Timothy Zahn - Triplet

"Yes, he would... and we both know how seriously he took that job. So don't feel guilty. Accept the debt, and make up your mind that you'll repay it in a thousand little ways to a thousand other people as you go through life. That's usually the only way we get to pay back something like this."

She nodded, dabbing at her eyes. It sounded so simple and so trite... but after two days of soulsearching she knew it was the best she was going to get. "Let's get off this subject, too, can we? Tell me how your own gauntlet went."

He shrugged, taking a sip of wine. "About as I expected. I'm officially out of the Courier Corps now."

"A flat dismissal?"

"A flat resignation," he corrected. "Quiet and peaceful, in exchange for them not pouring any heat onto Corah's head."

Danae bit at her lip, feeling more tears coming on. Ravagin's career, gone to dust. Like Hart, another debt for her to shoulder.

"You all right?" Ravagin asked.

"Yeah. I just—" She sighed. "It wasn't supposed to work out this way."

"What way is that? Happily ever after, with all the spirits of Karyx seeing the error of their ways and turning over a new page? Come on, Danae—you know the real world doesn't work that way.

Personally, I think all three of us getting out of this alive is a thoroughly rousing success."

"Hart's injuries and your unemployment notwithstanding?" she asked, a touch of bitterness creeping into her voice.

Ravagin reached across the table and took her hand. "We're all alive, and we've freed Shamsheer from the demon threat. Concentrate on that."

She took a deep breath. He was right, of course. "It still hurts. A lot."

He squeezed her hand tightly. "Learning how to hurt without giving up is part of what it means to be an adult."

She managed a smile. "That hurts, too."

A waiter appeared, and Danae realized she'd completely forgotten to look at the menu. No matter.

"We were in here a few days ago," she told him. "We'll have the same meal, only for two this time."

The other bowed and left, and she turned back to Ravagin to see him cock an eyebrow at her.

"Another council of war?" he asked.

"Is the war over?" she countered. "Really, I mean?"

He sighed. "I suppose not," he admitted. "We've won a battle, but the war still goes on. Whether we can do anything about that is open to question."

"We have no choice," she said. "That's why humanity was put here on Triplet—to control the spirits."

Ravagin frowned. "What do you mean?"

She nodded in the direction of the Tunnel. "I've been doing a lot of thinking, Ravagin. The Hidden Worlds aren't an experiment; they were a defense."

She hesitated, wondering if this was going to sound stupid. But Ravagin's eyes held no sign of ridicule. "A defense against the fourth world?" he asked quietly.

She licked her lips. "Yes. Karyx may even have been the original planet here, with some sort of weak spot between it and the spirits' dimension, before the builders created Shamsheer and Threshold to push it further back. The extra dimensions—and the way the Tunnels and telefolds were set up—put there as a barrier to keep them from flooding through to the universe as a whole."

Ravagin was staring out into space. "The sixes of Shamsheer," he said at last. "All those hexagons—

the Builders weren't so much interested in six-sided figures as they were in a lack of five-sided figures."

Danae hadn't gotten around to the hexagons in her own speculations. But now that she thought about it... "You mean five-sided figures as in pentagrams?"

"Think about it for a moment. Pentagrams are part of the focusing process for a lot of the spells on Karyx. Giving the people of Shamsheer a mindset oriented to sixes would tend to keep them from placing any significance in fives—which would automatically limit the possibilities for spirithandling."

"Which means... the builders knew that spirits could get through the telefolds." She shivered. "And they went ahead and put people there anyway."

"To control the spirits that got through, maybe." Ravagin shook his head slowly. "But why us?"

"I don't know," Danae said. "Maybe it's some innate ability to control spirits; maybe some defensive mechanism in the human psyche that lets us interact with them with a minimum of damage."

"Or maybe it's because we're fighters," Ravagin said slowly. "And they knew we wouldn't just accept spirit domination without a hell of a struggle."

She looked at him. "Then you're not giving up." It was a statement, not a question.

"Who ever said I was? Just because I'm not a Courier any more doesn't mean we can't fight the fourth world from out here. We can push for changes in the way personnel are assigned, the way Couriers and way house people are to operate on Karyx—all sorts of things." He eyed her soberly.

"That is, we can if you're willing to work with me. And to accept the burdens you've worked so hard these past few years to get away from."

She smiled wanly. The burdens. The money, the family name, the influence—all the things she'd hated for not having earned them. But perhaps she could see them now in a new light. "They're not burdens," she said quietly. "They're tools. Tools there to be used."

Letting go of her hand, Ravagin picked up his wine glass. "Welcome to maturity," he said, raising it up.

"I'm an adult," she said, lifting her own glass and tapping his. "Maturity is just part of that job."

They drank.