier) I asked them what was going on. "Did somebody really vote on whether or not we would have an affair?"

"Yeah, man. Don't you know who that is in there?" He stuck a meaty thumb over his shoulder. "That's Rainbow Dancer, the Chairman of Springform!"

"Rainbow Dancer? Sounds like a race horse," I commented.

"Huh?"

I waved my hand. "Just a joke." No one on Forma had ever seen a race horse, I realized. I stood as if stage struck. "My God, the Chairman!" I whispered.

The big man laughed. "Yeah. You're lucky she likes people, otherwise I'd've knocked your head in." His tone changed. "So long," he said with more meaning than the words denoted.

"Right." I walked back to my room with my mind spinning. The whole universe seemed to spin with it. I didn't know what sense to make of my own mind, much less what sense to make of the universe.

Was I just falling in love with every woman I saw? That couldn't be it. I hadn't fallen in love with Wendy, for example. Still, I was clearly unsane.

The planet Forma seemed equally unsane. Why would the Chairman of Springform ask for a vote on whether she had an affair?

I turned on the video screen again, and soon that question was answered: Springform was run by a full- fledged, purist videocracy. The citizens voted on everything, constantly. Politicians literally belonged to the people; they were powerless beyond their ability to persuade the people to vote their way on each individual issue; the Chairmanship could (and had, at times in the past) change on a daily, or even an hourly, basis.

I felt much saner, seeing that much raw insanity. I fell back on the couch. In a manner, I slept. I did not dream.

Soft lips brushed my cheek; "Rainbow," I murmured. Popping open one bleary eye, I saw a blurred being before me. It was Wendy.

"Rainbow, huh?" she asked. "Did you spend the night with the Chairman of Springform?" She giggled at her own joke.

"Yes, I did," I explained.

Wendy stared at me in disbelief. "Rainbow Dancer?"

"Is there another Chairman?" I asked. "The Chairman was in this motel last night."

"You're joking." She pointed a finger at me. "Stop trying to pull my leg."

"Have it your way." I shrugged.

The buzzer rang on our door. I stepped over and opened it.

"Gibs." A woman swept into my arms. She was warm and beautiful and—she was Rainbow!

I pulled back in amazement. "What are you doing here?"

As I stepped back, Rainbow stepped closer. My mouth was full of cotton, my chin was covered by a stubble of beard you could use to grind an axe blade, and I had slept in my clothes. She didn't seem to mind. "I came to find the only man I've ever met who could understand me," she explained.

Wendy peeked around the corner. "Who is it, Gibs?" she asked.

Rainbow stopped short. "Goodness. You certainly didn't lose much time finding a soft shoulder to cry on last night, did you?" Her face flushed. "Or, when you told me that we just had to 'share more laughter together,' did you mean a threesome?"

"Wait." I talked fast, a terrified machine gun. "This is Wendy Levitine, a friend from Fallform who—"

"Friends. Right." Rainbow turned on her heel and walked out.

"You're not being fair!" I yelled through the door. That had no effect, so I ran through the door myself. Rainbow was already rounding the corner. "I love you!"

She disappeared.

I pursed my lips. She had done it, as I had feared— she had hurt me, and walked away.

When I turned back into the room, Wendy looked at me with big wide eyes. "You really did spend the night with Rainbow Dancer!"

I choked back a violent reply. "Yeah." I looked at Wendy with an appraising eye. I guess I could understand why Rainbow had jumped to the wrong conclusion; Wendy certainly didn't look like the maid. "What do you want for breakfast?" I asked.

The videoscreen was lit, but I scarcely paid attention. I sipped at my orange juice, watching Wendy eat. "Wendy, tell me something. When I was talking with Sharyn," my voice faltered, "she told me that Fallform and Winterform had been at war even before the Sirians arrived. What were they fighting over?"

"The Howard radiation belt."

"And what is a Howard radiation belt?"

"That's the radiation belt around Forma. You need them for SEEPage."

"Seepage?"

"Yeah. Stimulated Emission of Energetic Particles. You can control the descent of charged particles into the atmosphere using Very Low Frequency radio waves. A lot of the weather manipulation techniques depend on controlling the SEEPage from the Howard belt into the atmosphere."

"Using radiation to control the weather?"

Wendy shrugged. "Sure. Radiation is an important weather factor. There're a couple of natural examples, like the Aurora Ocularis, and the Lightning Polaris."

I nodded. I had heard of the Lightning Polaris, the staggering electrical storms that flared occasionally near the Pole.

"SEEPage can be used to form and break up clouds as well." She stopped eating. "You know those clouds that the Fallform ships dived out of? I think they were created by SEEPage."

"What about blizzarcanes?"

Wendy nodded. "Of course. A blizzarcane couldn't possibly occur naturally."

I suspected this discussion would fascinate the Sirians.

"Anyway, the radiation belt is not infinitely big. There're just so many particles out there to SEEP. And we don't dare use them all up, because they're part of our protection from the sun."

"How delightful." As usual, war was consuming the very resource over which the war was fought.

The videoscreen distracted me: in a stark scene of burning trees, the camera zoomed, and lo! I beheld an image in my own likeness.

The anchorman droned on, "We believe this to be the Sirian mindshifter/assassin, imaged shortly before Fallform's attack on the rebel base. Responsible authorities believe he may be somewhere in Springform."

I took Wendy by the hand. "Let's roll," I said.

"Where are we going?" she asked.

"Back to my ship, for a quick change of costume." Did the Springform authorities think they could catch me just by knowing my face? Given a few minutes aboard Glitter, I would give them the surprise of their lives.

I stepped out of the dressing room to see Wendy talking quietly to Jester, the long Vegan climbvine growing around my bar.

"I would offer you a drink," my new voice said, "but I left all the good stuff at home." I struck a pose; Oberon would have been proud.

Wendy stared for a moment, then drew back. "Who are you?"

It wasn't a standing ovation, but I had clearly been effective with my audience. I opened my arms. "It's me, Gibs. The man with whom you just dodged three police cars, the man who almost got you killed again."

She stepped forward. "Really?"

I frowned. "Really. I told you I wouldn't be the same person, didn't I? A disguise wouldn't be very useful if it didn't make you look different, would it?"

Wendy shook her head. "But you sound different, and you walk different. It's incredible!"

I ran my finger across my mustache. "Yes." I turned to a mirror on the wall, and for a moment let my natural vanity run wild.

For all intents and purposes, it was as if I had had Transfer to another body. Of course, I hadn't—a mindshifter can't perform his own mindshift—but he can use the finest surgical technology yet devised to perform plastic surgery. My skin was darker, my musculature heavier, my forehead a tad lower, and my nose much more aristocratic.

And my movements matched. I moved more carefully, in some ways more gracefully. I walked with long, assertive strides. Even my height seemed different. I stood straighter now all the time: My revised body begged its wearer to play heroic roles. I had played heroic roles before; today I would play one again.

"What are we going to do?" Wendy asked, almost in pain. "I thought we were going to get ready to kill the Playmaster."

I lowered my head. "We'll find the Playmaster. But first I must find my love."

Wendy just stared at me.

I blushed. "I'm not a very strong man. Or rather, I'm never any stronger than the bond I have with the woman of my life." I cupped Wendy's face in my hands. "I wish that you were the woman of my life. But you're not. Only Rainbow Dancer can give me that strength."

"She's evil, Gibs! Didn't you see how cruel she can be?" We had discussed the effect Rainbow had had on me before.

There were tears in Wendy's eyes. "She won't help you, she'll destroy you."

"Perhaps. But I have been a psychologist, too, you know. Rainbow is damaged and hurt, as I am. Perhaps I can cure her, as she cures me." I confess, I didn't understand why I loved Rainbow either. I had never before fallen in love with a woman who was, at the core, cruel and uncaring. Keara and Sharyn had threatened my life because they did not understand me; Rainbow would threaten me because she did understand. For a moment I considered the possibility that somehow the Playmaster had drugged me, to fall hopelessly in love with this most dangerous woman.

Mentally I shrugged; even if it were true, I couldn't do anything about it. I still loved Rainbow. Love was still my master.

I picked up my duffel bag. "You stay here. I'll be back as soon as I can." I smiled. "This should only take a day or two. Watch the video broadcasts; you'll love it."

I confess I felt like whistling as I left. It had been a long time since I had stalked a lover clothed in disguise, though I had done it often enough. More than once in the course of my lifetimes my lovers-to-be hadn't recognized love at first sight. More than once, I had screwed up my relationships with them so badly that I needed to start from scratch, with a new face, a new name, and a new personality. Eventually, each of my loves had learned to live with me, but introducing me in graduated doses had often been necessary to prevent disaster.

Clearly, my relationship with Rainbow needed smaller doses.

I found her near a memorial, surrounded again by the charming newscasters. "Here is a permanent monument to our children, those who died in the attacks of Bardon."

She was good. The audience was her plaything, to mold as she chose. "As you know, until recently I had believed that violence was wrong." She clenched her fist. "But our children! We must not let Bardon kill again!"

This was my chance. I leaped lightly to a stand on the base of the monument, and caressed the ascending column with my hand. "Then kill his children in turn, Rainbow Dancer, as he has killed mine." My voice almost broke as I spoke the last words, softly but with projection. The cameras turned to me.

I swept my hand about. "What will we buy with the deaths of the children of Fallform? We will buy only human misery and pain." I gazed at the cameras with confidence, yet cocked my head in puzzlement. "Have we forgotten who the true enemies are? They are not other men, those who live in other forms." Another sweep of the hand. "It is the coldness of the universe that is our enemy. That coldness is still our master."

I clenched my fist, as Rainbow had clenched hers. "Shall we follow our neighbors into a bloodbath to strip our whole world of resources, resources we need more than we need warfare? No."

"Then what do you propose, you who have no name?" Fear and anger both tainted the texture of Rainbow's voice.

"I am Fire Singer." I stepped down from the monument, to stand beside her. "I propose the creation of a united Form."

I spoke at great length about the vision of all the people of Forma working together; I suspect it made Rainbow and all the pragmatic, practical folk of Springform nauseous (it almost got to me), but my stage presence reigned supreme. To be a mediocre politician requires nothing beyond brilliant acting. Indeed, even to be a brilliant politician requires only two more attributes: the talent to find gifted advisors and the wisdom to listen to them.

The debate went nonstop through lunch. Points were scored, ideas were challenged. Politics in a videocracy proved more brutal than any other occupation I had encountered—except, of course, for being a mindshifter.

By dinner time the rankings in the polls had seesawed hysterically. Rainbow Dancer's popularity plummeted from 60% to 45%. Hawk Keensight, her only serious rival in recent polls, had dropped from 40% to 35%. And I, Fire Singer, had come from nowhere to 20% of the poll.

Regardless of the consequences I had to escape the limelight for dinner. "Forgive me, my friends, but I must take my meals in solitude." With a parting wave, I strode away toward my skycycle.

As I escaped from the noise radius of the gathering, I heard a pair of feet, light but swift, catching up behind me. I turned. "Have dinner with me, my lady."

"Thank you," Rainbow said, still breathing hard.

We continued to walk to my cycle. "You're quite a performer," she acknowledged.

"I have been at it for a long time."

"Funny, I've never heard of you." Her voice chilled. "Who are you, anyway?"

It is hard to come down from a theatrical performance, to return to a semblance of normal humanity. Thus I continued, still feeling my lifetimes behind me, still feeling the stage beneath, "I am one who has lost more to wars and human stupidity than you could imagine."

"I see." We walked in silence for a bit.

"And what, my lady, have you lost?"

"What?" Her almond eyes widened, looking at me. Then she laughed, bitterly. "It's not what I have lost; it's what I've gained."

We reached the sky cycle. My voice finally came out of stage projection; at last I could be gentle. "Then what have you gained?"

"Guilt."

We stood within inches of each other. My heart jumped, because of her nearness, because of her deadliness, and because guilt was something with which I was infinitely familiar.

Today, four more people would die.

"What is the nature of your guilt, Rainbow? Let me take some of your burden."

She shook her head. "I know you. You're the Sirian assassin, aren't you? But you've changed. . . . We met yesterday, didn't we?"

I was stunned. How had I given it away? Perhaps, almost certainly, it was my speech. My lady—how many people say that any more? How sloppy I had been!

"Yes, my lady, 'tis I. I came for the one I love. You."

She looked away. "My guilt. I'm sorry." She stepped away. "It's as I said—" she said loudly, though only I was near, "—he's the assassin!"

Cameramen ran from all directions. A police cruiser soared out of the sun, and from somewhere a megaphone blared "This is the police. Hold your hands up. Step away from the skycycle and Ms. Dancer."

I did not pay proper attention to the police warning: I tossed Rainbow into the cycle and jumped in behind her. A lazegun burned to the bone in my left arm. We were aloft before I felt the pain. "Safire," I howled into my wristcom, "send Glitter to meet me at the edge of the city, by the clockward entrance."

A police cruiser motored up beside me, and I flipped the cycle on its side before they could draw a bead. They couldn't just knock the ship down, with Rainbow on board. They would have to have a perfect shot at me through the clear cycle bubble.

They would have a tough job. I set the the seats (and thus the thrusters) spinning, carefully controlling the thrust so that our overall motion continued clockward. Spinning, Rainbow and I switched positions constantly, eluding outside sharpshooters. We were safe, as long as I didn't get so dizzy I crashed it. Rainbow turned ghostly white; her eyes squeezed shut.

Some smart guy put a lazegun blast through the engine compartment. The cycle slowed, and we dropped to the ground. I flipped her upside down on the way.

Rainbow hadn't been strapped in; she was spread- eagled across the clear bubble. "Safire, I can't make it; have Glitter come get me." I had hoped to get clear of the city, to reduce the risk of police sharpshooters; now, I would just have to let them shoot me.

Before we grounded, I popped the bubble. Rainbow fell to the ground. Disengaging the webbing carefully, I rolled out beside her. The police megaphone blared once more as a cruiser floated down toward us. Rainbow groaned.

Another lazegun blast ripped into my skull; had I been a mortal man, I would have died then. I grabbed Rainbow and dragged her over my shoulders, covering myself with her body.

The police cruiser split open with a roar and crashed to the ground. Looking to my left I saw Glitter descending nearby. Several rocks and trees disappeared as Glitter eliminated hidden marksmen.

My arm hurt. I took a moment to get calm, to achieve some autohypnotic anesthesia. The trance level wasn't adequate to eliminate the pain, but I felt better.

With a deep breath, I crept from underneath the cycle and hurried toward my ship, still carrying Rainbow on my back. Another marksman opened up, cutting out my left leg. As I spun to the ground, another marksman, presumably one who had had a line on me before the first one hit, fired. I felt Rainbow's body change shape as heat seared a line across my back. I didn't have to look to see what had happened.

Rainbow had been sliced in two.

Glitter picked off the marksmen who had fired. I pulled myself with my one good arm toward the ship. "Glitter, better send out a robot to collect me," I ordered. An airlock opened.

Wendy came running out.

"Get back!" I yelled, too late. There was another marksman. She fell.

I reached her seconds later. "You beautiful fool," I whispered. "I wasn't worth risking your life for." My eyes blurred. "I wasn't even in danger." I had lost Rainbow my love, and Wendy my friend, and somehow the loss of Wendy hurt more. In all my lifetimes no one had ever lost her life to save mine.

One last marksman sneaked into range before Glitter's robots could get me inside. He put a bolt through one lung and both ventricles of my heart. Had I been a mortal man, again I would have died.

But though I was mortal, I was a mortal god, one who granted life and enforced death.

Frontier mindshifters lived in a universe crowded with rich and powerful men—men who, despite all their power, were doomed to die without our special friendship.

We did not befriend them all. And too often, they believed that if they couldn't live forever, neither should anyone else. We were their targets, first for bribery, then for blackmail.

So virtually all the Frontier mindshifters took extraordinary precautions. From first Transfer, mindshifters endowed one another with enhancements, enhancements to protect the brain—for that was the part of the body that had to survive. A typical mindshifter had a skull of tungstalloy composite, with a tiny ten-minute oxygenating pump at its base. In many circumstances, that pump was enough to keep the mindshifter alive until he could get into surgery.

I was also lucky that lazeguns made lousy weapons: unlike the bullets of earlier centuries that made goo of all the organs they touched, a lazegun bolt produced a self-cauterizing, clean incision.

So Safire and Glitter were able to save my life. With stitches and glue they knit together enough of my system so that I could heal. It would be months before the injuries disappeared, but I could breath and move normally, if not swiftly. While lying quiet, I planned, ever more feverishly, my revenge against the Playmaster.

Glitter lay in shallow water off the coast of Flame. Flame was the city of Summerform closest to the Eye, at the tip of a peninsula. I was ready to begin my search in earnest.

Somewhere on Forma was a Playmaster, and as I thought about him my bones chilled. The enemy had been too good. He must have lived multiple lives, as I had.

But up to now, the Master had been hidden, almost unsuspected. He had played games with the lives of first lifers with ease. I would not be so simple an opponent.

He had arranged Sharyn's death, I knew it.

He was also responsible for Keara's death, and for Rainbow's. How could the sharpshooters have failed to warn each other about interlocking fire? Rainbow had not been killed by accident. And I had not struck Keara so hard as to jeopardize her life.

Please, immortal gods wherever you might be, please tell me I had not killed Keara.

Sharyn had believed that the Playmaster was in Summerform, though Bardon of Fallform had been her enemy. Very well, I would start in Summerform.

At least I was properly equipped for this trip from Glitter to shore. I had come to Forma with a bathing suit and scuba gear. I swam the two miles to shore through bathtub-warm water.

I stepped out of the surf onto the beach; even with flippers on, I could feel the burning sand against my feet, and I hurried toward a huddle of shade canopies protecting assorted scientists and tourists from the sun.

I reached shade and flopped down. I tried not to breathe too hard; even the air here burned if taken in too swiftly.

I unpacked my waterproof duffel bag and slipped into some clothes. The scuba gear went into the bag. In another minute, I would ask someone how to get to downtown Flame. But for my first minute, I watched the heat shimmer through the air.

Out of the corner of my eye, I became aware of the fluid motion of the shimmer, and the waves, and the brown sand; finally I realized that the fluid motion was more than these.

The fluid motion was a woman, walking casually, nude, across the burning sands. The shimmer was her hair, hanging to her waist. The movement of her sand- brown body was languid, like syrup, against the backdrop of the ocean waves.

My heart jumped in my mouth; I couldn't be in love again, not without even talking to her.

She looked at me. I wanted to melt, but I was too tense; instead, I splintered. She smiled. She walked toward me.

I wanted to scream to her, to get away from me, that she would surely die if she didn't run, but I couldn't speak.

"You just came from the sea," she said, laughter in her eyes. "There is a spaceship there, hidden beneath the waves. Did you see it?"

I shook my head. "A spaceship in the water? What would it be doing there?"

Now she laughed from deep within her throat. "Trying to hide." She shrugged. "It's a logical place to try to hide, for a person who isn't native to Forma and who doesn't know how closely the status of the ocean is monitored."

Of course it was monitored, dummy! I cursed myself. Just as the skeletons of Winterform flew for meteorology, so must there be an aquarian counterpart.

She held out her hand. "Let us be friends, in the time that is left."

I followed her. "The time that is left?"

"Of course. Is there not an end to time in each life, regardless of life's duration?"

I pursed my lips; I would not tell her how I had cheated the end to time, again and again.

We walked to a deserted canopy. She lay in the sun; I sat in the shadows. Her movements were hypnotic. This scene, with the ocean and the sand and the clear skies above, was a standard first image for focussing a patient for hypnosis. And the lady, whoever she was, rocked her leg in a gentle hypnotic rhythm. I trusted her completely, for no reason I could see; I felt the beginnings of trance coming on, and did not fight it.

"Why do you travel the stars?" she asked; I was past being surprised by her knowledge.

"To bring life." I closed my eyes. "Though not for a long time."

"Tell me."

I told her of the lady I'd lost a lifetime ago; I told her of the good friend who had died in Transfer while I grieved over lost love when I should have been concentrating on his life.

I told her of the four people who died, every day.

"Do you blame yourself because men age? Do you think that it's reasonable to blame yourself?"

"Of course not. But I could save the lives of four people every day, if I could still make Transfers." I trembled. "But I can't. I'm afraid."

"If you died today, those people would still die. Would you hold yourself responsible then?"

"No."

"You must think, not of the people who will die, but of the people who can live. You're wrong when you say that 'today, four more people will die.' Instead, you must remember that, perhaps tomorrow, four more people will live."

I shook my head. "If you were one of the people who would die waiting for tomorrow, would you feel the same way?"

"Yes." Her eyes met mine. I believed her.

"Perhaps."

We continued.

She was a masterful therapist; I do not know when the trance ended, but when I looked at her and saw her as a human being, I was far back up the rode toward sanity. We crossed the sands to a limousine, to take us into town. I raised my eyebrows. "A limo?"

"Of course. What else would the heiress to the Grantship of Summerform travel in?"

"The heiress!" In horror, I grabbed her by the shoulders. "You're the next target! We have to find you a safe place!" I raised my arm. "Safire, send Glitter as fast as she'll fly." I started searching the skies for cruisers, and blizzards, and anything else the mind of an evil Master might conceive.

She slipped from my touch. "Of course I'm your next target, silly." She looked puzzled for a moment. "Why would you seek a place of safety for me? You know it's too late."

"What?!"

"The poison. I know I'm dying." She brushed her hand through my hair. "I was hoping you'd consider giving me the antidote. I love the people of Forma. I believe you do, too." She looked away for a moment. "Why then are you killing?"

"I'm not!" I tried to scream, but the air scorched my lungs. "It's a set up!"

She seemed puzzled. "I believe I know you now. You are here to help the people of Forma. You are a good man. If my death will help, I accept it. "

"Have you been poisoned?" I tried to get some sense out of this conversation. "I'll run every test 1 know. We'll find an antidote." I was talking nonsense, of course; there are billions of poisons in the universe that cannot be counteracted, poisons that strike the brain so that rvoii Transfer cannot help. Death was still my master.

She knew it, too. Her expression became even more peaceful. "Then you aren't the assassin."

"NO! NO!" I held my head in my hands.

She touched me. "You have to promise me something."

I looked at her. "What?"

"I know you will destroy the person who's behind this. But you must promise me that first, you'll get even by saving Forma. You have the tools, and the talent, and now again you have the sanity. Promise me that you'll save Forma before killing my killer."

At the time, numb as I was, it seemed a tiny thing. "I promise."

"Thank you." She jerked, a broken motion that was not her own. I held her close. "A three day poison," she mused, taking a shuddering breath. "Just long enough . . . the enemy . . . how did he know?"

An ambulance slid to a stop beside us, and two men leaped out to carry her away. I stared in amazed horror. "We've been on call," the medic explained as they pulled her from me and put her in the back. They left me alone.

Glitter came into sight; I boarded her.

On my first sip of Aldebarone wine I choked. Furious at my weakness, I forced the whole glassful down in one gulp and refilled it.

On my next sip I choked again. In helpless fury I hurled the glass against the wall. The glass didn't even give me the satisfaction of breaking. A robot scurried in to clean up; in minutes, all sign of my anger had disappeared into time's passage.

Karmel, the heiress to the Grantship of Summerform, had ruined my one path to ruination. I couldn't even escape into a drunken stupor any more. I was trapped with my memories.

With a deep breath I swore revenge, again. And again I remembered the promise I had made, to save Forma first.

I laughed, maliciously. It would be ridiculously easy to save Forma. The Playmaster had made a terrible mistake setting me up as the murderer, because he had also set me up as the invincible power behind the murders. The whole planet trembled at my touch, the touch of the assassin.

When I had announced from Glitter that I was departing, but that I would return the following day, all of Forma jumped to clear airspace; they knew I would only announce my plans if I could not be stopped.

They had seen me die on stage, under the eyes of their own cameras, in Springform. Yet I had lived to kill again in Summer. They thought I was an immortal god. They were fools.

Today, four more people would die.

But perhaps other people's lives, or at least some of the time of their lives, would be saved.

"Safire?"

"Yes, Gibs."

"Call the heads of state of Forma."

"All at once?"

"Oh, start with the Directress of Winterform."

One by one Safire and I went through the names, telling them to meet me in sixteen hours at Skycrest for a brief trip to the radiation belt.

The Sirians and Omegarans were furious, I was sure; but they could only attack me if they attacked together, in mutual trust. I pointed out to the Sirian commander that the Omegaran commander looked the right age to need a mindshift; I made a reciprocal comment to the Omegaran. Fearful that I had made a deal with their enemy, each fumed in silence. Each held his fleet idle.

At the appointed time, I ferried the Forman leaders in Glitter up to the Safire. They were impressed, which was why I took them aloft: Safire is a big ship. She carries a cargo of 2000 clone bodies, with the facilities to manufacture more, plus two entire Transfer systems (in case one breaks down), enough room for a twenty man crew (though I live alone most of the time), and a composite arsenal of all the deadliest weapons devised by the most advanced planets in the reaches of Man.

I looked at my guests from the head of the conference table. There was the Grantsman of Summerform with his wife; they seemed more concerned with their own lives than with the death of their daughter Karmel. That concern explained why I had met with Karmel on the beach and had been touched by her with impunity: the Grantsman had been afraid to interfere. I could understand their concern; I could not appreciate it. Karmel had been far more worthy than her parents.

There was Hawk Keensight of Springform. I smiled at him; he sweated. I suspected he might know more about the Playmaster. In time he would tell me everything he knew. People talk a great deal when their lives are at stake.

There was President Bardon of Fallform. He was my only current suspect for Playmaster, though Safire had already told me he lacked the tungstalloy skull of one with many Transfers. Also, he was terrified that he would not receive Transfer, a puzzling level of fear for the one I sought. It mattered little; he too would speak to me when his time came to lie beneath my knife.

And there was the Directress of Winterform. Her hair was silver, and she needed Transfer soon, or it would be too late. Yet she did not flinch under my steady gaze. She was a truly regal lady.

"So far, I have killed only secondary leaders in your governments," I began. "But as you now see, the execution of those who don't measure up is the least of my tools. I am a mindshifter first, and an assassin second.

"I have bad news for you," I continued. "The Sirians and the Omegarans are powerless, here on the Frontier." I stood erect, hands behind my back. It had been long since I projected not merely presence, but power; yet I remembered. "Power on Forma lies with the Frontier mindshifter in whose jurisdiction you lie." I smiled. "My jurisdiction."

I explained to them the nature of the system. They believed. I explained to them what would have to happen, if any of them hoped for a second lifetime. They understood. I appointed a council of respected scientistsfrom each form, to mediate the use of the radiation belt. They accepted.

The war ended.

I returned the leaders to their respective peoples. The Directress of Winterform stayed long enough to have a private chat. She was a good person. I would arrange her Transfer.

I shuddered; I still didn't know if I could shift a mind. I didn't want to find out.

The Playmaster seemed somehow far from my mind; I basked for a moment in knowing that I had done a good thing, that with the end of the feud between the forms, thousands of people would live better lives.

I took Glitter back into the Rift, where I had met Sharyn. As I stepped into the burned-out clearing I could smell the trees and the plants, growing fast to heal the wound. The sun sat in its low throne, frozen between the mountain ridges, staring at the Eye of Forma. I walked through the quiet rustle of the leaves.

When I returned, I heard a woman's voice singing, from inside Glitter. It was not Safire's voice.

With a burst of speed I jumped through the hatch to surprise the intruder.

She turned from her inspection of my paintings. "Have you found the Master yet?"

"No." I studied her; she didn't appear to be armed. "Get out of my ship."

She laughed; it came from inside, through many layers, as had Keara's laughter.

"Do you still seek the Master?" she asked.

"Yes."

She shook her head lightly, with a knowledge of her own power that reminded me of Sharyn. "You must stop your search," she whispered. "You will not find what you seek." She stared at me, with the harsh gaze only Rainbow could bestow.

I stood speechless.

She moved forward, flowing like water, flowing like Karmel.

"They're dead!" I cried, images of the past cascading through my head.

"They're gone," she continued so softly.

We stood locked in tableau. "You have lived many lives," I accused her.

"Yes." She closed her eyes in pain. "Even on this one planet, I have worn many bodies." She opened her eyes. "In other lives I have been an actress. And a mindshifter. Lately, I have been a teacher."

I choked. "Why did you do this?"

"I didn't want to kill anyone, yet I had to make them understand how easily they could be killed. The Sirians had completely brainwashed them by the time we investigated." She smiled. "I had started working my way through the power structures, without a real plan, when you arrived. Then, you gave me your idea for assassinations. I only wish I had trusted you more, to let you know."

"Don't apologize." Another thought struck me. "Wendy?"

The woman looked away. "I told her to let you protect yourself. I told her you could survive in ways she'd never dreamed. She didn't believe me."

"You, too, are only a mortal god."

She seemed amused. "No. I am only a mortal woman." She looked at me again, almost afraid. "I have used you."

I thought about it. Today, for the first time in a lifetime, I had a clear mind. "You gave me purpose."

"I hurt you."

"You gave me hope."

"You should hate me."

"I must love you." I took her in my arms. We stood embraced for a long moment.

"Safire," I commanded, "dim the lights." The sharp edges of the room faded.

"Safire," the woman said, "gentle music." A waltz began to play.

I softened my hold on my lady. "What is your name?" I asked.

She laughed. "I have held a thousand names. Yet I am who I am. Name me." We began to dance.

Tomorrow, four more people would live.

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Framed