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It was rumored that Crista Galli held the hope for Pandora’s salvation People clairy, heal the sick, co The Director, a Chaplain/Psychiatrist, kept her locked away

“She needs protection,” Flattery had said “She greith the kelp, she needs to knohat it is to be human”

How ironic that Flattery would set out to teach her how to be human Jephtha kneith the clarity of his pain-transcendence, that she was the Director’s prisoner down there as much as all Pandorans were his slaves Except for now, at the base of the high reaches, Jephtha’s chains had been invisible: hunger chains, propaganda chains, the chain of the fear of God that rattled in his head like cold teeth

He prayed that the security would not find Marica and the wots The settle fish

Maybe …

He shook his head, clink-clinking the terrible hooks and snaffles He felt nothing except the cool breeze that wafted up froht the fa on the beach

There! At that port high in the…

The gliood eye was not focusing and a new darkness was upon him, but he was sure that the form he’d seen had been the pale Crista Galli

She can’t know of this, he thought If she knehat a monster Raja Flattery is, and she could do it, she would destroy him Surely if she knew, she would save us all

His thoughts again turned to Marica and the wots The thoughts were not so hts as drea an upcoast field in the sunlight The single sun was bright but not scorching, there were no bugs Their bare feet were cushioned by the fleshy blossoms of a thousand kinds of flowers …

A dasher shriek from somewhere below jerked his, nowhere on Pandora to stroll barefoot through blossoms He knew that Vashon security and the Warrior’s Union were known for their persistence, their efficiency, their ruthlessness They were after his wife and their children, and they would find them His last hope was that the dasher would find him before they hooked as left of Marica up here by his side

Chapter 2

Again we have let another Chaplain/Psychiatrist kill tens of thousands of us—Islander and Merman alike This new C/P, Raja Flattery, calls hi and bared the throat for the last time

—First Shadowbox broadcast, 5 Bunratti 493

First light through the single plasers It outlined the sparse but colorful furnishings of this cubby in shades of gray The cubby itself, though squarely on land and squarely gridded to a continent, reflected traditions of a culture freely afloat for nearly five centuries on Pandora’s seas

These Islanders, the biowizards of Pandora, grew everything They grew their cups and bowls, the fas, shelves and the islands theanically furnished, and under the old laarranted a heft of supply chits that converted easily to food coupons Black-h price for the Director to pay to assimilate the Islander culture that had been dashed to the rocks the day he splashed down on the sea

As the grip of dawn strengthened intoof clasped hands that enriched this small cubby Red and blue fishes swareen leaves of kelp Orange fin and blue leaf joined at the foot of the hanging to forht stitch of the pattern and its crisp colors all rippled with the progress of dawn A sleeper’s chest rose and fell gently on the bed beneath them

The night and its shadows shrank back frolassat the head of the bed Islanders had always enjoyed the light and in building their islands they let it in wherever they could They persisted in light, even though most of them were now solidly s Mers they wall out—Islanders preferred the light, the breezes, the s This cubby was sht

This was a legal cubby, regularly inspected, a part of the shopkeeper’s quarters It was a second- floor street room above the new Ace of Cups coffee shop at Kalaloch harb

or A huge white coffee cup swung from a steel rod beneath the

Al caainst the bulkhead below Respirations caught, then resu squawk and the wind-chiainst a host of masts

Dawn brightened the rooure beside the bed The posture was one of alert stillness This stillness was broken by an occasional ure sat, back to the wall, beside the plaz and facing the hatch First light glinted fro, intricately inlaid Islander cup of hardwood and mother-of-pearl The hand that held the cup was male, neither delicate nor calloused

The figure leaned forward once, noting the depth of the sleeper’s odd, open-eyed sluht across the bay outside their roo of shadows inside, and their relentless crawl

The watcher, Ben Ozette, pulled the cover higher over the sleeper’s bare shoulder to ward off reen irises stayed ith the onset of dawn He closed her eyes for her with his thumb She didn’t seem to mind The shudder that passed over hi chill

She was a picture of white—white hair, eyelashes, eyebrows and a very fair porcelain skin Her shaggy white hair was cropped around her face, falling nearly to her shoulders in the back It was a perfect fraht eyes His hand strayed to the pillow, then back

His profile in the light revealed the high cheekbones, aquiline nose and high eyebrows of his Merman ancestry In his years as a reporter for HoloVision, Ben Ozette had become famous, his face as familiar planetwide as that of a brother or a husband Listeners ide recognized his voice immediately On their Shadowbox broadcasts, however, he becahts—in disguise, of course Now their family, friends, coworkers would feel the snap of Flattery’s wrath