Sea of Silver Light

"Sorry." She let go of him for a moment to blot away her own tears with the arm of her blouse, stopped to stare at it. "It . . . feels like it's real. This all does." She looked at her son. "So do you, even if I've never seen . . . this version of you before."

"It feels real, too," he said. "And this is what I look like now. That other me—well, he's gone. You don't ever have to look at him again and feel sorry because . . . because he looked like that."

"We never cared!"

"You cared about how I felt when other people stared at me." He reached out and touched her cheek, caught a drop of wetness there. "This is how it is now, Vivien. It's not all bad, is it?" He swallowed hard, then suddenly sprang to his feet, pulling his parents up as though they were children.

"You're so strong!"

"I'm Thargor the barbarian—sort of." Orlando gri

"Tom. . . ?"

"Bombadil. Come on, you remember—you were the one who told me to read it in the first place." He pulled her to him and hugged her; when he let go she was in tears again, swaying. "I want to show you all of it. The next time you're here the barrow wights and Tom and Goldberry and everyone will be back. It'll be different." He turned to Ramsey and Sam. "You two—come on! You should see the view I have down the river valley."

As Orlando's parents brushed leaves and grass from their clothes, they were startled by a movement at their feet. Something black, hairy, and decidedly bizarre climbed out from underneath one of the borderstones along the path.

"You gotta do something about those little psychos, boss," it shouted. "They're makin' me nuts!" It saw Orlando's guests and stopped, eyes impossibly wide.

Vivien took an involuntary step backward. "What. . . ?"

"This is Beezle," Orlando said, gri

The misshapen cartoon bug looked at them for a moment, then performed a little bow. "Oh, yeah. Pleased to meetcha."

Conrad stared, "This . . . it's . . . this is that gear thing."

Beezle's lopsided eyes narrowed. "Oh, nice. 'Gear thing,' huh? I told the boss, sure, bygones are bygones—but seems to me the last time we hooked up, you were trying to unplug me."

Orlando was smiling. "Beezle saved the world, you guys."

The bug shrugged. "I had some help."

"And he's going to be here with me—help me out with things. Have adventures." Orlando stood up straighter. "Hey! I have to tell you about my new job!"

"Job?" asked Conrad weakly.

"We . . . we're pleased to meet you, Beezle," said Vivien carefully, but she didn't look very pleased at all.

"It's 'Mr. Bug' to you, lady," he growled, then suddenly flashed a broad cartoon smile. "Nah, just kiddin'. Don't worry about it. Gear don't hold grudges."

Further discussion was forestalled by a cloud of tiny yellow monkeys that swirled out of the forest, shrieking.

"Beegle buzz! Found you!"

"Come play!"

"Play stretch-a-bug!"

Beezle let out a string of curses that sounded exactly like random punctuation, then disappeared back into the ground. The monkeys hovered for a moment, disappointed.

"No fun," said a tiny voice.

"We're busy now, kids," Orlando told them. "Could you go play somewhere else for a while?"

The monkey-tornado swirled about his head for a moment, then lifted into the air.

"Okay, 'Landogarner!" one shrilled. "We go now!"

"Kilohana!" squealed another. "Time to poop on the stone trolls!"

The yellow cloud coalesced and flashed across the hills. Orlando's parents stood like accident victims, so clearly overwhelmed by everything that Ramsey wanted to turn his back and give them some privacy.

"Don't worry—it's not always this exciting around here," said Orlando.

"We . . . we just want to be with you." Vivien took a deep breath and tried to smile. "Wherever you are."

"I'm glad you're here." For a long moment he only stood looking at them. His lip trembled, but then he forced a smile of his own. "Hey, come see the house. Everybody come!"

He started up the path, then turned back so he could take Conrad and Vivien each by the hand. He was much taller than either of them, and they were almost forced to run to keep up with his long strides.

Ramsey looked at Sam Fredericks. He offered her his virtual handkerchief and gave her a moment to use it, then they followed the Gardiner family up the hill.

"You look a lot better than the last time I saw you," Calliope said.

The woman in the bed nodded. Her expression was flat, as though someone had carefully rubbed the life out of it. "So do you. I'm surprised you're walking."

Calliope pointed to the plasteel tubes beside her chair. "On crutches. Very slowly. But the doctors can do some amazing things these days. You should know."

"I'm not going to be walking, no matter what they do."

There wasn't anything much to be said to that, but Calliope tried. "Would dying have been better?" she asked gently.

"That's an excellent question."

Calliope sighed. "I'm sorry you've had such a bad time of it, Ms. Anwin."

"It's not like I didn't deserve it," said the young woman. "I wasn't an i

"Nobody deserves John Dread," Calliope said firmly.

"Maybe. But he isn't going to get what he deserves, is he!"

Calliope shrugged, although the same thought had been burning in her own mind for days. "Who ever does? But I've been meaning to ask you something. What exactly were you doing with the pad after I made the emergency call? What were you trying to send?"

The American woman blinked slowly. "A dataphage." She read Calliope's expression. "Something that chews up information. It had eaten half my system a few hours earlier, so I figured it might do him some damage. I wrapped it in his own . . . files. Those horrible images. So he wouldn't know at first what it was."

"Maybe that's what put him in the coma."

"I wanted it to kill him," she said flatly. "Painfully. Anything less was a failure."

They sat for a few moments in silence, but when Calliope at last began to shift her weight, preparing to stand, the woman suddenly spoke. "I . . . I have something on my conscience." Something came into her eyes, a strange mixture of fear and hope that made Calliope uneasy. "It's been . . . bothering me for a long time. It happened in Cartagena. . . ."

Calliope held up her hand. "I'm not a priest, Ms. Anwin. And I don't want to hear anything more about this case from you. I've studied the reports and your interview with Detective Chan. I can read between the lines as well as the next person." She stilled another attempt with a glare. "I'm serious. I represent the law. Think very carefully before you say anything else. Then, if you still need to do something to . . . ease your conscience, well, you can always call the Cartagena police. But I can tell you that the jails in Colombia are not all that nice." She softened her tone. "You've been through a lot. You're going to have a lot more time to think while you heal, then you have to decide what you're going to do with the rest of your life."

"You mean because I won't be able to use my legs, don't you?" There was more than a hint of self-pity; Calliope's anger sparked.

"Yes, without your legs. But you're alive, right? You have a chance to start over. That's more than a lot of people get. That's more than Dread's other women got."

For a moment Dulcie Anwin glared at her with something like fury and Calliope braced for the harsh words, but the American woman stayed silent. After a moment her face sagged. "Yeah," she said. "You're right. Count my blessings, huh?"