So it was morning, and a morning unlike any other Hatch had
ever known. First rose the ferocious white spark of an intolerably
bright sun, a sun so fierce that Asodo Hatch and Lupus Lon Oliver
had to shield their eyes against the blistering light. Then up
from the sea there slowly lumbered a huge and swollen sun of
torrid red, at which the brightwhite star snapped out of existence
- a phenomenon Hatch found to be inexplicable unless that superlit
luminary be presumed to be artificial.
        "Brothers in blood," observed Lupus, as the two men lay
bathed in the senile bloodlight of the big red sun. Then yet
another sun began to rise, this one duller yet, its color purple.
"Your tutelary star," said Lupus.
        Hatch found in his weariness that he knew not the meaning of
tutelary, and so was unsure whether he was being insulted, so
pretended not to have heard.
        "Your sister could use such a star," said Lupus.
        "Doubtless," said Hatch, too tired to know whether Lupus was
making sense or was babbling like a beggar.
        "But in her absence," said Lupus, "I'll serve."
        "You'll serve her well, I doubt that not," said Hatch,
wishing indeed that Penelope was happily consigned to Lupus, and
no longer a problem for Hatch.
        "With your help," said Lupus. "My father as yet needs
persuading."
        As Hatch made no answer to that, Lupus started digging into
his over-stuffed pockets, searching for breakfast. What he came up
with was survival rations of the type known to the Nexus as
combast. The choice was between cheese and fish, the fish being a
tube of salmon-colored paste. Hatch was not hungry and, in any
case, would not eat such food except under the pressure of dire
necessity.
        Lupus of course was an Ebrell Islander, and as far as Hatch
was aware the Ebrell Islanders ate anything and everything,
including each other on occasion. But amongst the religious
injuctions which ruled the lives of the Frangoni there was one
which said: Thou shalt not deform the Given.
        This had severe dietary consequences, for it meant that frog
must be cooked as frog, fish as fish, flesh as flesh. It might be
sliced, and sliced finely, but it could not be squashed, pulped or
slurried. Such was the Frangoni way. And whatever doubts Hatch
entertained about the might of the Great God Mokaragash, he had
shed none of the inhibitions which his stomach had learnt in
childhood. He found all combast rations repulsive, particularly
the fish: the very thought of reducing a living animal to a pulped
ooze then consuming the result made him shudder.
        In the distance, there was a dull explosion.
        "A little late," said Lupus, checking the survival-issue
time-counter strapped to his wrist.
        "A little," agreed Hatch.
        In the course of their illusion-tank evasion exercise, the
two men had managed to seize a reconnaissance vehicle. Resisting
the temptation to escape in the thing - it was a target easy to
track, find and destroy - they had rigged it to self-destruct at
dawn.
        The echoes of that explosion were still dying away when there
came a much larger rock-bang roar - a convulsive blast which made
the ground rock. The sun blinked off, then on.
        Asodo Hatch and Lon Oliver looked at each other.
        "What was that?" said Lupus.
        "A glitch, maybe," said Hatch, dry-mouthed.
        He hoped it wasn't. When things went wrong with the
programming of the illusion tanks, outright terror was often the
result. But for the moment, everything looked normal, if a red sun
in combination with a purple sun could be thought of as
representing some kind of normality.
        Under the red sun and the purple sun, the red-skinned Ebrell
Islander and the purple-skinned Frangoni warrior lay in the
lizard-tongue heat. Lupus began sucking a small stone to appease
his thirst. That made Hatch conscious of his own thirst. The sky
was a vast heating plate, its color purple - the same as that of
the big sun. Was there some scientific reason for the sky to be
purple, or was its coloration a defect of the illusion? Or an
unseemly joke perpetrated by Paraban Senk?
        Hatch wanted to sleep, but sleep was always difficult in the
world of the illusion tanks, since the brain was constantly being
artificially stimulated to maintain the illusion. As ever, the
lyricism consequent upon that stimulation meant that Hatch saw
everything with hallucinatory clarity, from the wrinkled skin over
the knuckles of his right hand to a liquid seam of shining black
ants coursing past that same organ - which the Frangoni ever call
the killing hand.
        "So," said Lupus, "what did you do last night?"
        Hatch gathered that Lupus meant not the night of the
illusion tanks through which they had just lived but the previous
night in Dalar ken Halvar.
        "I was with my wife," said Hatch.
        "I've heard that she's dying," said Lupus.
        "It is so," acknowledged Hatch.
        "Then doubtless you'd like to spend more time with her," said
Lupus.
        "I don't need persuading, if persuasion's your motive," said
Hatch. "With revenue secured, I'd leave the Combat College
tomorrow."
        "So what were you doing with your wife?" said Lupus. "Why
weren't you working on my father?"
        "You over-estimate my talents," said Hatch. "Old man Gan,
he's not the kind of man one works on. What am I supposed to do?
Bluff him? Bribe him? Scare him with threats? Lupus, your
father's a hard man. If he doesn't want you to have Penelope, why,
there's nothing I can do about it."
        "So," said Lupus. "We're doomed to fight each other. You and
I. Fight it out to the finish."
        "Not necessarily," said Hatch. "We ...."
        "We what?"
        Hatch hesitated, not sure how Lupus would take this
suggestion. Then he got it out:
        "We could kill him."
        "What!?" said Lupus.
        "Kill him," said Hatch. "Kill Gan Oliver. Your father's a
hard man, but he's by no means immortal."
        "Hatch," said Lupus, "I'm warning you this. If my father
dies, whatever the cause, I'll hold you responsible."
        "All right, all right," said Hatch, startled by the
wrathfulness of the Ebrell Islander's response. "It was only a, an
exploratory suggestion."
        "Exploratory! We're talking murder here!"
        "Speech is not action," said Hatch. "Why, many times I've - "
        "Don't joke with me, Hatch!"
        So saying, Lupus locked eyes with Hatch. Hatch, mature
enough to concede a point of ego to the needs of diplomacy, broke
eye contact. As he did so, he saw a blister of blue light rising
over a knoll. He recognized it instantly as one of the hunter-
killers of the Musorian Empire.
        "Split!" yelled Hatch, rolling away.
        Lupus rolled likewise, then joined Hatch in a downhill
sprint. The two men fled, dodging and jinking in an effort to make
themselves hard to hit. Hatch glanced at the survival-issue time-
counter strapped to his wrist. It was almost time! Almost time!
But the hunter-killer was almost upon them. There was no escaping
it.
        Ahead was a sink-hole, a deep cleft in the ground. Hatch
leapt across it. He landed hard, feet together, and ran on. Ahead
was a slight rise, and beyond that - what? Lupus Lon Oliver
outpaced Asodo Hatch and sprinted for the top of the rise.
        "Shit!" screamed Lupus, teetering on the rocks at the top of
the rise. "It's a cliff!"
        A moment later, Hatch was level with Lupus, who was standing
at the edge of a colossal drop. Rock fell sheer for a league or
more to the blistering sunslash of the sea.
        The hunter-killer was behind them, and approaching fast.
        Hatch did not hesitate.
        Do or die!
        Hatch shoulder-slammed Lupus, slammed him over the edge of
the cliff, then jumped after him. Lupus fell, screaming and
flailing. Hatch dived as if in a parachute exercise. He
spreadeagled his body, presenting maximum resistance to the air,
thus slowing his fall. Below him, Lupus was tumbling helplessly,
locked into a tumultous death-down spinfall.
        Hatch thought at him furiously:
        - Come on, Lupus! Break out of it!
        But this irrational attempt at telepathy was futile. Lupus
fell in the tumult of his fear. Hatch squinted his eyes against
the buffeting doorslam of the windrush sky. The sea was rushing
toward him, hurtling upward with the dropspeed of his plunge, and
Lupus was flailing still, would be dead in a moment, would be -
        A slapshock of cold dashed Hatch backwards. He had been
thrown into a sitting position. He tried to straighten, to
spreadeagle his body. He wrenched himself with such viciousness
that he almost dislocated a dozen joints before he realized he was
sitting in the initiation chair.
        He was out of the world of the illusion tanks.
        He was back in the Combat College.
        He was cold in the chair, his heart at idling speed, his body
at rest. But a moment later, the fearshock battlecharge hit, and
his heart slammed to a panic-sprint, his flesh flared with heat,
his limbs shook, and nausea doubled him over.
        The combat bay's display screen filled with the olive-skinned
features of Paraban Senk.
        "Congratulations," said Paraban Senk.
        Hatch straightened, slowly. Breathed out. Shuddered. Mastered
himself, and said:
        "Thank you."
        "Mind you," said Paraban Senk, "your escape stratagem would
have been futile had you been living through that episode in the
flesh of the fact."
        "Futile?" said Hatch. "Since when is escape futile?"
        "You would have died when you hit the sea," said Senk.
        "Ah," said Hatch, "but you have the concede the fact. I did
extend my life by jumping over the cliff, even if only for
moments."
        "Yes," said Senk. "But what's the use of those moments?"
        "It is written in the Book of Survival," said Hatch, "that a
breath of life is still life, and that much can be done with a
dying breath. You should know as much."
        "I do know," said Senk, evidencing amusement. "But of course
my function is to make sure that you know."
        "So it is," said Hatch. "So it is."
        Then, being in no mood to endure Senk's bantering lecturing
any longer, Hatch freed himself from the initiation chair and
escaped to the corridor, where he found Lupus Lon Oliver. Despite
the redskinned tint of his race, the Ebrell Islander was pale and
sweaty.
        "Hatch, you bastard!" said Lupus, leaning against the cream-
colored wall for support. "Only a Frangoni would be mad enough to
pull a stunt like that."
        "My breeding I cannot help," said Hatch gravely. "I was born
to the Wild Tribes, hence must live with wildness. Come on, let's
get something to eat."
        "To eat?" said Lupus.
        "Yes, to eat," said Hatch. Then, maliciously: "Something
nice and greasy. Oilfish in butterslime."
        "Hatch," said Lupus, irefully. "I'm warning you!"
        At which Hatch had mercy. Abandoning his attempts to talk
Lupus's stomach into vomiting, Hatch left the shocked and shaken
Ebrell Islander and set off for the cafeteria.