"Then they'll come back with us."

"Yes, sir."

In the train, Mirsky closed his eyes and leaned his head against the wall. I am dead, he thought. I can feel it—parts of me missing, replaced—fill dirt in gaping trenches. That means I'm a new person; I'm dead, come alive again. New, but stuck with the old responsibilities.

He opened his eyes and looked at Annenkovsky. The major regarded him with an almost fearful expression, which he quickly wiped away and replaced with a wan smile.

Chapter Fifty-Four

Chapter Fifty-Four

"Let's sum it up, then," Lanier said. They had gathered again in Patricia's quarters, to hear her story about the rogue and reach an agreement on their common behavior. "We're guests, but not exactly. We're protected, which means our condition bears some resemblance to being prisoners."

"Our data services are censored," Farley said.

"We can't go back to the Stone," Heineman said.

"And—if what Patricia has learned is true—we're about to become celebrities," Carrolson said.

"Did the rogue say whether anyone expected the Stone to return to Earth?" Lanier asked.

"No," Patricia said. "But I don't think so. If I'm right, they thought it would simply continue through space, too small to be noticed, and never end up anywhere in particular—because of the snap when they opened the corridor."

"So what's our position on all this?" Lanier asked. "Larry, Lenore?"

"What does it matter, what we want? What can we do?" Heineman asked, spreading his arms.

"Think, Larry," Carrolson said, putting a hand on his knee. "We're celebrities. They can't just ignore our wishes."

"Oh, no!" Heineman said. "They can just brainwash us. They're not even human anymore, some of them!"

"They're human," Patricia said. "Just because they can choose what shape they want to be, or what talents or abilities they'll have, doesn't mean they're no longer our descendants."

"Lord," Heineman said, shaking his head. "This is beyond me."

"No, it isn't," Carrolson insisted. "If I can handle it, you can." She pinched his knee.

"If we put forward a united front, we'll get more concessions," Lanier said. "If we're celebrities, or even curiosities, we could have some control over how we're treated—and not so incidentally, how our people on the Stone are treated."

"So what are we going to demand?" Carrolson asked.

"First, we insist that our data services be uncensored," Patricia suggested.

"I haven't even used mine," Heineman said.

"We make every attempt to get permission to communicate with the Stone." Lanier looked around the room. "Are we agreed to that?"

They were.

"We make sure that we travel in a group; we should never be separated," he continued. "If we are, we protest—"

"Hunger strike?" Farley said.