But since the Trans had arrived at this planet without utilizing a stargate, both spatial and chronological navigation were manual. Many good pilots would not have been able to do this. However, Lan was far more than a good pilot. Now the only way to interact with their home timeline was to recombine their raw navigation data with the correct space-time variables.

And the only one with access to variables, as well as the computational ability to perform this calculation, was Shirley.

Lan strictly limited contact to their home timeline to weekly reports, and only to Shirley. No one else knew about the connection home. Although Lan did not want to keep secrets from her crew, contact with the Empire might invite hunters, invaders, and even other, less careful, refugees.

Besides, until they were fully situated here, she needed everyone to focus on the planet they were on. They could not grow complacent, for with its Internet, Stargate machines, donuts, and ducks, this planet seemed touched with a madness that Lan now believed was not the Endplague, yet confounded her all the same.

“Arch your back. A sunken chest means a sunken sound!”

“Your bow hold is collapsing—you can’t already be tired.”

“No, I don’t care how it sounds in the game. Cleaner!”

“Timing! Timing!”

“More precision on the marcato! Mar-ca-to!”

Shizuka knew Katrina was straining. But Shizuka would push her student even more. No, she could not take away Katrina’s past. But what she could give her was this training, this practice—how to make this measure, this passage—better than it had been before.

Shizuka had thought she knew all about being damned. Still, she had always assumed that damnation required some sort of exchange.

Yet, this student, this human being, had been forsaken not for ambition, nor revenge, nor even love, but for merely existing?

Who needs the Devil when people can create a hell like this themselves?

“You’re still too tense. Relax your fingers. Unless you relax, the notes will sound indistinct.”

“But this is just before the level boss!” Katrina cried.

“I don’t care. The level boss can wait until you play with satisfactory détaché.”

Her student was going to perform a piece from a video game. A student of Shizuka Satomi—playing gaming music. She thought of her six previous students. What would they think of the Queen of Hell now?

Katrina laughed.

It was such a beautiful laugh, wasn’t it?

May Hell have mercy on her soul.

JULY

22

Who lives in Temple City?

One hundred years ago, the answer would have been easy; the area had been opened with railroad money, to be settled by German Americans and those comfortable living with them.