When Sobon next woke, sun-light was seep-ing through a poor-ly-sealed win-dow, and a child was cough-ing some-where to his right. His mus-cles burned where they had torn and ached where they'd been hit, but as he did his best to take stock, he found that his in-ter-nal or-gans were no longer in agony, and his rib seemed mend-ed.

  At-tempt-ing to move, though, only made the pain and heat grow, the feed-back telling him in no un-cer-tain terms that while his des-per-ate play to get away from the butch-er had saved his life, the dam-age was too se-vere to do any-thing but lay here, at least un-til the next threat. So in-stead, he fo-cused on his spir-it, reach-ing out to the thin wire cir-cle and thorn he had made, find-ing them lay-ing qui-et-ly with-in. As far as he could tell, their ex-is-tence hadn't dam-aged any-thing in-side of him; that was good, be-cause it meant that he could con-tin-ue to in-crease the length of the thorn.

  Slow-ly, care-ful-ly, and with more con-cern now about over-load-ing his spir-i-tu-al chan-nels, Sobon set the cir-cle spin-ning. The feel-ing of it burned his chan-nels, but it was a fa-mil-iar feel-ing; Sobon was in the cy-borg half of the Mixed Marines, not the fairy half, and his ex-per-i-ments with bi-o-log-i-cal-ly ma-nip-u-lat-ing Aether had al-ways felt like he was flex-ing un-der-de-vel-oped mus-cles. His aether aug-ments, of course, had al-ways worked fine, but... that had lit-tle to do with his bi-ol-o-gy. He had al-ways known that prac-tice could have led to uti-liz-ing his brain and heart's aether chan-nels, but he didn't see the point.

  Most-ly, he didn't see the point of flesh, and be-ing im-pris-oned in the dis-gust-ing stuff again only re-mind-ed him why, in a thou-sand ways. His fine-ly honed men-tal fac-ul-ties helped him care-ful-ly cat-a-log not only his in-juries, but the var-i-ous puls-ing, squish-ing, and flow-ing bits with-in him. His stom-ach was shrunk-en from star-va-tion and his limbs too thin, his hair was falling out in places and his bones felt hol-low. His lungs, he was sure, were full of some kind of filth, and his si-nus-es were prob-a-bly the only part of him full of grease, from liv-ing in the warm shad-ows of kitchens but nev-er eat-ing the good food hid-den be-hind those walls. There were itch-es in the pits of his arms and knees, and bites all over his legs and feet, and... he was sure there were bits of flesh just miss-ing. Like they had been sev-ered, bit by bit, from odd places along his body, then the wounds were al-lowed to heal.

  What-ev-er life this street urchin had be-fore, it was a sor-ry one.

  [ Please don't blame me, ] the voice in his head re-turned, speak-ing a lit-tle more even-ly, now. He al-most didn't rec-og-nize it now that the body's pan-ic had passed; it was no longer quite so twist-ed by fear and pain, and no longer stood out in his head like... well, like any of the oth-er in-jured bits had stood out. It was still there, but less... sep-a-rate from him-self. [ The only one who was ever nice was the book-seller's daugh-ter, and her moth-er told her not to feed me. ]

  Sobon didn't doubt that. If he'd seen a street urchin this screwed up, he def-i-nite-ly wouldn't want any young child to be ex-posed to what-ev-er dis-eases he might have. Deal-ing with a child like that was some-thing that should be left to adults, and ide-al-ly pro-fes-sion-als--but on the oth-er hand, it should have been done. To say noth-ing of butcher-ing chil-dren and leav-ing their corpses to rot in an al-ley-way, the Crestan civ-il ser-vice would not have left a child on the streets for years in the first place. There was too much use for a spare pair of hands, es-pe-cial-ly in wartime--but even with-out the pres-sure of in-va-sion, there were al-ways colonies some-where that could use the la-bor.

  He forced his thoughts into or-der and replied, civil-ly, I don't blame you. None of this is your fault.

  The boy in his thoughts trem-bled, and mem-o-ries spilled out, of things that he had done wrong--or things he thought, at the time, were hor-rid mis-takes. Sobon caught as many as he could, and re-viewed each briefly, but ul-ti-mate-ly found noth-ing there ex-cept the ig-no-rant and con-fused ac-tions of a child. [ I don't... I don't un-der-stand. It doesn't make sense. I'm sup-posed to be ashamed of who I am. ]

  If that was help-ful, I would agree with you, Sobon an-swered grim-ly. But it isn't help-ful, so it's stu-pid.

  The spir-it qui-et-ed for a mo-ment, and Sobon con-tin-ued press-ing out more thread. The cir-cu-lar dy-namo con-sumed less pow-er than it cre-at-ed, and the thread spike was just hold-ing the ac-cu-mu-lat-ed pow-er to-geth-er. Once he had enough thread, he could form it into an-oth-er dy-namo, but do-ing that with-out burn-ing up his chan-nels would take many hours, and leave him de-fense-less again un-til the two dy-namos to-geth-er could build more thread.

  Not that a sin-gle hair-like thread of aether was much. The Rapi-er had twelve mid-size dy-namos for weapons and point de-fens-es, and the torus in each was as wide as this new child-ish body was tall. The main dy-namo, which pow-ered the en-gines, main de-fens-es, and a ma-jor-i-ty of the ship's mun-dane sys-tems, was three or-ders of mag-ni-tude more com-plex, made of mil-lions of small-er dy-namos linked in a six-di-men-sion-al hy-per-torus, with con-trol link-ages and en-er-gy ex-trac-tion con-duits run-ning all through-out it, to say noth-ing of its phys-i-cal size.

  Sobon's at-ten-tion was pulled back to the room as he sensed that specter of death again, and the old man--a doc-tor, clear-ly, or at least pre-tend-ing to be one--ap-peared in the mid-dle of the room. He first stepped up to where the child was still cough-ing, reach-ing out with both hands, and there was a light glow again, so dim that Sobon could bare-ly see the col-or it cast on his skin. Af-ter a mo-ment, the cough-ing stopped, and a child mum-bled some-thing that Sobon couldn't hear.

  The old man went up and down the row, only oc-ca-sion-al-ly of-fer-ing a touch of pow-er to help some-one, be-fore he fi-nal-ly end-ed up at Sobon's bed.

  "You have qi," the doc-tor said qui-et-ly as he ap-peared, flick-ing into ex-is-tence at Sobon's side. "It would be bet-ter spent heal-ing your-self."

  "I don't know how," Sobon ad-mit-ted, keep-ing his voice down. That wasn't the real prob-lem, ex-act-ly; if his in-stincts were right, he had at-tuned this dy-namo to a form of aether that was vi-o-lent-ly at odds with life, suit-able for at-tack-ing oth-ers rather than heal-ing. It was what he thought he need-ed at the time, though in ret-ro-spect... he would have done it dif-fer-ent-ly.

  "For sim-ple things, sim-ply pro-vid-ing the body qi will cause it to heal it-self. In your case..." The old man frowned, and Sobon stud-ied his long, droop-ing gray mous-tache and beard. "There is some-thing odd about you, and about your qi."

  Sobon was glad that the lo-cals at least un-der-stood that much. He poked the spir-it of his pre-de-ces-sor for a quick trans-la-tion, then asked, "If you know a heal-ing spell..."

  The man scoffed, and his ex-pres-sion dark-ened. "If I knew prop-er spells I wouldn't be deal-ing with home-less brats in a wastrel's slum. If I knew prop-er spells I wouldn't..." He went silent. "No, child. Books of spells are too valu-able to waste on a bro-ken old sol-dier and the il-le-git-i-mate sons and daugh-ters of whores, drunk-ards, and gut-ter trash. If your great mas-ter dis-agrees, I will glad-ly take what-ev-er hand-outs he is will-ing to of-fer when he ar-rives, but..." he har-rumphed, his whiskers fluff-ing up with the breath, and spit-tle fly-ing. "I am sure he will agree that this old man is of no use to any-one."

  Sobon flinched. He hadn't meant to im-ply that the old man would be re-ward-ed by a great mas-ter, when keep-ing his iden-ti-ty se-cret, but it was ob-vi-ous in hind-sight that it would be tak-en that way. He looked up at the old man, and the old man looked back, a look com-ing over him like a shad-ow. Per-haps he saw the guilty look on Sobon's face? He was wrestling with whether or not it was safe to ad-mit it when the man spoke again.

  "No one is com-ing for you," he said, and leaned back as he saw Sobon's fea-tures change. "I see. Per-haps you were cast out, or per-haps you dis-cov-ered your qi by ac-ci-dent. Cain de-posit-ed you here, so you must have fright-ened him. That grotesque crea-ture would not aban-don his trade un-less he was con-vinced his death would fol-low your own." The old man chuck-led. "But you should know mere-ly by look-ing around that this old man is all too ac-cus-tomed to pa-tients who can nev-er re-pay their board-ing. There is no need to lie any fur-ther about that."

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  "I'm sor-ry," Sobon said. "I wish I could help. If I was able to heal with my... qi..." the word felt un-com-fort-able in his mouth, but he was sure the lo-cals wouldn't un-der-stand or like the talk of Aether, and ad-mit-ting what he knew and how seemed like an aw-ful idea, even to this old man. "...I would pay it off that way."

  The old man har-rumphed again. "You'll find no pa-tients here who can pay, and I don't like the feel of your qi. It lacks the nur-tur-ing as-pect that is nec-es-sary for heal-ing." He sud-den-ly straight-ened and half-turned, and in a flash, he was by an-oth-er pa-tient's bed-side, talk-ing with them qui-et-ly.

  Sobon stud-ied his aether dy-namo in si-lence for a long mo-ment. Aether sci-ence was a wide field and far be-yond his un-der-stand-ing for the most part, but he knew be-yond ques-tion that aether ex-ist-ed in a set of fun-da-men-tal states; most-ly, they were bro-ken down into left- and right-hand-ed spins in var-i-ous planes, or sta-t-ic, spin-less aether that would break down quick-ly of its own ac-cord. His dy-namo was left-hand-ed, and could only pro-duce ba-sic left-hand-ed aether, which the old man seemed to agree was harm-ful. It could be con-vert-ed into sta-t-ic aether, and he could spin that the oth-er di-rec-tion, but... only once he had enough wire for an-oth-er cir-cle, which he wouldn't any-time soon.

  It wasn't as sim-ple as hav-ing aether that spun in the oth-er di-rec-tion to cre-ate a heal-ing ef-fect, of course, but the aether spin ei-ther matched what bi-ol-o-gy used or it ran counter to it. Any aether that worked with the body would en-cour-age heal-ing, or at least good health, al-though it didn't fix things out-right. Get-ting ac-cess to that kind of aether might be as sim-ple as cre-at-ing an-oth-er ring dy-namo with a right-hand spin, or it may re-quire him to piece to-geth-er a dy-namo that spun in high-er di-men-sions; it was hard to know for sure with-out try-ing.

  In any case, he had lit-tle he could do for now, so he fo-cused on keep-ing his dy-namo spin-ning, gen-er-at-ing aether in the spike as the hair slow-ly length-ened.

  "You..." The old man was back, and his frown seemed dis-ap-prov-ing. "That is not a qi ab-sorp-tion tech-nique. What is this? Some form of de-mon-ic pow-er?"

  Sobon looked up at him, ner-vous-ly, but man-aged to shake his head with-out the pain caus-ing his spir-it to col-lapse. "It is... a spe-cial tech-nique," he said, do-ing his best to spin it as neu-tral-ly as he could. "It gen-er-ates... a pure form of qi."

  The old man, with a sort of del-i-cate vi-o-lence that Sobon could not un-der-stand, reached down and plucked the thread of aether out of his spike, hold-ing it up in front of his own face. Sobon watched, ner-vous; if he tried to in-te-grate the thread with his own qi, the two would re-act, per-haps vi-o-lent-ly.

  "I know a man who would pay dear-ly to study any such tech-nique," the old man said, slow-ly, and the thread van-ished some-where into his spir-it. He looked down at Sobon, his face an un-read-able mask, though Sobon's spir-it--the boy who had once owned his body--dis-trust-ed it in-tense-ly. "He would pay for your heal-ing. Stay here."

  Sobon felt a shiv-er of mis-trust, an an-i-mal in-stinct, as the old man van-ished once more into thin air. With his spike now re-duced to al-most noth-ing again, though, what could he do? He des-per-ate-ly want-ed to trust the old man; he had noth-ing else left. But his ra-tio-nal mind couldn't help agree-ing with the boy-spir-it; this world had been too cor-rupt, too prone to let-ting ma-li-cious, cru-el mon-sters have their way. An aether re-searcher might be a pleas-ant, well-mean-ing aca-d-e-m-ic... or he might be every bit the mon-ster that the butch-er had been, with a dif-fer-ent bent to his sadism.

  So Sobon stead-ied his breath-ing, try-ing to ar-ti-fi-cial-ly gen-er-ate calm, again. In-stead of us-ing his dy-namo-pro-duced aether, he would do his best to gen-er-ate an-oth-er ring and spin it in the oth-er di-rec-tion. Now that he could sense aether, it should be eas-i-er... but it was near-ly im-pos-si-ble to find calm while wound-ed and para-noid, even if he was rest-ing in bed.

  With re-gret, and dis-ap-point-ment, Sobon forced him-self to sit up, flinch-ing as too many mus-cles re-fused to re-spond at all, as they were ei-ther rest-ing or try-ing to re-build. He had to wres-tle with his body, twist-ing in odd ways to use the mus-cles that would an-swer him, but soon enough, he was sit-ting up and lean-ing against a wall, breath-ing heav-i-ly, and he felt a feel-ing like blood drip-ping down the side of his face from a puls-ing wound that he was too tired to pre-cise-ly lo-cate.

  He ig-nored it all, and closed his eyes, try-ing to use the pain as a fo-cus with-out let-ting it cor-rupt his will.

  There is a rea-son, he in-sist-ed, strug-gling against the an-i-mal na-ture of his body. A rea-son why we must use qi now. I know I feel safe, but I'm not.

  The body's an-i-mal will backed it-self into a cor-ner, pre-pared to fight him. I would know if there were dan-ger, it seemed to say. I am wound-ed. If you are not on my side, you are an en-e-my. The in-tense wave of pain pro-duced by his move-ments rolled around his spir-it like a snarling dog. You can-not con-trol me. In-trud-er. Weak-ness. Foul tempter.

  Sobon took deep breath af-ter deep breath. In some ways, it was eas-i-er, and in oth-er ways hard-er, than try-ing to tame a wild an-i-mal. Eas-i-er, be-cause in a very real way, the body was him, and not just his; he could force it to act, as he had be-fore. But the more he did that, the more it would force his spir-it into con-flict; his body and his spir-it would not trust him, and would not re-act prop-er-ly when he need-ed them to.

  His in-struc-tors in the Mixed Ma-rine boot camps had made this very clear; when they told a re-cruit to stop strug-gling and ad-mit de-feat, it was an or-der. Forc-ing your-self and dam-ag-ing your spir-it could im-prove your pow-er in the mo-ment, but it could low-er your fu-ture aether sen-si-tiv-i-ty by a whole tier or more.

  Sobon, of course, had nev-er been a boot-camp in-struc-tor, and he didn't know how they de-tect-ed that a re-cruit was reach-ing that dam-age thresh-old. Nor was he a field medic who could de-tect it when it oc-curred, al-though he'd re-viewed the study cours-es on first aid, as every-one did. But even though he didn't know what was too far, he could tell he this was ex-act-ly the sort of sit-u-a-tion the boot camp steered away from. This was a mo-ment where push-ing too hard would dam-age some-thing.

  If only he was cer-tain that he had the time to wait.

  Sobon stead-ied him-self and pushed his own per-son-al spir-it into his body, con-nect-ing with his or-gans, his mus-cles, his bones, his skin, and with his itch-es and his wounds as well. Sobon had only been al-lowed to ad-vance from a class VI to a class IX cy-borg when he demon-strat-ed that he would not lose his sen-si-tiv-i-ty by sac-ri-fic-ing his flesh--when he demon-strat-ed that the most sen-si-tive parts of his body were his heart and brain. Oth-ers re-lied on in-stincts buried in var-i-ous oth-er parts of his body, but Sobon's sen-si-tiv-i-ty was a part of his very be-ing.

  What-ev-er had brought him into this body had pre-served that, per-haps ex-act-ly be-cause it was in-side of him all along.

  Sobon's will clamped down over his flesh, but not with iron teeth. His nerves surged not only with pain, but pan-ic, and he let them, his own spir-it mix-ing with his new body's, ex-ud-ing a sense of peace and trust. He knew why his flesh was re-act-ing bad-ly, and he wasn't go-ing to pun-ish it, but it would lis-ten. It must.

  The wave of pan-ic slowed, not quite enough to let him be per-fect-ly clear, but enough for him to gath-er the body's mud-dy qi into a ball. From that ball of en-er-gy, with great ef-fort, he ex-tract-ed the be-gin-nings of an-oth-er aether thread, a thread that he im-me-di-ate-ly wrapped into a loop. A throb of pain in his side dis-tract-ed him, and the loop failed to close; he dis-card-ed it, the sta-t-ic aether van-ish-ing as soon as he let it go, and he ex-tract-ed an-oth-er.

  And an-oth-er, and an-oth-er, be-fore fi-nal-ly, the thread ends met, and he spun this new dy-namo in the oth-er di-rec-tion.

  Sobon let out an ex-haust-ed, hiss-ing breath as he fi-nal-ly al-lowed him-self to re-lax once more. The sec-ond dy-namo took ef-fort to spin up, and keep spin-ning, but the spike it gen-er-at-ed felt warm and com-fort-ing, en-tire-ly dif-fer-ent to the cold and threat-en-ing left-hand-ed spike. The mo-ment he felt more than a speck of pow-er in that spike, he snapped it in half and fed one tiny bit into a wound-ed part of his spir-it, as a balm and re-ward for co-op-er-at-ing.

  It was too lit-tle for his body to ap-pre-ci-ate what he had done, but the right-hand-ed spike was at least com-pat-i-ble with his qi. Sobon, with ef-fort, forced him-self back down onto his bed, ig-nor-ing the odd feel-ing as the blood on his head be-gan flow-ing in a dif-fer-ent di-rec-tion, ig-nor-ing the puls-ing through-out his en-tire body as his or-gans threat-ened re-bel-lion over every move, every in-signif-i-cant change in his pos-ture and po-si-tion. He ig-nored every-thing and just lay back down on the hard sur-face, repo-si-tion-ing his blan-ket to keep him just a bit warmer, and then ig-nored all else and just fo-cused on spin-ning his two dy-namos and gath-er-ing the re-sul-tant en-er-gy in their spikes.

  He had no idea when the old man would be back, but he would do every-thing pos-si-ble to be ready in case he had to flee once more.