And even if he could stand the openness outdoors, even if he could tolerate the people, he was still on Earth. Every time the sun went down, the sky glowed bright in the lights of the Conurbations, and beyond the glow strode the immense, arrogant engineering of the Bridge to the Moon, around which interplanetary traffic crawled constantly. It was like being trapped in some vast machine.

So his days were troubled. And when he lay alone in the dark, his thoughts were drawn back to Callisto, over and over.

He didn’t understand it. Why should he feel so disturbed? All he had done was walk through a doorway. He was the Pirius who had walked out unharmed; it was not him who had been mapped to a new level of reality, with no hope of return, to be leached of his humanity. He despised himself for his weakness.

But if he didn’t think about Callisto, images of the hive in Olympus came into his mind—or of the strange immortal, Luru Parz—or, worst of all, the Silver Ghosts on Pluto, and the shameful, helpless way he had reacted, like a machine. He felt as if his mind was becoming like Callisto, ancient and battered. And he feared that if he looked too hard, he would find deep inside it the kind of strangeness Luru Parz had uncovered in that ice moon.

Perhaps Nilis had been right that he needed a break. But Nilis had not been able to see that being on Earth, alone, was precisely the wrong kind of rest cure for a Navy brat. He longed for Torec, his only point of familiarity in this strange solar system. But she was out at Saturn. He was able to speak to her; Nilis even let him use expensive inseparability channels, so there was no time delay. But it wasn’t the same. He needed to be touched, held.

And anyhow even Torec seemed cold.

After forty-eight sleepless hours he called Nilis. He begged to be brought out to Saturn and put back to work.

Pirius arrived in time for a test firing of what Nilis called the “Callisto weapon.”

He was brought to Nilis’s corvette, which the Commissary was using as his work base. The interior was cluttered, with data desks strewn on the floor, bots of all sizes tumbling through the air, and Virtuals obscuring every view. Nilis was here, with Commander Darc, Torec, and various assistants. In this noisy mess it was impossible to see how any work got done. Nilis and Darc seemed to be working closely, but their arguments crackled like lightning.

Pirius spotted Torec, peering out at the test rig. He made straight for her. He hadn’t seen her for weeks, since before Venus. She acknowledged him with a nod, but turned away. He stood awkwardly, arms suddenly heavy, longing to touch her. He just didn’t understand.

He pulled himself together. He stood with her and looked out of the hull.