LITMIR.BIZ

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Where could he be? Venron had a knack for isolating himself. Time after time, he disappeared for hours, even entire nights. He told no one where he hid, not even Denetree. But she knew he went places no one else had been, because each time Venron brought her a present: new pictures of the starry sky, recordings made by previous generations, even small manufactured objects, like nothing she had seen before.

      Denetree returned to Venron's Metach'ton shed and began a systematic search. In increasingly larger circles, she scouted the area.

      Could Venron have gone on one of his raiding forays?

      Not likely, Denetree decided. Venron's explorations into the off-limits areas of the Ship were the high points of his existence, hours that made everything else bearable. Days of detailed planning preceded each foray, his excitement mounting until it seemed he would burst. When he was planning one of these expeditions, he smiled more often and gave her presents: small figures he made from stolen wood or metal, preludes to the great gift of new knowledge that he would soon bring her.

      Venron had returned from his last foray more withdrawn than ever. He had wept a great deal and could only fall asleep if he was clinging to Denetree.

      Three days ago, he had given her another gift, a small box wrapped with a fiber band. She could easily hold it in one hand. When she started to open it, he stopped her. "No," he had said. "Not yet."

      "Then when?" she had asked.

      "Not today. And not tomorrow, either," had been his answer. "You will know when it's time. Until then, hide it in a safe place." No matter how hard Denetree had tried to pry further information out of him, he refused to discuss it.

      Denetree completed her first circle of the shed. She had not met anyone. Anyone who didn't absolutely have to remain on the Outer Deck retreated in the evening to the Middle Deck, where they were better protected from radiation and could relax.

      She assumed Venron was planning something. But what? More than once Denetree had suspected that he was saying good-bye to the Ship, quietly seeking out his favorite places and spending time with his few friends.

      Denetree rode in increasingly wider circles, and to the same extent that the dull pain of exhaustion increased in her thighs, her unease grew, finally crossing the invisible boundary into fear. The paths lay deserted in the last light of day. It was impossible to miss a metach on foot or riding—unless he or she was intentionally hiding. But Venron wouldn't do that: What reason could he possibly have to hide from his own sister?

      Night fell. The Net turned off the light.

      Venron considered whether Venron might try to hurt himself, then tried to dismiss that thought. Even though no one spoke of the unhappy ones, she knew that many metach took their own lives. The Net, which otherwise reported every last detail of life on the Ship, no matter how unimportant, said nothing about the suicides. But those who took their own lives: they were different, weak or old; they had lost their faith in the Metach'rath, the Ladder of Life; they were not people like her, not like Venron.

      Denetree was panting. She rose from the seat, shifted to a higher gear and tried to drive the fear from her thoughts by pedaling harder.

      "Just ask the Net!"

      The mocking call echoed within her. Yes, the Net would know where Venron was. Nothing—or almost nothing, since it didn't know about the Star Seekers—escaped the attention of the Net. She could report Venron as missing. After that, nothing would ever happen to him again. The Net would take him into its caring protection, turn him over to the Magtar, the psychologists who had settled on the Inner Deck and never left it—and who could never leave it now, because their muscles had atrophied. Despite this handicap, they claimed to know better than everyone else about life on the Ship. They would test Venron until they found something. They would find out about his explorations, treat him with injections and pump him full of their drugs until he could only murmur his name and "Be loyal to the Ship!" Then they would let him go, a reformed member of the greater community.

      But he would live.

      Unless he was too strong. Then, the Magtar would turn him over to the Pekoy.

      Ahead, Denetree saw one of the rudimentary shelters that had been built at regular intervals in this part of the Ship.

      He would live ...

      The Pekoy would ask questions. Why did he explore? Who else explored with him? Treason was a contagious disease. It would ripen in one individual, then spread to others, growing like an ulcer. To prevent it from endangering the entire community, treason had to be burned out. Completely. If she asked the Net to find Venron, the Star Seekers also would be discovered. They would all fall down the Ladder of Life, and if they were lucky, they would be allowed to begin again at the lowest rung. Maybe.

      He would live ...

      The Ladder of Life held no meaning for a dead man.

      Every shelter contained a terminal for use in emergencies that was fully connected to the Net.

      Denetree rode past the shelter, then turned around and stopped at it. There was a bicycle leaning against one of the posts, but no one was in sight. The floor of the shelter and the small touchscreen of the emergency terminal had been hastily wiped clear, most likely by children who had been caught playing with it. They must have run away in order to escape a beating, and left the bicycle behind in their panic.

      Denetree bent over the touch screen.

      Live, she thought. Venron must live!

      She touched the display to activate it, thinking hard to come up with the words she would use to report her brother as missing. Afraid of losing her nerve in the last second, she imagined him dead: his stiff, unmoving body, unseeing eyes.

      I'm sorry! She apologized in her thoughts to the other Star Seekers, who surely would be exposed. I'm sorry. But Venron must live.

      The display lit up. But instead of the input menu, she saw Venron.

      "Brother!" she exclaimed in surprise. "I was so worried about you! Where ... "

      The blare of the display's loudspeaker cut her off. "Look into the face of the traitor, metach! Today, this man, Venron, attempted to destroy the enterprise to which we have all sworn our lives! He has put us all in deadly danger! See his heinous deed!"

      Venron's face disappeared. In its place appeared a long shot of a huge room. In the center stood a large, lumpy machine that Denetree did not recognize. At one end bulged two translucent domes like the eyes of an insect, but from the place where the animal would have had a mouth projected a long, three-part device. For a few moments, nothing happened. Denetree thought she saw movement behind one of the domes, but the surface was reflective and showed only what appeared to be the silhouette of a man.

      Then large doors opened behind the machine. The Tenoy ran inside. The guardians wore body armor and aimed long weapons at the machine. A voice echoed through the room: "Come back! You can still turn around!"

      The device on the front of the machine began to rotate toward the wall of the room, and the Tenoy dove for cover. The device stopped turning.

      The image froze. "Observe closely what this murderer did!" crackled the loudspeaker.

      The projection spat fire. Once, then a second time.

      "Venron, no!" Denetree whispered at the recording.

      A gigantic jet of fire shot out from the lower part of the machine and catapulted it through the roiling wall of flames and smoke it had created.

      The wall was broken by a jagged opening, and through it Denetree saw the stars. For the space of a heartbeat she forgot her fear. The stars! Venron was not taking his own life, he had found a way to the stars!

      A loud hissing noise from the loud speaker dragged her attention back to the display. It looked like invisible hands were dragging at the Tenoy with terrible force. The men and women tried to hang on, but the naked metal floor offered nothing to grasp. One after another they flew through the opening to the stars where, with eyes bulging out of their sockets and desperately flailing

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