"Damn!"

"I agree. I have faced this problem before in my travels. It does notlend itself to ready resolution."

The guisel began to move again. I tried to maintain the Trump contactbut it was fading. "Father!" Ghostwheel cried as I lost hold. "Try--" Thenhe was gone. I backed away. I glanced at Rhanda. Dozens of other shroudlingsnow stood with her, all of them wearing black, white, or red garments. Theybegan to sing a strange, dirgelike song, as if a dark soundtrack wererequired for our struggle. It did seem to slow the guisel, and it remindedme of something from long ago.

I threw back my head and gave voice to that ululant cry I had heardonce in a dream and never forgotten.

My friend came.

Kergma--the living equation--came sliding in from many angles at once.I watched and waited as he/she/it--I had never been certain--assembleditself. Kergma had been a childhood playmate, along with Glait and Gryll.

Rhanda must have remembered the being who could go anywhere, for Iheard her gasp. Kergma passed around and around her body in greeting, thencame to me and did the same.

_"My friends! It has been so long since you called me to play! I havemissed you!"_

The guisel dragged itself forward against the song of the shroudlingsas if beginning to overcome its power. "This is not a game," I answered."That beast will destroy us all unless we nail it first," I said.

_"Then I must solve it for us. Everything that lives is an equation, acomplex quantum study. I told you that long ago."_

"Yes. Try. Please."

I feared blasting the thing again with the spikard while Kergma workedon it, lest it interfere with his calculations. I kept my blade and spikardat ready as I continued to back away. The shroudlings retreated with me,slowly.

_"A deadly balance,"_ Kergma said at last. _"It has a wonderful life