I set off to the southwest, toward the buttes. I crossed the westward trail and went into hiding among quiescent walking trees. Only after darkness fell did I give up waiting. I walked back to the Hole, wondering what had become of my companions. I startled the sentry when I arrived. "Goblin and One-Eye come in?"

"No. I thought they were with you."

"They were." Concerned, I went below, asked the Lieutenant's advice.

"Go find them," he told me.

"How?"

He looked at me like I was a half-wit. "Leave your silly amulets, go outside the null, and wait."

"Oh. Okay."

So I went back outside, walked up the creek, grumbling. My feet ached. I was not used to so much hiking. Good for me, I told myself. Had to be in shape if there was a trip to Oar in the cards.

I reached the edge of the coral reefs. "One-Eye! Goblin! You guys around?"

No answer. I was not going on looking, though. The coral would kill me. I circled north, assuming they had moved away from the Hole. Each few minutes I dropped to my knees, hoping to spot a menhir's silhouette. The menhirs would know what had become of them.

Once I saw some flash and fury from the corner of my eye and, without thinking, ran that way, thinking it was Goblin and One-Eye squabbling. But a direct look revealed the distant rage of a change storm.

I stopped immediately, belatedly remembering that only death hurries on the Plain by night.

I was lucky. Just steps onward the sand became spongy, loose. I squatted, sniffed a handful. It held the smell of old death. I backed away carefully. Who knows what lay in waiting beneath that sand?

"Better plant somewhere and wait for the sun," I muttered. I was no longer certain of my position.

I found some rocks that would break the wind, some brush for firewood, and pitched camp. The fire was more to declare myself to beasts than to keep warm. The night was not cold.

Firemaking was a symbolic statement out there.

Once the flames rose I found that the place had been used before. Smoke had blackened the rocks. Native humans, probably. They wander in small bands. We have little intercourse with them. They have no interest in the world struggle.

Will failed me sometime after the second hour. I fell asleep.

The nightmare found me. And found me unshielded by amulets or null.

She came.

It had been years. Last time it was to report the final defeat of her husband in the affair at Juniper.

A golden cloud, like dust motes dancing in a sunbeam. An all-over feeling of being awake while sleeping. Calmness and fear together. An inability to move. All the old symptoms.