“Let me explain. This is a kind of waking dream, made up by our investigators to introduce you gently to your new life. I am a superior officer among the investigators. I have just arrived to speak with you. Until now, you’ve been speaking with an inferior officer. I am more acquainted with your people than he was. Is that clear?”

“I think so,” Rhita said.

“You’ve been in this state for several years of your time. Since there’s nothing you can do to hurt us, and since we have enough information from you for the time being, there’s no need for pretense, so I’ve decided we will let you awaken. When you are ready, you will be able to use your real body, and the environment you see around you will be real. Understood?”

“I don’t want any of this,” she said. Years? That took a moment to sink in; the despair she felt spreading through her thoughts was a dark, freezing thing. She realized she might as well have been dead from the moment she boarded the beecraft; perhaps from the moment she had left Rhodos. She—and Patrikia—had opened a true Pandora’s box; she still had no idea a what had emerged. Years.

I am too young. How could I have known? Patrikia did not know. Is the world dead, too?

The cold sensation passed and she felt a series of small aches. The illusion of Rhodos and Patrikia’s home faded. She opened her eyes and found herself lying on a hard, warm surface beneath a square of light the color of embers. The light slowly dimmed. Her skin felt sore, as if it had been sanded; indeed, looking at her arms, they seemed flushed, sunburned.

A man-shaped shadow stood just beyond the reach of the light. An olive-colored darkness surrounded them, the hue of a dream before it begins, or after it ends. She did not feel well.

“I’m sick,” she murmured.

“That will pass,” the shadow assured her.

“Are you a Jart?” she asked, trying to sit up. She had not voiced that question until now because she had hoped never to have to know the answer. Now, hopeless, she faced the shadow.

“I’ve tried to decide what that word means. It’s possible we are; but you’ve never encountered Jarts, nor did your grandmother, who told you about them. The word does not connect with us; the humans your grandmother seems to have known could not have spoken our true name…They might have known a name used by others, not human. The answer, at any rate, may be yes.”

“She told me you fought humans.”

The figure in shadow did not directly respond to this. “We are many and varied, and we can change our shapes if we wish, change our functions.”