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  Various filing cabinets appeared in Nellie’s mind, and she placed her memories from today’s classes in the proper files. “I am prepared,” she said.

  “It is essential that everything be cleansed so that your mind can be dedicated completely to the stars,” said the soothing voice. “You have made the right choice and it has been noted. Nellie Joanne Kinnan, you are a valued and appreciated cadet.”

  The voice paused, and then the inside of Nellie’s head lit up as two brilliant jolts of electricity shot from the headset into her brain. Nellie grunted and her body lifted slightly, convulsing twice.

  “There there,” said the recorded voice as her body slumped back into the chair. “Remember, you are a valued and appreciated Advanced cadet, Nellie Joanne Kinnan. Make sure you use the Mind Cleanser once a day to keep your mind clean and prepared for service to the stars.”

  The voice clicked off, and a loud beeping noise told Nellie her time was up. Cautiously she slid to the edge of the seat and got to her feet. She’d learned to be careful standing up after one of these sessions. Sometimes she swooned and once she’d even peed herself, but today she seemed to have gotten off all right. There was just the usual headache and an achy stiffness in her muscles that would fade in about twenty minutes. What was most important was that her mind was now cleansed, freed of any junk that could poison her thinking.

  With a deep breath, Nellie pushed aside the barrier curtain and stepped out of the booth. Where was she? Oh yeah — this was the Mind Cleanser in the girls’ dorm. So ... what had she been doing before she stepped into the booth? Nellie did a quick scan of her memory, but drew a complete blank. Oh well, the Mind Cleanser only deleted stuff that wasn’t important. She couldn’t have been doing anything essential. She gave her watch a quick glance. Twenty-seven minutes after four — that left an hour until supper. How should she kill the time?

  “Hey, Nells.” Looking up, Nellie saw Lierin waving at her from down the hall. “C’mon, you goof,” hollered her friend. “You’re missing Star Heat.”

  Star Heat! How could she have forgotten that? Talk about essential! With a grin, Nellie took off down the hall.

  THAT NIGHT, she dreamed of the shorn-headed girl again. This time the girl was lying with the boy, her back to his chest, his arms loosely around her. They were both fully clothed and seemed to be sleeping together for warmth. Then, as Nellie’s dream eyes watched, the girl turned in her sleep and nestled in against the boy, her forehead resting against the curve of his throat. Neither woke, the eyes of both girl and boy remained closed, but Nellie thought she saw the boy’s arms tighten briefly around the girl, and an odd look of — fierceness? happiness? — cross both their faces.

  Nellie felt so close to the shorn-headed girl, she seemed to be breathing in the same rhythm. Then for a moment she seemed to actually become the other girl, and could feel the warmth of the boy’s arms and hear his heartbeat steady in her ear. Immediately she noticed his breath was pretty rank, but then a stink filled her own mouth and she realized the shorn-headed girl hadn’t brushed her teeth in a while either. With a grimace, Nellie pulled back and lost the feeling of oneness with the shorn-headed girl, though she could still see the two lying together in her dream.

  Who were they, and why were they repeatedly invading her sleep? Had Westcott been correct when he’d hinted she was imagining herself in a different situation? But why would she imagine herself with her hair cut off like that, and with a boy she’d never seen? Why not with Phillip, or Alan Webb, Advanced’s most gorgeous senior male cadet? Most of all, why would she suddenly start dreaming of herself this past week, and never before? It had been practically every night.

  As more and more questions fired themselves through her brain, Nellie’s dream began to fade. No, she thought, hanging onto the image of the girl and boy lying together in the dark. Who are you? You belong to me in some way, I can feel it, but I don’t know how. Why ...

  But the dream vanished like warm breath blown onto a mirror and left Nellie running through her usual nightmare of endless twisting passageways with nowhere to go but deeper into the maze, further and further from anything she recognized as herself.

  Four

  IT WAS OPEN DORM, a two-hour period scheduled every weekend when female and male cadets were allowed to visit each other’s dorms. Seated cross-legged at the head of her bed, Nellie faced Lierin and Phillip, who were sprawled next to her with their backs to the wall. Appointed secretary of the group, Lierin was balancing a laptop on her knees. At the far end of the room, an occasional figure in Detta uniform appeared briefly on the monitoring screen, scrutinized the three and disappeared again. The twelve-year-olds on the bed ignored them. Engrossed in a research assignment, they were discussing the Goddess Ivana’s birth history.

  “Okay,” said Phillip in a careless tone, scowling at the book in his hands. “It says She was born on the island of Peliones, to some farmers.” His toes tapped rapidly and he gave a heavy sigh. Glancing at Nellie, Lierin rolled her eyes. A thin boy with a variety of nervous mannerisms, Phillip was commonly underestimated by opponents on the target range and at gym meets. Myths and legends, however, weren’t his strong point.

  “Peliones is in the Outbacks, isn’t it?” asked Lierin, keying the information laboriously into the laptop. Secretarial skills weren’t her strong point.

  “Yeah,” said Nellie, “but it wasn’t the Outbacks then. Things weren’t divided like they are now. The Great War hadn’t started yet.”

  Phillip drummed his fingers on the open pages of his book, impatient to complete the assignment and head for the gym. “Alrighteeee,” he drawled. “So, She’s born and when She turns seven, Her name gets pulled in the harvest draw—”

  “Wait a minute,” Lierin interrupted. “You forgot Her caste.”

  “Twin Moons,” said Nellie immediately. “She was born during Lulunar.”

  The research assignment was for their history class, or Star Class, as it was commonly called. After some advance reading, Nellie had decided the assigned question, How did the death of the Goddess’s sons lead to the start of the Great War? was more complicated than it seemed. Back in the olden days, before the Goddess was born, the land of Windros, as it was then called, had been peaceful. Sure, there had been rumblings from the rural areas — farmers were always discontented with the decrees that came from the temple administration in the larger cities, not understanding the reasons behind the taxes levied on their products. This was understandable, since Windros’s ten largest cities were grouped in a tight belt around the Funnerbye Sea and known collectively as the Interior. It was also true that for decades the Interior had been in the habit of taking the Outbacks — a wide-ranging area of loosely scattered small cities, towns and farms that surrounded the Interior — for granted. Still, nothing had come of this rural discontent, beyond several minor brawls in the Dorniver area and a temple-burning way out in the sticks. Then the Goddess had been born, and the history of Windros had suddenly grown interesting.

  “Something else we forgot,” said Nellie, getting to her knees and turning to look at the star chart posted over her bed. “Her birth date is in two days — the thirty-third day of Lulunar. Let’s see. The Red Planet is still prominent, and the Blue Susurra constellation is at its peak.” Her finger traced the alignment of stars on the section of the chart designated to the month of Lulunar. “Stars of good omen for the thirty-third are the Morning Star and the Triad at the base of the Weeping Tree constellation. Stars of bad omen are the Hunter’s Bow, which is just rising over the horizon.”

  “Okay, okay.” Phillip’s toe-tapping went into a rapid spurt as Nellie settled back into her original position. “So the Goddess is born under the constellation of the Blue Susurra or whatever, and then Her name gets pulled in the harvest draw and She ends up in the main temple in” — his finger slid down the page — “the city of Sarrendar. She gets promoted to high priestess, and then one night she’s seduced by a visitor to the temple.”


  “Uh-uh,” said Nellie. “She got raped. And then She got turfed because no one knew the guy who raped Her was actually a God who’d chosen Her to carry His seed.”

  Phillip scanned the page in front of him again, then looked up, shaking his head. “It says right here She recognized Him for what He was and agreed to the whole thing. She even agreed to keep His identity secret.”

  “Okay, so your book says the God raped Her, and Phillip’s says They had a great time,” Lierin said matter-of-factly. “I’ll put in both versions to be safe. What happened next?”

  “Lived in squalor,” said Phillip in a bored monotone. “The slums. Too ashamed to go home, so She became a prostitute.”

  “People sure were weird about sex back then,” muttered Lierin, her fingers plunking away at the keyboard. “Nowadays the priestesses have Pleasure Rooms just like we do.”

  “People are still weird about sex,” said Phillip. “They’ve got Pleasure Rooms in all the high schools now, but not everyone uses them, even after they turn sixteen and don’t need their mother’s permission. And the Outbacks don’t have them at all.”

  Nellie’s head snapped up, and she shot him a look halfway between curiosity and fear. Information about the Outbacks was severely limited, and anything not communicated directly by a superior forbidden. “How d’you know that?” she demanded.

  Phillip shrugged. “I was fooling around on the computer, and I found a file that had some information on the Outbacks and their social values. Really primitive — still into mom and dad, and monogamy and stuff like that.”

  “You mean marriage?” Lierin was aghast. “They don’t plan their breedings according to the star charts?”

  “They don’t care about bloodlines out there,” said Phillip. “There’s no caste system. They mate for love and stay together and raise their kids. Weird, eh?”

  “That’s old,” said Nellie, sagging back against the headboard. “Ancient. Prehistoric.”

  “Interior kids who aren’t cadets or temple initiates live with their moms,” shrugged Phillip.

  “Yeah,” retorted Nellie, “but they never meet their dad. All they know about him is his caste and his city of birth.”

  Lierin snorted. “Can you imagine being stuck with both your parents until you turned legal and could take off? A mom would be bad enough.”

  “Fuuuuuck,” Phillip agreed softly, speaking for all of them. On the monitoring screen a woman’s face appeared, watched for several seconds, and disappeared.

  “Okay,” said Nellie, ditching her horrified contemplation of Outbacks family life. “Let’s see.” The next part of the story was straightforward, and she quickly reeled off the facts. “The Goddess gives birth to twin sons, and they’re taken from Her because She’s a fallen woman. One son is shipped to Marnan to be raised by the priests at the Goddess’s Redemption Cathedral, and the other is adopted by a pedlar and his wife who are on their way to the Outbacks.”

  Phillip gave another impatient tap of his toes. “Next part of the saga,” he said, grinning. “The God decides to show up again, looking for His seed. Except this time He comes in a chariot with nine white horses, and everyone’s impressed.”

  A vague unease crept up Nellie’s spine, and she slitted her eyes at Phillip. What was with him today? He knew better than to talk about the Goddess like that. It could get you a session with the Black Box. “And He searches until He finds Ivana,” she said hastily, cutting him off. “When He hears Her story, He brings Her back to the Sarrendar temple and has Her reinstated as high priestess. Then They start searching for Their sons together.”

  “But They can’t find them,” said Phillip, ignoring her disapproving glance. “No one can track the pedlar, and the priests lie about the other twin so they don’t have to give him back. They train him as a warrior priest, and when the Outbacks rebel against a new temple tax, he leads the troops against the rebels. Except, unknown to him, his twin is fighting with the rebels.”

  “The Jinnet,” Lierin muttered with a hiss.

  Giving a sharp sniff of agreement, Nellie continued. “And the twin sons fight the Great War for three years, never even knowing about each other until a great bird of light appears to each of them separately and whispers the truth into their ears.”

  “Do you believe that bird of light stuff?” Phillip demanded, shutting his book with a snap. “I mean, how many times have you seen a twinkling birdie appear out of the sky? But of course the twins waste the next ten years in a great odyssey, searching for each other all across Windros, even traveling to Hell and Heaven, and fighting demons and angels and monsters on land and sea. And in the end, they’re both killed before they find each other.”

  “What is wrong with you today?” Lierin asked, giving him a quick shove. “Of course, I believe the Goddess’s story. Everyone knows the twin sons were sent by the Gods to show us the way to the stars. If we’re obedient and faithful, we’ll ride the light like They do when we die.”

  “D’you know that for sure?” asked Phillip.

  “Of course, I do,” Lierin snapped, her voice rising. “The Goddess said it.”

  “Oh yeah?” said Phillip. “And did She send a twinkling birdie out of the sky to tell you?”

  “I read the star charts every day,” Lierin shot back heatedly. “I know which stars to pray to so I can keep my heart pure. My faith is strong, so I know what’s true.”

  “And you?” Phillip glanced at Nellie, his eyes careful and heavy lidded. “Do you believe this stuff?”

  “Of course,” faltered Nellie. “It’s the way to eternal life among the stars. Don’t you?”

  “I dunno,” shrugged Phillip. “All I’m saying is you can’t know for sure it’s true. Even the books disagree on exactly what happened, so how are you supposed to know?” He fidgeted again, shivering with an odd restlessness. “I’m not saying I believe it, and I’m not saying I don’t. But even if it is true, what do the twins have to do with us? They’re just two guys who lived a long time ago, and their story isn’t even all that interesting. So what if the Gods rewarded their great odyssey by giving them eternal life? They only got to become moons, not even stars, and for most of the year they’re nowhere near each other in the sky. It’s only during the month of Lulunar that they travel next to each other. Some reward that is. As far as I can see, the Gods screwed the twins when they were alive, then screwed them again eternally by forcing them to reunite as the Twin Moons and remember the whole mess for an entire month every year.”

  Nellie and Lierin stared at him, openmouthed. Uneasily, Phillip’s eyes flitted between them, then dropped. “Hey, don’t get uptight,” he muttered. “All I’m saying is, if it had been me, I would just want to be dead. Bye-bye twinnie, I don’t want to become a moon. Sorry I didn’t get to be best buds while we were alive but I’m dead now, so who cares?”

  “That’s blasphemy,” Lierin said flatly. “You can’t talk about the Goddess’s sons like that.”

  “I’m not talking about them,” said Phillip quickly. “I’m saying if it was me.”

  “Well, it isn’t you,” snapped Lierin. “Since when have you been half-god?”

  Phillip shrugged, picked up the book in his lap and set it down again.

  Nellie finally found her voice. “You’re just lucky,” she whispered, “that it’s only us listening to you. What if—?” Shakily she pointed to the monitoring screen at the end of the room.

  Again Phillip shrugged. “No one was listening,” he said. “I checked first. Anyway, you don’t think Detta takes this Goddess crap seriously, do you? It’s just a story. You don’t have to believe in Her to be a functional cadet.”

  “Phillip Grennin Bolderveen?” said a voice, and a man in Detta uniform stepped around the end of the barricade that ran the middle of the room. Phillip gave a sudden wheeze, as if punched in the gut.

  “Yes, sir?” he whispered.

  “Come with me,” said the man, his gaze tightening on Phillip’s face. “Bring your books.”
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  Nellie watched Phillip pale, then slide slowly from the bed and approach the end of the barricade. Without a word the man stepped aside, letting him pass, then glanced at the two girls.

  “You failed to report this,” he said, his voice clipped and neutral.

  “I was going to,” Lierin said immediately. “After we finished—”

  “Next time, walk immediately to the monitoring screen and press the alarm button,” continued the man, ignoring her interruption. “Now, full attention. This is Code SM9T. Bring up cabinet forty-seven. Have you got it?”

  The girls nodded silently as a filing cabinet with the number forty-seven stamped above the top drawer appeared inside their heads.

  “File this incident in drawer three, file nine,” said the man. “When you have done this, you will not remember my presence, nor will you remember Phillip Grennin Bolderveen being here this afternoon. You are working on your assignment alone, just the two of you. Now close drawer number three, lock it and put cabinet forty-seven away. Is it done?”

  Eyes glazed, both girls nodded again.

  “It is done,” the man in the Detta uniform said crisply. Stepping around the barricade, he left the room. On the bed Nellie and Lierin sat, staring blankly as filing cabinet forty-seven faded from their minds. A long slow breath coursed through each of them.

  “Uh,” said Nellie, rubbing the back of her hand across her mouth. Where was she? Oh yeah, her bedroom. And what was she doing? Um, there was a book in her lap and Lierin was sitting beside her with a laptop. Okay, she had it — they were working on a Star Class assignment that had to do with the death of the Goddess’s sons and the build-up to the Great War. Yeah, it was all coming back now. They were at the part where a group of Outback rebels killed the warrior-priest twin in the Battle of the Northern Stars. Then, several days later, another rebel group mistook the pedlar twin for his brother and killed him in the Ambush of the Morning Light. For the death of both the Goddess’s sons, the ten cities of the Interior never forgave the Outbacks. Banding together in outrage, they officially renamed themselves the “Interior” and sealed themselves off from all outsiders. From this point on they developed fast and furious, outstripping the Outbacks in commerce, technology and culture. But for all that, they were never able to subdue the Outbacks. One hundred and fifty years later, the Great War was ongoing and Outbackers continued to live in waywardness, blasphemy and squalor.