Of Breaking Waves

By George Phillies

Five tween superheros were sent to circumnavigate the universe in order to save the world. The Wizard of Mars promised they were our best hope. They saved the world, Eclipse dying in the process, and now have returned home,only to learn that Eclipse has risen from the dead.

Meet the five:

Eclipse --
World's Greatest Tween Superhero
World's Most Terrifying Tween Supervillain
Opinions differ.
She's caring, daring, deadly
...and here to save our world
...though she knows that, win or lose, she will die trying.

She's twelve. She’s hardworking, bright, self-reliant, good with tools, vigorously physically fit, tough as nails, still young enough to disguise herself as a boy. She’s a persona – she flies, reads minds, and only on occasion blows up a nearby mountain range. Death will not stop her; she's already returned once.

Trisha Anson is not quite a year older than Eclipse. She’s friendly, considerate, really good in school, athletic, does more than her share around the house. She’s also the persona Comet. She has superspeed...an hour of housework in a minute. She flies, including across the universe in a long day. Trisha’s brother and sister are personas, too.

Trisha’s year-younger sister Janie Wells is a budding world chess and go champion. As the persona Aurora, she reads minds, sees distant events, and can kill with a glance.

Janie’s twin brother Brian Wells builds fantastic models from scratch. As the persona Star, he has a nearly unbreakable force field and summons plasma beams that cut battleships in half.

The enigmatic Cloud was given his powers by the Screaming Skull himself. He can summon lightning, titanic winds, and all-obscuring fog.

• Language: English
• Publisher: George Phillies
• Release date: Mar 6, 2024
• ISBN: 9798224906413

George Phillies

George Phillies is a retired Professor of Physics. He also taught in Biochemistry and in Game Design. His scientific research is focused on polymer dynamics. He also writes science fiction novels and books on politics. Books by George Phillies include:FictionThis Shining SeaNine GeesMinutegirlsThe One WorldMistress of the WavesAgainst Three LandsEclipse, The Girl Who Saved the WorldAiry Castles All AblazeStand Against the LightInpreparation: Practical ExerciseBooks on Game Design SeriesContemporary Perspectives in Game Design (with Tom Vasel)Design Elements of Contemporary Strategy Games(with Tom Vasel)Stalingrad for Beginners - How to PlayStalingrad for Beginners - Basic TacticsDesigning Board Wargames - IntroductionBooks on PoliticsStand Up for Liberty!Funding LibertyLibertarian RenaissanceSurely We Can Do Better?Books on PhysicsPhysics OneElementary Lectures in Statistical MechanicsPhenomenology of Polymer Solution DynamicsComplete Tables for ‘Phenomenology of Polymer Solution Dynamics’

Book preview

Chapter What Has Gone Before

We have reached the fourth and final book of the Eclipse cycle. Eclipse, The Girl Who Saved the World was followed by Airy Castles All ABlaze and Stand Against the Light.

Book One warns us:

Meet Eclipse.

World’s Greatest Tween Superhero.

World’s Most Terrifying Tween Supervillain.

Opinions differ.

Yes, meet Eclipse.

She's twelve. She’s hardworking, bright, self-reliant, good with tools, vigorously physically fit, tough as nails, still young enough to disguise herself as a boy.

She's also a superhero—persona, they're called on her time line. She flies, shrugs off bullets and artillery shells, and shatters fortifications with a glance. Her time line is almost like ours, if you ignore hordes of superheroes, the IncoAztecan Empire, the Russian Tsar, the Prussian Kaiser, the League of Nations, and a long list of past technological civilizations.

In Eclipse-The Girl Who Saved the World, Eclipse solved the Lesser Maze. Her prize was the Namestone, which gave her unlimited power to remake the world, bringing Paradise to Earth. She says the Namestone would better be called The Quintessence of Evil, and explains why. Her other prize from the Maze was getting beaten most of the way to death.

We soon meet Eclipse's friends, the three Wells children, Trisha (Comet-superfast flier, does all the housework), Janie (Aurora-mentalist, brilliant chess player), and Brian (Star-heavy-duty combatant, prefers building models). They've met Eclipse in disguise. They think she's Joe, the boy who plays the strategy game City of Steel with Janie. Trisha is suddenly in very deep trouble with her parents, and has no idea why.

The great game is full of players. The Great Powers. The League of Nations Peace Executive. The mysterious Lords of Eternity. Kniaz Kang's Shanghai Marco Polo restaurant. SpinDrift—the girl Eclipse's age who does not live in linear time.

All the world is changed by Eclipse's deed. The Lords of Eternity try to assassinate her. The Lords of Death try to kidnap Janie, because they think she knows Eclipse's secret identity. A high-power aerial battle ensues. The Aztecans attempt to kidnap the three Wells children. The lucky Aztecans die in combat. The others are taken by Morgan Le Fay for memory exfoliation. Mysterious personas and their indestructible giant flying jellyfish attack White Bluffs, Washington. SpinDrift summons and destroys a long-gone ancient tower; she then dies in Eclipse's arms. Wars erupt. Manjukuo and the IncoAztecan Empire invade America. Eclipse destroys the Namestone by flying it to the core of the Sun, almost dying in the process.

Finally the Wizard of Mars speaks. Eclipse and the three Wells children must fly across the universe, find the Two Dooms, and destroy them, or everyone in the world will die. They agree to go. Trisha extracts a price. She invokes the Heinlein Act to divorce her parents. The four take off, leaving their Earth behind them.

We now reach Book Two, Airy Castles All Ablaze. On Mars, the Wizard presents the heros with a StarCompass. They gain a fifth companion. The Wizard tells Eclipse that she will be Athena’s Spear and Shield. In her time line’s Greek Mythology, the Spear and Shield chose to be destroyed, their destruction saving the world. Eclipse will face the same choice. The flight takes the heros across the universe twice, interrupted by a battle between Eclipse and the Lords of Eternity.

The Five return to Earth, or what appears to be Earth. They rescue a space plane—they have never heard of one, and the elevators to geostationary orbit are missing—from orbit, finding the crew has no idea what superheroes are. Worse, Comet discovers that the Moon is now tide-locked to the Earth, so it no longer has a permanent dark side, and the pole star is now Thuban, not Phoenice. Eclipse visits one of the rescued astronauts and her family, finding that world history is completely different. She concludes that someone has done time travel and changed the past.

The StarCompass leads the Five to Victoria Wilson and Professor Alexander Pickering. Victoria is amazed to meet two of the people who rescued the space plane, but tells them about a drug dealer in the town jail. Four of the Five chase down his supplier. After a violent altercation, they drop him, his banker, his goons, their guns, and his drugs on the roof of the local police station. Eclipse meets Alexander Pickering, who offers to host the five travellers in return for being taken on a faster-than-light trip. Pickering introduces the Five to Victoria Wilson, who met a persona, Adara Triskittenion, here on Earth, and only almost got herself killed as a result. With Victoria’s help, Adara destroyed an alien invasion of Earth and then left for points unknown.

The Five soon affect our world. Their mission—we beat the Two Dooms or everyone dies—becomes public knowledge. Eclipse focuses on the possibility that a doom changed the past, so they are in the wrong present. She has gone through a great deal in a few months, and struggles with living with her situation. Around them, random acts of violence are driving the world toward a general war. Having concluded that it was immoral to rely on Pickering’s hospitality, they look for ways personas can raise money. They identify catching criminals and taking pictures of foreign aircraft. Under their laws, if you catch a criminal, you get to keep his money, less anything with an identifiable owner. The Five then spend time dealing with minor issues, until their trade with a major newsmagazine succeeds. They receive a map and details of a small Caribbean Island entirely under the control of drug smugglers. The smugglers have bribed local judges, which to Eclipse makes them a corruption upon this Earth, something to be removed from the span of creation. The Five raid the island, nearly wiping out the smugglers and taking all their money, an act legal under their world’s laws.

Eclipse traces the drug smugglers, starting at a low level and working up. They reach a conspiracy of the New Incas, the country that overran Western South America and that is now filling America with terrorist groups. The New Inca leaders turn out to be creatures, not human beings. The New Incans are traced back to an alien base city in South America, a city with superscientific protections that the five destroy. Eclipse considers that she only blew up part of a major mountain range, so she wasn’t excessively destructive.

Book Three is Stand Against the Light. Where is the other doom? The Five are at first busy building a secret base. Meanwhile, the Chinese government is dealing with an incomprehensible invasion of Tibet, something that removes all human beings in its path, accompanied by massive property destruction, but that goes largely unseen. When invader wreckage is recovered, it makes no sense.

Aurora accidentally discovers that Pickering’s estate is populated by creatures from a parallel time line. The vrijn are not dryads, quite, but they are very long-lived, and prefer living in forests. Some of them knew Adara Triskittenion, and present her tale, why she had fled to our Earth, and her perspective on Victoria Wilson’s experiences.

Eclipse asks the American government for help in finding the other doom. She is led to small groups of strange people armed with flaming swords who appear and kill people, seemingly at random. With American intelligence support, Eclipse catches these groups in the act and stops them. The Chinese government decides that it has no remaining alternatives, so it asks Eclipse and company to help them against the invaders, now known to include giant flying jellyfish. The jellyfish exist in dimensions perpendicular to ours, and are difficult to damage. The Five manage to kill them. Eclipse then destroys the hidden city and secret bases of the invaders.

At this point, the second doom manifests itself. Mentalic chants are heard in the sky. It’s not one, but three invincible star demons. In the history of the Five’s world, a single star demon appears, destroys a world civilization, and sometimes is killed by the Lords of Eternity. Eclipse now understands the Wizard of Mars’ warning: She is Athena’s Spear and Shield, foredoomed to die in combat against three demons, but perhaps able to take them with her. Her four friends can do almost nothing to help. When the demons approach, she goes up against them. Her friends see her body disappear in the heat of combat, but the demons also die. The surviving heros then return to their time line. Cloud chooses to disappear. Morgana Lafayette presents Comet with a home on the California coast, near her new school. Star and Aurora are reunited with their parents. The two supply Krystal North with the scheme for killing sky jellyfish, ending the last doom on their time line. At the very end of the book, Eclipse returns.

We have now reached the fourth and final Eclipse book, Of Breaking Waves.

Chapter 1—From Beyond Space and Time

Eclipse

An Island in the Pacific

Very gradually I swam back to consciousness. I was lying on my stomach, my head resting on one arm. The background noise was heavy rain, beating on roofs, pouring off eaves, rushing through downspouts, pittering and pattering against innumerable leaves, splishing and splashing across the ground. I tried to roll over. Muscles screamed in protest. I rolled back onto my stomach.

Where was I? Close enough to a house wall that I was dry, no matter the heavy rain I could hear all around me.

Where was I? I was cold as all get-out. At least my padded jacket hadn’t gotten soaked. I forced myself to open my eyes. It was dark, the dark of a darkling twilight under slate-grey clouds. Below me was rough-finished lumber. No, I was lying on the plastic composite Pickering’s world uses for decks and porches.

Where was I? A distance out from the house were thick woods. I squeezed my eyes shut and opened them again. The trees came into focus. Now I recognized where I was. This was the base that Comet and friends built—OK, I helped a bit. Coming here made perfect sense. No one on Pickering’s world knew where we were. Ignoring the pain, I rolled on my side and sat up, pulling my knees into my chest. The world tipped left and right...no, the effort left me dizzy.

I really ought to stop doing this to myself, I thought. You’re twelve, I told myself, an age where your persona adventures should involve rescuing kittens from low trees, no matter that you know perfectly well that the kittens will get down by themselves and learn from the experience. Your adventures have been a bit more demanding.

Without thinking, I checked my Medico rules engine. The dead-black glyphs were now pure white. I wasn’t dead any more. Some glyphs that normally didn’t do anything were yellow, warning of serious stress. I’d done something, something involving extremely demanding physical labor, and reached complete muscle exhaustion. I needed food, water, and warmth. Rest would also be good. Sitting here would not get any of them.

Somehow my body had returned. Very odd. The Medico gift claimed that I’d been born a few hours ago, had been unconscious since, and a few hours was how old I now am. That seemed seriously unlikely. Medico also reported that since being born I’d had chills to the edge of having convulsions. I’d pushed way too deep into my gifts. I hadn’t torn any muscles or shredded any ligaments, but I’d come close. That’s the bad part of weight training, not that I do weights to crazy levels. If I have muscle spasms, I can seriously wreck myself up. The matching good part from all that weight lifting is that I have all those muscles, so I hadn’t fallen into hypothermia and died after reaching here.

I’d died, hadn’t I, facing the Star Demons? I remembered dropping my mind out-of-body via astral projection, just before my former body raised itself to an inconceivably high temperature, but I was still fighting, still more-or-less controlling my gifts. The Star Demons died. My astral projection ran out of steam and fell apart. That should have been my death, final and total.

No, there’d been something afterwards, something that the people who live at the bottom of the Well of Infinity told me. They told me how to return here. They warned: The return trip does not happen in linear time. I couldn’t remember the return until it happened, and it hadn’t happened yet. I’d need a while before I remembered it.

I sat, arms wrapped around knees, waiting to recover a bit more. As the darkling clouds faded into night, I found that I could push against a wall, walk myself upright, and stagger to a door. Kitchen door. No lights inside. I rang the doorbell, then knocked once and again. No answer. I wasn’t up to doing a mindscan. Null links? My null links to the three Wells children were dead. The Wells children, Comet, Star, and Aurora, weren’t here. They weren’t anywhere. Had they died? They might have, while I was, well, not dead, but someplace else. Or had I been dead? My physical body had been destroyed. My ideonic dual survived. Now I had my body back. Okay, I had some body back. Comet and kin might be in another universe. I finally thought to try the door latch. Unlocked. I pushed on it. The door swung open. I didn’t quite fall on my face, but only because my coat sleeve snagged on the door handle. The motion detector noticed my movement and turned on the lights. The sudden brightness hurt.

A note lay on the breakfast room table, weighted by a tea mug. I managed to reach it, catching myself on the table top before I instead of collapsing onto the floor.

Eclipse, it began. We’re sure you died killing the Invincible Star Demons. You were Athena’s Spear and Shield, just like the Wizard of Mars promised. You gave your life to save the world, when no one else could stop the Demons. Together we found how to beat the Tibet Doom. Maybe I should say you found it, many attacks at the same time, in the strange right directions, and we got it to work for all of us. We saved Tibet. We agreed to fly back. I said we had to leave this note. It’s for you to read. We might be wrong about you being dead. I don’t see how, but we could be wrong. If you’re alive, I know the flight back is a real killer for you. I don’t know how to fix that. You could stay here. The house should run on automatic for a long time. We’re gone. The house is yours, if you want it. We all mourned for you. Sadly, Aurora.

There followed a note from Cloud. He wrote in High Goetic. His Goetic grammar wasn’t perfect, but his message was clear. He told me where all the money was hidden, in a language no one here and now could possibly know how to read. After all, Goetica Arcana hadn’t happened here. Or yet. Or something. I compared dates on the note and the wall clock—weird that Pickering’s world’s electric clocks display date as well as time. I’d been not-exactly-dead for three days. They’d be home by now.

I sat and slumped across the table, too tired to do anything. I made myself drink a large glass of water. The living room held a long couch. I dragged myself to it, pulled a comforter over me, and fell sound asleep.

Early the next morning I drifted back to awareness. If I’d had dreams, I didn’t remember them. This isn’t home, I thought, the place I’d rather be, but it’s safe and warm. Home was the keyword. My presets triggered. I called astral projection, once again taking my mind outside its mortal shell. I wished that trick would get easier with practice, but it hadn’t. Leaving my body, momentarily, would break almost any mind control traps someone had implanted in me. Mind scan sifted through my thoughts and memories, looking for things that did not belong. The scan moves with the speed of thought, but it has a lot of mind to scan. Meanwhile I floated a few inches above my face, listening to my breath, slow and shallow, and staring into my unseeing silver eyes and platinum-white locks. White? The hair dye had vanished.

Mindscan started giving warnings. What had it found? There was a mind control scheme. The scheme was no longer in my mind. It had failed to cross over when my body was destroyed. I let mindscan trace out the spider-web of holes, gaps in my thoughts where the control had been implanted. Of the mind control scheme itself, absolutely nothing remained, only the rotten emptiness where it had lurked. My body shuddered as mindscan deleted the gaps.

What had the mind control scheme been doing? I couldn’t tell. Nothing was left of it. How had I missed it? The control scheme had always been there, even looking back to memories of my first breath. It had infiltrated my mindscan gift, so I couldn’t see it. Now that the mind control process was gone, I could see where the process had been. How had Mum not detected and stopped it, back when I was a toddler? That made no sense.

I thought I was brave, but I was seriously frightened. What-all might I have been compelled to do? So far as I could tell, the control scheme hadn’t forced me to do something. It just kept me from knowing something. If I heard or saw whatever it was, the mind control scheme deleted it, and papered over the gap in my awareness.

Suddenly I remembered how I got here. I had been at the bottom of The Well of Infinity. The Well snapped shut. Wherever I was, the sky changed in an instant from deep twilight to bright and sunny, except there was no sun and no sky. When I looked up, I could see the ideon for sky, not the sky itself, but it looked exactly like a perfect sky. Whatever I had been wearing was gone, replaced by long flowing robes, drooping sleeves, and a hood that covered my hair and ears. I took a step. As I moved, the robes flowed out of the way, so that the robe never tripped me.

Welcome to the true world, younger daughter. The voice was not quite directly behind me. I whirled, to find myself facing the elderly Nipponese gentleman with the sword. He wore an elaborate set of polychrome robes, all the colors of the rainbow, with a chrysanthemum embroidered on each shoulder. He smiled. I smiled back and bowed. It seemed to be the right thing to do.

He shook his head. It is I who should be bowing to you, he said, though you don’t exactly belong here. I am Duty. And this young lady, the girl from the barrow was all at once at his shoulder, is Life’s End. She was dressed all in black, and still had her perky smile. Her skin was very pale.

I’m Eclipse, I answered, But that’s a name, not a ideon. I think. Or was it? This place was much more real than it had been, before I died. Or whatever I’d just done.

You eclipsed Solara, as your garb promised, Life’s End answered. You eclipsed the three ideonic monsters. But...

She put a hand out. There was a barrier between us, not a force field, not something I was doing, that kept her from touching me.

...you do not share my ideon. I cannot bring you to the next plane, this one. You’re alive. And you’re here. That’s unusual. I’ll have to ask The Needful Answer to explain.

I seem to be here, I answered. The Well closed. Do I wait for it to open, or is there another way home for me?

Do you have a need to return? Duty asked. Most people who come here find they are happy to stay.

If not here, in the Eternal Park, Life’s Ending added. She gestured and at her hand were green fields, rolling hills, banks of flowers, trees full of fruit, a marble-pillared building within which I could see more books than I could imagine, people of all ages talking, playing games, watching what looked to be a play, a field with riding horses and other animals I didn’t recognize, and in the distance enormously tall mountains covered with deep powder snow perfect for skiing. I could smell steaks and lamb chops grilling, someplace out of line of sight.

I tried to imagine wanting to stay in this place. It truly was beautiful. The pain that had laced my body was gone. Duty somehow seemed to be a kindred spirit. ...heavier than worlds, I answered. I still have obligations.

Ten thousand years! Duty whispered. But I do not know the way.

I do, Life’s End said. I can tell you, Eclipse, though you may regret the learning of it. Alas, Duty, I will speak, but you are required by the laws of nature not to hear.

As always, Duty answered.

Tell me, I answered. Please?

You must walk north, north and up, Life’s Ending said. The mountains will become colder and colder, darker and darker. You will reach a place where the blackness is total, where the cold surpasses all imagination, where the pain of breathing is an agony without end. You must persevere. Finally you will reach the slope down, along which you will slip and slide, stopping just before you slide off the overhang. Be sure you stop, or you will fall and die. The light will come from behind you—do not look to see where it comes from, or you will surely die. Be not concerned with the Infinite Arch. Instead you must gather up your courage and leap forward, pushing away from the overhang. The fall will be many miles. You will be unable to fly.

I swallowed. Thank you for answering my question, however much it may hurt me. And I’m happy finally to have met both of you. I’ve seen you both here often enough.

Go now! Go quickly! Duty ordered. Go! Or you will fail!

I waved good-by to them, then did as I was told. The thought that ideons, the Platonic ideal representations of ideas, were not only solid here, but were living beings, was beyond my understanding. Or were they the living Primal Forces mentioned once and again in the Arcana Goetica?

The climb was so terrible that I could barely face memories of it. It was so dark that the phosphenes vanished from behind my eyelids. It was so cold that I froze solid, but could still move. The air filled my lungs with tiny knives, sharp as diamond shards. I could hear the crunch of frozen lung when I breathed. Finally I reached the top and slid downward, fast stepping to kill my not-quite-fall. I stopped short of the edge and stood on an overlook. Forested hills that stretched out forever were far below me. A huge, elaborate, aluminum arch more miles high than seemed possible rose to my left. A crystal sphere filled with sapphire fire hung from the arch’s keystone. It was not the Namestone, but something of which the Namestone was a feeble, twisted echo. As promised, light came from behind me. I told myself not to look over my shoulder. Instead, I walked ahead. It was a very long way down. Gathering my courage, I leaped off the edge. I fell. And fell. And fell.

And woke to find myself on a porch, the sound of rainfall flooding my ears.

It was interesting to learn that I could come back from death, if I did everything right, but as one American philosopher had said, 'if it weren’t for the honor of the thing'—in his case, being tarred, feathered, and ridden out of town on a rail—'I'd as well do without it.' I heartily agree. Perhaps I only get to climb that mountain once. Perhaps I'm not up to climbing it again.

But that climb explained why every muscle was sore. I'd climbed and climbed, albeit in my ideonic body, a body made of ideas, not atoms, a body of which my real body is some sort of mirror image. It was still a real climb, a climb for which the description 'Glory Does Everest' came to mind, except Everest is much too low to the ground. I'd climbed almost forever. Some of my Medico glyphs flickered randomly from color to color. I'd completely exhausted myself. My energy reserves, the energy that lets me call on my gifts, were nearly empty. Perhaps I'd been reborn with them entirely drained.

By now Comet and friends, the four of them, would be back home. They would be enjoying the benefits that I would not, assuming I ever got back to my farm house. Star and Aurora would be re-united with their parents, Morgana and if need be the Speaker would ensure that Comet was safely housed near her new school, Cloud would see his mother and father, something that I ... I groaned with pain. Mum had warned me that overcoming a memory block, all the missing memories coming back at once, was agonizing, because the memories struck from within with absolutely no warning. No surprise. She was right.

For a few moments I was seeing double, with blank areas where the eye actually does not see anything. I closed my eyes, waited, and things were back to normal. Normal, except I knew what the mind control had done. All my life, I had been unable to think about a fact: I had a father as well as a mother. Any time someone made a reference to my dad, about whom I know nothing, the words were papered over, so that I simply did not hear them, and wasn't aware that I hadn't heard them. Mum never spoke a word that would trigger the mind control. More recently, now that I thought about it, Aurora had noticed that I couldn't hear certain words, and steered people away from using them.

But why the control? It was one more oddity in my past. Of course, if I wanted to court death to find the answer, I had but to fly to Mars and ask the Wizard of Mars. He would probably be willing to tell me, if I paid his fee. His enormous, life-threatening fee. I've done a quite adequate number of suicidal stunts in my life, thank you, including flying to the starcore, treading the Maze, and taking on three Star Demons single-handed, but I had good reasons for making those choices. Asking the Wizard of Mars a seemingly pointless question would be just as suicidal, but the reward would surely be much smaller.

Perhaps, I thought, I should worry about more practical matters. Dinner came immediately to mind. Lurking in the freezer were a series of sealed containers, each labelled in Star's ornate handwriting with a date and indication of contents. I dropped the first one into the microwave oven, and set the table while I was waiting for the slow defrost cycle and fast heat cycle to do their things. I would miss fresh vegetables, but his cooking was wonderful.

Meanwhile, I was alone with my thoughts. You courted death once too often and paid the price. Except somehow you got away with dying, and are still here. How often did you court meeting Life's Ending? Saving Comet and Aurora when you were all of ten. Doing the Lesser Maze. Dodging the welcoming committee when you reached the Maze's exit. Flying to the center of the Sun. Disposing of the Lords of Death. The Aztecan invasion really wasn't that dangerous. Taking Plasmatrix one-on-one, when her friends were helping her. Blowing up two mountain ranges, including fighting off the solar coretap ray. Helping kill the sky jellyfish. Killing three not-so-invincible Star Demons. Going below the bottom of the Well of Infinity. There seemed to have been a remarkable number of lucky coincidences in there. I was exactly prepared for what the Maze turned out to do. SpinDrift's drain, while we were dealing with the Lords of Death, almost fried me. It also prepared me for the much deeper draws on my gifts I've needed since then. And where had a French book dealer found a copy of the Presentia? All very odd.

Some people might say that was excessive, I said aloud, speaking to myself. Thank you, I'll be happy never to do anything like that again. Unfortunately, at a fair guess, I have several more death-dodging adventures to go, starting with flying home. Speaking of home, I need a couple of days rest, at which point the freezer will be empty. It will be time for homeward bound, but first I need to thank Alex Pickering for everything he'd done for us.

Chapter 2—Eclipse and Pickering

Pickering, Eclipse

Pickering's Palazzo Splenderoso

Late evening. The sky was dark. The full moon, partly masked by scudding clouds, illumined the silhouette of an ancient pine. Pickering, alone in his study, worked at his desk, pausing once and again to admire the baleful flicker of the moon's reflection from his dark and wind-swept lake. Line after line of text marched across the monitor as his latest monograph acquired another chapter.

A window opened in the display, Telzey's ever-smiling visage in its center. "Guten abend, Herr Doktor Professor," she announced. "Contingency salted caramel ice cream has been activated. A visitor has entered the west gazebo from unknown direction."

Display visual, west gazebo, full screen. Pickering ordered. The contingency name was an alleged dessert concoction so hideous in its taste that it would never be mentioned accidentally, at least by him. Whatever now happened would not be recorded in Telzey's permanent memory. Is Comet back? She hadn't expected to return, but just before she left him for the last time she had warned that there was the slightest chance that her return would become necessary.

At the five-sigma level, it is Miss Eclipse, Telzey responded.

To Pickering, that outcome seemed unlikely. Having your body vaporized ought to be fatal, even for the hardiest of superheroes. The computer's smiling face was replaced by a video image of the porch. The outside lights were dim, but the cape and silver-white hair left little doubt as to the visitor's identity. Eclipse was clutching the railing, leaning on it to support her weight. Slowly, she straightened her back.

Now, Pickering thought, I remember that of which I cannot speak, for the memories are gone if I try, the memories that only happen when she is here When first we met, I knew not to fear her presence, but did not know why. Now I remember why, but cannot speak of it.

Telzey, outside lights ... no, cancel! Cancel! Pickering said emphatically. Outside pinlights, full garden, off! Kitchen and breakfast room, lights off! Let us not, Pickering thought, alert everyone spying on me to the fact that I have a guest, one about whom they would rather not hear. One I was sure I would never see again. That's especially the case when the guest is dead and buried, even if her burial was purely symbolic. In particular, let us not call their attention to my doors, opening and closing.

He skipped down the stairs to his house's first floor. Swinging open the side door, he met a wan, thinner Eclipse. Her smile was visibly forced.

I came to apologize,she said. I promised we'd be gone days and days ago. They went; I didn't. Actually, I wasn't here to leave. I would've gone, if I could've done it. I just couldn't.

Come in! It's cold out there. And you don't owe apologies. Aurora told me what happened. You killed three Star Demons, and they seemed to have taken you with them. He led the unprotesting girl through his kitchen, swaddled her in a comforter, and urged her into a window seat. The girls were convinced you'd been expanded into incandescent plasma. If you are unwell, I could arrange for you to be hospitalized, though local clinical experience with personae is, let us say, limited.

Limited? Nonexistent? Publishable? Eclipse burst into giggles, paled, and clutched her side. Sorry. My joints still hurt if I move fast. Too much mountain climbing. No, that's real kind of you, me not having insurance or anything. But you don't need to. Besides, what could your people do? You can't even X-ray me; I'm, like, totally opaque to X-rays. It's not that I haven't been banged up before. I found a quiet place. Spending a few days lying there, resting, fixed everything serious.

Did you have enough food with you? Are you hungry now? Pickering asked.

I had good cooking, not mine, Eclipse explained. And in a pinch I don't have to eat, though that trick is not good for a growing girl. But I hate to impose on you. I came here to apologize, not to mooch another meal.

I am entirely capable of directing unwelcome freeloaders to the door, Pickering responded. You, on the other hand, saved my world from great misfortune and are a guest. You are surely welcome in almost any home in these United States, save for a few occupied by judges and Congressmen. I fear that my references to your hanging corrupt political officials frightened them, especially after you and your friends strung up several. Would steak and salad do? I have a cous-cous, a bit hot with curry and ginger, and imam bayildi—eggplant and tomatoes and olive oil. And that is as close, Pickering thought, as I can get to the matter of which I cannot speak.

Her eyes lit up. It sounds great! But me? Welcome? Eclipse was utterly astonished.

Of course. You're a hero, Pickering said. If you hadn't done— what you did—the Star Demons would have killed us all. Not to mention the other matter, he thought.

Your people? Eclipse wondered. Yeah, the Tibetan Empire was just setting up its production lines. And force walls and antimatter bombs are a lot more effective against a single target—Comet and me—not that it did them any good—than against flocks of aircraft, no matter that they wrecked up the Chinese Air Force. So you would've won against the Tibetans, I guess, if they hadn't summoned the Star Demons, but lots of your people would've died. That's assuming, she thought, that the demons were summoned by the Tibetans and not the Andes invaders. I'm not sure of that.

We know, Pickering said. My whole country knows, now. You would be a beloved heroine, welcome in any home in the land, except for the minor detail that we gave you a state funeral.

Me? Welcome? Suddenly she produced a handkerchief from her cloak.

Pickering turned his back, making busy with cooking, letting the steak grill until her tears subsided.