Hunger gnawed at Kyrrip's stomach. He fumed as he descended the steps deep into the bowels of the Evership. Smells of must, stale bilge water and dry rot assailed his nostrils, but at least he had his own cabin, one of many empty spaces on the ship. After years of sharing with the children, it was a relief.
       Not so much of a relief was being allotted food in proportion to his contribution to the running of the vessel.
       "And who gets to say which contributions are more valuable?" he shouted to himself. "Old Carlotta." He pounded his pillow a couple of times in frustration and then put out his candle. Candles were rationed as strictly as food.
       In the darkness, alone with his breathing and the exhaustion of having climbed all over the miles and miles of rigging, the anger faded to a dull glow that shared the hollow cavern of his stomach with aches of hunger. Kyrrip drifted off.
       A sharp sound woke him in the middle of the night. Irritated at having his rest interrupted, he turned over and attempted to go back to sleep. Having lived aboard a wooden ship his entire life, he'd grown adept at ignoring creaks and groans, knocks and rattles.
       The knock sounded again, more insistent, louder and. . . in his room?
       He sat up and looked around in the darkness, certain he'd been imagining things. But no. The sound repeated, so close he could almost have touched its source.
       Suddenly, shaky hands turned the operation of lighting his candle--something long experience had taught him to do in the worst conditions--into a series of clumsy fumblings. Finally, a dim yellow glow revealed an empty room.
       "Where are you?" he said, surprised and embarrassed by the trembling of his voice.
       Only the knock, more persistent, nearly urgent, replied.
       Kyrrip realized the sound emerged from within the barrel-shaped tube in the center of his quarters, which saw use as a table. He quickly cleared away the clutter he'd placed on it and studied the top. It was a lid held in place by clamps.
       He hesitated. Who could be inside? And, more important, how did they get there? Most people on the ship hated him. . .. Or at least the few who knew of his existence did.
       Then he realized that it was probably one of the children. No one else would have fit inside.
       No wonder they were frantic. Whoever was in there was probably running out of air!
       He released the clasps as quickly as he could, forcing them where necessary. He didn't stop to wonder why they appeared to be caked over with decades of grime.
       Finally, the lid fell to the floor. Before he could look inside, a head emerged. "Took you long enough. I thought no one could hear me."
       Kyrrip backpedaled desperately and crashed onto the bed. Elongated and furred, with whiskers and big black eyes, the creature that looked back at him was anything but human. "And what's wrong with you? I don't expect full protocol for an unannounced visit, but this is ridiculous." A body followed the head out of the barrel--it was just as stretched and furred as the face and covered with short brown fur. Stumpy arms and legs ended in short webbed feet. The only thing it wore was an intricately woven belt where the waist would have been on a person.
       "Wha?.." was all that he managed.
       "I get it. You're just here to let people know when an Emissary shows up. That's fine. I'll wait. But don't be too long about it."
       "What?"
       "Are you going, or aren't you?"
       "I. . ." Irritation was starting to replace shock. The creature looked strong and sleek, but it was small, smaller than Kyrrip, and much certainly smaller than most of the full-grown adults on board. "What are you talking about?" He took a step forward.
       The creature took a surprisingly human step back. It looked around as if seeing its surroundings for the first time. "This isn't what I was expecting," it said.
       Kyrrip had to laugh at that. "And you most certainly aren't what I was expecting. What were you doing in there?"
       "In where?"
       "In that barrel?"
       "Barrel?" It looked around the room until its eyes fell on the structure it had just climbed out of. "That? That's not a barrel. That's an Emissary's tube. I'm an Emissary."
       "A what?"
       "An Emiss. . . I represent my people, the Water Tribe." It cocked its head. Again, the gesture was made more disturbing because it was so human while the animal clearly wasn't. "You're a juvenile, aren't you?"
       He bristled at the description but decided the time wasn't right to take exception. "Yes. I guess."
       "All right. Then go find an adult. Anyone in charge will be fine. They'll know what to do."
       "What to do about what?"
       "About me, of course."
       "I know what they'll do about you. They'll throw you into the nearest pot."
       Now it was the other's turn to express shock, which, despite the lack of a human face, came across loud and clear. "That would be a senseless act of war."
       "It's the rules. All animals go into the pot, taboo or not taboo."
       "I'm not an animal, you idiot."
       "Well, you certainly look like one. I don't think Old Carlotta would make much difference between you and a fish or a gull."
       "Who is Carlotta?"
       "She runs the Evership."
       "That isn't possible. The Evership is ruled by the Council of Light. It always has been. It is they whom I've come to see."
       "They're all dead. Carlotta killed them." He spat the words out, his hatred for the woman who kept him around as a reminder of what happened to those who went against the will of the crew coming to the fore. "She only let my mother live long enough for me to be born, then she threw her overboard."
       The creature. . . there was no other word for what it did than 'sat.' It sat and looked at him, alien eyes filled with understanding and sorrow. "What was your mother's name, juvenile?"
       Though he'd never spoken the name aloud in his life, he knew it well because the rest of the crew never let Kyrrip forget whose brat he was. "Her name was Alina."
       "Oh, no." It hung its head. "Not her."
       "You knew her?"
       "I'd met her. She was a small child. Younger than you are now. I remember her golden hair and the way she used to pull on our tails."
       "You have a tail?"
       The creature turned and showed off a wide, thin slab covered with the same brown fur as the rest of it. It was a daunting thing to try to pull.
       A long silence descended on them, and the creature rocked back and forth, dark in the candlelight. Finally, it spoke. "Does no one aboard remember the Charter?"
       Kyrrip shrugged. "I certainly don't, and I'd bet my last piece of meat that Carlotta doesn't know what it is either. It doesn't sound like the kind of thing she'd take an interest in. She's more into hoarding food and punishing anyone who disagrees with her."
       "You keep talking about food as if it was scarce."
       "It is. The only person who gets enough to eat is Carlotta. Not even her officers have as much as they want. And the rest of us. . ." He shrugged.
       "But how can that be? The waters of Cascadia are the richest source of food anywhere in human space. How can anyone go hungry with all that fish around?"
       "We've been catching few fish for months."
       The creature cocked its head again. "Of course. You've been sailing the dead latitudes for the longest time. Don't tell me you don't know that."
       Again, Kyrrip shrugged. "I just help work the sails. No one tells me where we're going."
       The being put its head in its hands, a gesture so familiar that Kyrrip had to ask. "What are you? I mean, what kind of animal? Your body looks like a dolphin or something, but you talk and move like a person."
       That earned him a long, steady look. "Are you the village idiot, or have your people forgotten more than they should?"
       "I already told you. I'm just a kid they don't like. But I really don't think they know much more than they tell me. Most of them don't even know what a lot of the machines down here are for, so they leave them alone. I've figured out one or two of them, but not most."
       "What happened to you? How can this be?"
       "I don't know what you mean. Nothing happened to us. We've always lived here."
       The creature sighed and held out a hand. "I'm Guna," it said. "I'm a princess of the Water Tribe."
       Kyrrip shook it gingerly. There was nothing else he could do. "I'm Kyrrip. If it's not too impolite, I need to know: what are you? The Water Tribe, I mean. Mammals? Some kind of fish?"
       "We're as human as you are, kid."

       She insisted on making Kyrrip show her the holds that contained the machines. "You're sure no one ever comes this way?"
       "Positive. Most people are terrified to come down here. They sleep up on the deck levels."
       "But they make you sleep down here."
       "They don't like me, but that's all right. I don't like them, either."
       "You don't like anyone else on this ship? There must be fifty thousand people here."
       "I don't know all of them, of course, just the men who work the riggings on my shift and a few of the kids from my rooming space."
       They approached a large cylindrical structure made of metal and wood that towered over their heads. Pipes grew out of it at every angle. "Do you know what this is?" Guna said.
       "No. I've always been afraid to get near it. Those tubes up there look heavy. If one falls off, I'll be crushed."
       Guna tsked and walked right up to the monster. She absently dusted a panel full of buttons with her tail and looked over the symbol painted on. Then, with little hesitation, she pressed a faded orange square.
       The entire ship shook and clanged.
       Kyrrip stepped back, terror rising. He was all set to run from the monstrous thing, even throw himself on Carlotta's mercy and tell her everything, when the machine settled into a purring pulse.
       The princess of the Water Tribe grimaced in what he was beginning to recognize as a smile. It would have been a terrifying expression if he hadn't known that. "There. Your food problems are over."
       "What do you mean?"
       "This is an algae processing vat. It creates a protein mix from the seaweed and plankton the strainers pick up under the hull. It separates out different edible compounds and produces small bricks of food. I'm told it isn't exactly the most pleasant diet, but you'll never be hungry again. You should have them in an hour." She stepped back and studied the machine. "The fact that you're rationing food while this machine is turned off tells me that everything you said is likely true. You've forgotten so much."
       "You didn't believe me before?"
       "I believe you now."
       Kyrrip decided to leave things at that. There was something else bothering him. "You said you're human. Do you mean in the sense that you are smart and you can talk?"
       "No. I mean in the sense that my genetic code is human, for the most part, modified to stay warm and to be able to move easily in a water environment. Not baseline human, exactly, but as human as you are, anyway. You look like a regular human, but your body has been hardened against radiation, and your digestive system has been tinkered with to accept starship food, which is pretty low on every nutrient. In fact, that's probably the only reason you idiots have survived despite sailing through the dead zones."
       He looked down at himself. "I. . . I don't know what you mean. . ."
       "Do you have time to hear a long explanation?"
       "Did you say that the food would be ready in an hour?"
       "Yes."
       "Then I have an hour. Whatever that is."
       "All right," Guna sighed. "Human beings come from a planet called Earth. . ."
       "What's a planet?"
       "We may need more than an hour."

       It tasted glorious. Well, it actually tasted awful, but the sensation of being able to eat it all was glorious. And there was more than one brick. Just moments after the first portion, still slightly warm, emerged from the machine, another followed, and a third.
       Kyrrip ate until he began to feel sick, and Guna watched. "You weren't kidding about the food, either."
       "Did you believe anything I said when we talked?"
       She shrugged. "We train our Emissaries to take everything with a grain of salt." Seeing that he was about to ask what that meant, she continued quickly. "We are supposed to doubt everyone and everything, especially in the smaller things that might not seem important. The best way to hide a big lie is in the middle of a few small ones."
       He didn't know how to reply to that. He supposed there was sense in what Guna said, even if he couldn't find it.
       "The question," the furred. . . woman?.. continued, "is what I'm going to do now. I've got news that affects every man, woman and child aboard this vessel, and I need to deliver it. But It sounds like there are no leaders who will listen. Are you sure they wouldn't allow me to say my piece?"
       "Almost completely. Carlotta and the gang of goons who surround her would go insane if they heard an animal speaking to them. If we weren't so hungry, they'd kill you and throw you overboard, but they won't waste the food."
       She looked at him long and hard, and he thought he could begin to detect some human features under the sleek fur.
       "All right. Then I have to think. You really need to hear what's happening."
       "What is it?"
       "There's a starship about a week out. They heard about the crash of the Mercutio and sent a crew to pick up the survivors of the crew. Well, the descendants of the survivors. Everyone on board can return to Tau Ceti if you want."
       This was almost too much to believe. She'd told him how the ship that was supposed to deliver the genetically modified colonists--Guna's people--to the planet had broken and how the crew had been forced to ditch. How the Water Tribe had built first the rafts and then the entire ship for them out of the woodlike vegetation that grew on the ocean floor in order to keep them from drowning on the water planet, and how, eventually, the two tribes had had a falling out. But he thought all of that had been academic, ancient history that didn't apply to anything tangible.
       It appeared he was quite wrong on that count.
       "That means we can leave the Evership?"
       "Yes. You weren't meant to be here. Humans can't live on this world without a whole lot of modifications you don't have. The seafloor might not be more than a few hundred feet under the surface, but a fat lot of good that does you if you can't take a little pressure or breathe underwater." She gave him a hard look. "You need to tell them."
       "Tell who?"
       "Everyone."
       "I don't know everyone. I don't know anyone. I just know some riggers, and they all hate me for being my mother's son."
       "There are other people on the ship. Tens of thousands."
       "I know. I can see them going about their business below us. But no one knows who I am. If they know me, all they know is that I'm someone no one is supposed to talk to."
       "Do they have enough food?"
       "Of course not. No one has food."
       "Then why don't you try this? Find someone and give them one of those bricks. If they're hungry, they'll listen to you."
       "They won't believe me."
       "But they'll listen."
       He tried to imagine what it would be like to go up to someone he'd never spoken with and tell them Guna's story. He shuddered. "Listen, I need to get up to the rigging. It must be nearly daylight."
       "You've got to be kidding. What for?"
       "If I don't work, they don't feed me."
       "Are you hungry? You just ate enough for about ten days."
       He felt sheepish; she was right. Long experience had taught him that if he didn't appear, no one would look for him. They all knew that he would emerge onto the rigging once he got hungry enough.
       He swallowed. "I'll try."

       The little girl should have been in one of the children's enclosures, but Kyrrip knew that no one cared where the children were except at mealtimes, and if they weren't there for their food. . . well, it was that much more for everyone else.
       She was old enough to understand but too young to be ready to be allowed to live on her own, which meant that she didn't matter. He nearly let her pass without interacting, but in the end decided to talk to her. If she didn't matter, then it would make no difference whether she believed him or not, would it?
       But it wasn't that which decided him. It was that Guna was hiding in the darkness behind him somewhere, watching and judging with those big black eyes.
       "Hello," he said.
       The girl jumped. She knew as well as Kyrrip did that she wasn't supposed to be there. He half-hoped she would run, but she stayed where she was, eyes white.
       "Who are you?"
       "I'm Kyrrip. Would you like some food?"
       She shrugged, but the hunger could be read in her eyes and in the way she stepped forward, one hand out.
       He tore a chunk off a brick and handed it over. She sniffed it once and then ate it without ceremony. "Thank you," she said.
       He told her the story and watched her eyes grow wide with disbelief but also with childlike wonder. And then she shook her head. "I can't help you. I'm too small."
       "I know." He smiled as he said that, however. Now that he'd told someone, he felt he could tell the story to anyone on the Evership, even Carlotta herself, well, maybe not Carlotta, but to anyone else, certainly.
       Then the girl smiled. Animation seemed to have invaded her after eating. Color could be seen on her cheeks even in the dim light of the corridor. "But I know who can help you. The Mother."
       Kyrrip felt his heart race as he remembered the Mother from his enclosure days. The meanest woman he'd ever had contact with, whose sole pleasure appeared to be to make Kyrrip miserable and then brag about it to Carlotta.
       "Maybe it would be better if I look for someone else."
       "No. She's the best, I'll get her." Before he could react, she ran off. Short of going after her and physically restraining her, there was nothing Kyrrip could do.
       As soon as the girl turned a corner, Guna materialized at his elbow. "Do we wait for her, or do we run?"
       He thought about it for a moment. "I guess one adult is as good as another. But you need to stay out of sight."
       Time passed, and he was sure something had gone horribly wrong and that Carlotta's goons would arrive in force to beat him. He was about to leave when a woman just entering middle age appeared. Like everyone on the Evership, she was thin and tanned. Hair that had been light to begin with was nearly white with the sun. She was carrying a belaying pin and looking around nervously. When she saw Kyrrip she didn't look happy. She pinned him with a glare.
       "When one of my girls tells me about a boy who stops her belowdecks and offers food, I get nervous. You had better have a good explanation for this."
       His first reaction was relief. This woman thought he was looking for little girls to. . . Well, it wasn't flattering, but at least she wasn't one of Carlotta's inner circle. He'd never seen this woman in his life.
       "Didn't she tell you?"
       "She came to me with some fantastic story about creatures from the skies. What is this about?" The belaying pin hit her palm to emphasize the point.
       Not knowing what to say, he offered the brick. "Do you want some food?"
       Her eyes widened. "I haven't seen one of these in. . . since. . ." they hardened again. "Where did you get this?"
       He swallowed, but it was the opening he needed. "I'll show you, but first, I want to tell you something else. The story I told your girl. . . it's true."
       "Of course, it's true. Well, most of it. All except the part about the people in the sky and the Water Tribe coming to talk to us. They haven't been here since I was your age and they tried to overrun the Evership."
       "You knew about them?"
       "A few of us still remember. But it's best not to talk about it. Carlotta doesn't like it. And the fact that you found some old food," she gestured at the brick in his hand, "doesn't make it true, no matter how much some of us might wish for it to be otherwise."
       "It's true, all right."
       The voice came from behind him. He turned to find Guna standing in the hall, exposed enough to be seen but not far enough along that the Emissary wouldn't be able to run for cover if the woman grew belligerent.
       But the woman's reaction made precautions unnecessary. She took a single step forward and then stopped, swaying in place. The belaying pin fell from her hands and rolled along the floor with a whirring sound.
       She sat down unceremoniously. "This can't be."

       They were back in his room. The woman--she'd given her name as Yerma--insisted on getting away from the populated areas of the ship and back into the dark underbelly. She appeared terrified that someone might catch a glimpse of the woman from the Water tribe.
       "No," Yerma said in response to Guna's question. "I wasn't part of the Council. I was just a member of the crew, but I was a teacher. . . we were some of the few people not in the Council allowed to see the records and learn about the ship's history. No one else knew much about our past. . . and no one else cared."
       "The people I spoke to all those years ago were perfectly conversant with all of that."
       "Well, they were on the Council, weren't they? They were special; they lived apart. . .". She grimaced. "And they're all dead now."
       "And the teachers? Surely, they were numerous. Are they just silent now?"
       "Most of them are dead, too. When the revolt came, they sided with the Council. They were killed with the rest of them. The only difference was that no one respected them, so they were hurt badly before they died."
       "And you? How did you survive?"
       "I. . . I was convinced the crew was right. And they were. The Council was keeping everyone in a state of ignorance to make us easier to control. Deposing them was the right thing to do."
       "And killing them?"
       She looked towards the floor. "That wasn't part of the plan, but Carlotta and her closest advisors really hated the Council. Resentment doesn't respect plans or promises."
       Guna stared at the woman for a long time, probably having the same difficulty reading her expression as Kyrrip had reading Guna's. Finally, the creature--it was so difficult to think of her as human--grunted. "I assume you've learned the error of your ways?"
       "I was young." Yerma wasn't apologizing, but it was an admission. Kyrrip couldn't understand the undercurrents of what was being said, but the teacher's expression told him that the conversation wasn't easy for her.
       "And the rest of the crew?"
       "The older ones know that we were better off under the Council, and some of the teachers who survived still remember our history. Everyone hates Carlotta, but we don't know what to do. We can't drive the ship to better waters; we don't have any maps of those waters. They went overboard with the rest of the library. Supposedly, only Carlotta knows where to go to keep us from starving."
       "And the transmitters?"
       She shrugged. "I don't know. I never saw them. You should ask Carlotta."
       "I've been told it probably isn't a good idea for me to talk to Carlotta."
       "Yeah. The kid's probably right about that. By the way, what's your name? I don't think we've met."
       "I'm Kyrrip," he replied.
       The woman gasped. "Oh, no. You poor thing."
       "You know me?"
       "Everyone knows of you. You. . . you're the symbol of our shame. You're living proof that we have no spine. Carlotta caught us off guard when she had the Council killed, but there's no excuse when it comes to you. You've been mistreated since birth, cruelly and deliberately, and none of us has had the basic decency to help you out. We all dream of being the one to offer you food, maybe hide you away. . . but none of us is brave enough."
       He decided to think about that at some other moment, even as tears welled up when he thought of the countless people thinking of him, people he'd never suspected knew anything about him. "Well, you can help me now. Guna's message is important. She says there's a ship coming for us." He turned to Guna. "Is that right? A ship? Like this one, but it flies?"
       "Yes, that's right."
       "I thought Jeanny had made that part up. . . or that you had. . . in order to. . ."
       "No," Guna said. "It's true."
       "That's wonderful! We can finally leave, eat all we want. My mother used to tell me about life in space. It was so much better than the way we live now."
       "I suppose. . ." Guna stopped and cocked her head, listening. "Someone's coming."
       Kyrrip was the first to react. "Wait. They're probably here to see why I didn't come up. Just hide somewhere."
       Ramal was a big man, one of the riggers. He was the cruelest of the lot and just the kind of man Carlotta would send after Kyrrip. He sneered when his eyes fell on the young man sitting on the bed. "Decided you don't need to eat, did you?"
       "I'm not feeling well."
       "Well, that's too bad. You're going to be needed today. There's a storm coming."
       "A storm? So all you're going to be doing is lowering the sails? That doesn't take all hands."
       "Carlotta wants you on the upper levels. Doing your part."
       "She wants me killed, you mean?"
       The man shrugged and smiled. "Accidents do happen, I suppose."
       "I don't feel well. I can't go."
       Ramal sneered and rushed the bed. Instead of a sick adolescent, however, he encountered a belaying pin against his temple, wielded by a very angry young man and guided by the anguish of a lifetime of injustice. It impacted with a sharp crack, and the rigger fell to the floor and lay very still.
       A dry chuckle brought him out of his shock. "Starting the counter-revolution already?" Guna said. "Good for you."
       The belaying pin fell from nerveless fingers. "Counter. . . I don't know what that means."
       "It's a term used when the former government takes power back from the people who overthrew them."
       "That's not it at all. I mean. . . I just hate Ramal."
       Guna leaned close to the prone man and put her head against his chest. "Hated," she said softly.
       "I didn't. . ." he stopped. Kyrrip had meant to kill him. He just hadn't expected to succeed. A warm flush of satisfaction ran through him, and he stood straighter. "A counter-revolution? Is that even possible?"
       "I don't know. For starters, we need to understand whether Yerma is with us."
       "Depends. Is that brick really new?"
       "Yes. We processed it this morning."
       "Can. . . can I try it?" hope welled in her eyes, a pathetic image. But it was replaced by bliss as soon as she put a chunk of the foul-tasting solid into her mouth. "Oh. It's just like I remember it. And fresh, too." She beamed. "If you have a source of this, the crew will follow you anywhere. We'll swim for shore on your say so."
       Kyrrip was confused. "I thought there was no shore. . ."
       "It's a figure of speech, Kyrrip," Guna told him. "You're going to have to get used to those if you're going to be leading a revolt against this Carlotta woman."
       "Lead? I can't. . . I've never been in a fight. . ."
       "It won't be a fight," the teacher said grimly. "It will be a massacre. Thousands of hungry people against her handful of goons. They've only held on so far because they say they know where the food is and that only they can steer us right. Well, if you have more of this," she held up the food, "that doesn't matter anymore. Carlotta and her thugs are as good as overboard."
       "I don't want them killed. . . well, not really, I guess."
       "I'm not sure the crew will give you that choice. Mobs who think they've been mistreated aren't very forgiving."
       Kyrrip swallowed, wondering what he'd unleashed.

       It took them several days to organize. . . and Guna became more and more nervous. She went back into the tube and brought up a small flat rectangle, which she said permitted her to speak to her people from afar.
       "The ship is in orbit. They're sending down a transport shuttle in hours, homing in on this beacon. What do you think will happen if we don't have control of the ship by then?"
       Kyrrip shrugged. Why did people ask him that kind of thing? Just a couple of days before, he'd been nothing, just a young rigger everyone despised. Now, they expected him to answer hypotheticals? Guna was better about it than most, but even she got caught up in the insanity sometimes. They'd anointed him figurehead and suddenly forgotten he wasn't omniscient.
       "They're just forming up now," he said. "We'll be hitting Carlotta's cabin soon."
       Each group had expressed their hatred for the way things were run, but everyone had to see proof of the availability of a new food source before they'd commit themselves. The process proved arduous.
       But now they were ready. For the first time in days, Kyrrip emerged onto the deck into the sunshine. A cheer broke out among the people already concentrated near the command cabin, but it soon died out. One of Carlotta's goons came out to investigate. His eyes widened when he spotted Kyrrip.
       "You!" he shouted, oblivious to the crowds or at least uncurious as to why they might have formed. "You murdered Ramal. I'm taking you to Carlotta."
       He charged, unarmed, towards where Kyrrip stood, and the boy realized that this was the pivotal moment. "Take him!" he shouted.
       The order didn't move his followers. Most people just stood there, slack-jawed, waiting to see how things would unfold. But a couple of men. . . and, bless her, Yerma. . . stepped forward into the man's path. They were hesitant, uncertain, ineffectual, but they were in his way.
       The man stopped and looked at them, unsure what was happening. At first, he made to brush between one of the men and Yerma, but when they closed together, uncertainty crossed his features. He attempted to deal with it the way he always did. "Move on, or none of you get food today."
       Yerma stood her ground, so he simply shoved her aside.
       That was a mistake. The crowd around him, passive so far, surged forward in defense of one of their own and soon, through sheer weight of numbers, had the larger, better-fed man under their control.
       The floodgates opened. Kyrrip gave no orders, made no indication as to their next move, but he suddenly found himself propelled at the front of a wave that broke over the command cabin, so many times the scene of his own fear and humiliation. This time, the doors were torn away from their hinges, and he burst in as a conqueror. . . without having moved other than to stay on his feet as he was pushed along.
       Ten men and three women, experienced bruisers all, turned to look at them in shock as they entered. And then, as the room filled up with people, all armed with wooden implements meant for other tasks but which could just as easily be used for busting heads, they threw their hands up in surrender and were quickly subdued.
       Hali, a balding older woman who'd always been close with Carlotta, made a face in Kyrrip's direction. "You," she spat. "We should have known. Sniveling Council-brat and a murderer to boot. I told Carlotta she should have killed you when she had the chance."
       "Where's Carlotta?"
       "Is that how it is, then? You're willing to starve?"
       "No one is going to starve. Now, where's Carlotta?"
       A howl went up outside the cabin. Kyrrip turned back to Hali. "Never mind, I think we found her."
       He rushed out to find a group of men and women, people he'd talked to, who'd been scared and hungry, but polite and respectful and civilized, kicking and punching at something on the floor. By the time he pushed his way to the center of the knot, they'd dragged a semi-conscious Carlotta--not an easy thing to do, as she had eaten enough over the years to survive a famine if necessary--to the railing and were beginning to haul her over.
       "Stop!" he yelled.
       They ignored him until one of the men holding Carlotta recognized Kyrrip. He let go of the woman and signaled to the people near him to do the same.
       Carlotta dropped unceremoniously to the ground, where she lay panting and blubbering like a child.
       "Are you going to let her live?" one of them, a woman's voice, though he couldn't see the source, asked.
       Again, asking him to lead them as if he knew the answers. If he'd been one of them, recruited as another set of eager hands to overthrow the tyrants, he'd have been the first to throw her overboard. After that, he would have stood at the railing, shouting obscenities down at her and laughing as she sank.
       But now he had to decide, in cold blood, what to do with her. He knew what he wanted to do. . . and he was about to order them to do it when he spotted Guna out of the corner of his eye. The Emissary had been more and more involved in planning, and the crowd had almost gotten used to seeing her around. She wore no expression and her big black eyes gave away nothing. Like the rest, she was waiting to see what he'd do.
       He hung his head. "Don't kill anyone. We're not like them."
       To his surprise, the crowd around him didn't argue. "What should we do with them?"
       "Lock them up. Separately. Keep them under guard. I'll deal with them later."
       Guna's curt nod as she disappeared back into the crowd almost made up for the anguish of not getting his revenge.
       Almost.

       The next few hours were eternal. People ate and sang and hugged and made love. A beautiful girl kissed him full on the lips. Most of them had no idea what the revolution had really been about--there hadn't been time to tell everyone and to make them believe--but there was food and there was camaraderie. . . and if that wasn't enough, Carlotta was locked in a cabin with a window through which the guards would let you spit at her and insult her.
       He finally found Guna in a corner, watching them with what he suspected was a bemused expression.
       "I suppose baseline humans might be a bit different from us after all," she said. "My people would never make such fools of themselves."
       He smiled. "I don't believe you."
       "Perhaps you're right. Maybe the fact that our lives are comfortable but boring keeps us from truly enjoying the good bits. But I'm just glad I didn't show you how to make the alcohol machine run. Half of you would have fallen overboard by now."
       "What's it going to be like traveling between the stars?"
       "How should I know? I was born here, and I live underwater."
       "Do you think it will be different from the Evership?"
       "Are you not listening to me?"
       Kyrrip laughed. "It's just that it seems like it shouldn't be all that different. After all, we spend most of our time in our cabins, surrounded by people and. . ."
       A thunder in the distance silenced him. Heads turned up to look at a sky suddenly twice as bright as it had been before. A column of flame illuminated the world making everything cast two shadows.
       The column was coming towards them. He estimated it would land just a few thousand meters away.
       "There's your ship," Guna said.
       "Oh."
       The noise now precluded conversation, but Kyrrip rose and walked calmly to the railing, hoping to keep people from panicking by providing an example. The water directly below him was vibrating in a way he'd never seen.
       He decided that life on a starship might not be too similar to life on the Evership after all.