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lightly as we passed through.
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Our eyes adjusted slowly to the dark beyond the door. The auburn-haired woman took a lantern
from the wall and switched it on. From all around, the stones returned muted reflections, surrounding us
with thousands of dim, sleepy eyes. The stones rose in a free-form arch that came to a point about ten
meters overhead. Beyond the arch, pillars marched unevenly into gloom relieved only by a few lanterns.
The floor felt resilient underfoot.
I strongly doubted that Brion's people were responsible for this construction. It seemed poorly
adapted for human use. If the architecture called to mind anything, it was the palaces on Martha's Land.
While these chambers were empty, however, they were not in ruins. Hsia seemed to build for the ages.
The woman guided us through the pillars toward a point of orange light, surrounded by a peculiar
granular halo, twenty or thirty meters away. The light and halo resolved into a large lantern mounted on
the pearl-stone wall beside another inset doorway. The wall around the door glowed faintly, sunlight
seeping through the translucent mortar surrounding the stones.
A guard stepped forward and opened the door. Temporarily blinded by daylight, we stepped
through into a rich vegetal tangle of green vines, smooth branches, spreading leaves, helical creepers and
aerial roots, melted ferns, pendulous waxy fruits: an orgy of green growth.
Bright late-morning sun cast speckles of tinted light on a carpet of discarded and shriveled leaves
and branches. Randall muttered something I did not hear clearly. Salap wore a wise half smile, as if
nothing would surprise him now.
"This is the vivarium," the woman said. "My sister spent much of her time here, before she died."
"It's wonderful," Salap said.
The woman walked ahead.
A few dozen meters down a trail, we came to a broad clearing covered with the same stiff,
well-manicured "grass" we had seen before. A lattice of smooth bright-green branches, like the weave of
a wicker bowl, overarched and shaded three square gray brick buildings on the edge of the clearing.
"Some of your people are quartered here," the auburn-haired woman said. She stopped at the door
to the nearest building, still refusing to look directly at us.
The guards stood aside and we passed through the door. Inside, a small, square room with narrow
windows, lighted by two electric lanterns on poles, was furnished with couches and two chairs.
Allrica Fassid entered through a door opposite the entrance, skin pale, deep lines around her nose
and lips and across her brow. She whispered a few words to Keo, then faced Salap, Randall, and me.
She pushed her shoulders forward and inclined her head, looking to one side, like a young girl about to
perform some unpleasant chore. "One of your researchers tried to visit Brion. It appears Brion received
him. We don't know what they talked about." Her face tensed and her eyes bore into us, but that passed
and her weary expression returned. "Did Ser Keo tell you what we've learned?"
"Only that Brion has done some confessing," Randall said.
"Of a sort," Fassid said. "I'd call it bragging. He has a smile that makes me want to kill." She sniffed
and drew her head back, speaking more forcefully. "He's made some unbelievable claims. We need all
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the expertise we can muster to evaluate them."
"They've done extraordinary things with the ecos," Salap said. "That's obvious."
Fassid faced Salap squarely and took a small, shivering breath. She was swallowing pride, anger,
and frustration, and the effort made her seem like a marionette in the hands of a nervous puppeteer. "My
apologies. I wish I could apologize to Captain Keyser-Bach, as well."
Salap's grin faded. He stared at her with the complete lack of emotion that I had learned to interpret
as extreme irritation. "Why?" he asked.
"Brion has caught us by surprise," Fassid said. "If we had known more ... about Lamarckia, about
Hsia, we might have anticipated some of what we've seen the past few hours..."
Salap folded his hands, taking no obvious pleasure in this triumph. "How can we help the esteemed
Lenk?" he asked quietly.
--------
*20*
Lenk stood by a broad window overlooking the vivarium. The furnishings and decor of the large but
spare rooms assigned to Lenk and his aides fit the deliberate air of drabness seen everywhere. Brion did
not revel in luxury.
Lenk showed all of his eighty-four natural years, and more. With his slumped shoulders and inclined
head, his chin drawn deeply into his neck, he looked painfully old.
"Brion keeps referring to his triumph," Fassid said, pressing the window with one extended finger,
until the adjacent knuckles met the glass. "He also calls it his mistake. He says he made Hsia an offering.
Somehow, he's collaborated ... allied himself with the ecos."
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