Croaker grunted. He stared at the papers he had been trying to read. He was bone-tired. "Nothing we can do about it now. Go get some sleep. We're going ourselves in a day or two."

"Uhn." I did not look forward to traveling, especially during wintertime. "I'm not really looking forward to this."

"Hey. I'm older and fatter than you are."

"But you'll be going toward something. Lady is down there."

He grunted unenthusiastically. Any more you had to wonder about his commitment to his woman. Ever since the trouble with Blade... None of my business. "Good night, Murgen."

"Yeah. Same to you, chief." He did not want to be civil, that was fine with me.

I headed for my apartment, though there was nothing for me there but a bed that would give me no rest. With Sarie gone the place was a wasteland of the heart.

I closed the door behind me, looked around like maybe she would jump out laughing and tell me it was all a bad joke. But the joke was not over yet. Mother Gota still had not finished cleaning up the mess left by the Strangler raid. And, pushy though she was, she had not touched anything in my work area, where I was still sorting the burned remains of several of these Annals.

I must have gone drifting with my thoughts. Suddenly I was aware that I was not alone. I got a knife out in half a heartbeat.

I was not in trouble. The three people staring at me belonged by family right. They were my in-laws, Sarie's brother Thai Dei with his arm in a sling, Uncle Doj and Mother Gota. Of the three only the old woman ever said much. And nothing she said was ever anything I wanted to hear. She could find the bad side of anything and complain about it forever. "What?" I asked.

Uncle Doj countered, "Did you drift away again?" He sounded troubled. "When did you go? Dejagore?"

"It wasn't that. That hasn't happened for a while." All three continued to stare at me like I had something hanging out of my nose. "What?"