C. Cherryh: Chernevog

“She’s scared,” he said, wishing with all his heart he could do something, “she’s so damned scared… But if it wasn’t right, the House-thing would do something, wouldn’t he? He’d let us know.”

“He’d know,” Sasha assured him.

But something strange happened then. He felt ’Veshka’s startlement, that made his heart jump, and he shoved the door open. Something black was lying on the covers of the bed.

The ball of fur lifted his head from his paws, looked up at him with round, solemn eyes, and got up and snuggled next to the baby in Eveshka’s arms.

Babi was back. Babi approved of this arrival in the house.

Assuredly Babi did.

C.J. Cherryh was born in St. Louis, Missouri, but has spent most of her life in Oklahoma. She now lives in Oklahoma City. She has a BA in Latin, an MA in Classics, plus additional language courses; she also qualified in field archeology, but never practiced. She was a professional translator in French, and has taught Latin, Greek, and Ancient History.

Her first novel, Gate of Ivrel, was published in 1976, and she quickly became a leading writer of both fantasy and science fiction. She received two Hugo Awards, one for her short story, Cassandra, and the second for her novel, Downbelow Station. Her novel Rusalka was published by Del Rey in 1989.

In her own words:

“I write full time; I travel; I try things out. I’ve outrun a dog pack in the hills of Thebes and seen Columbia lift on her first flight. I’ve fallen down a cave, nearly drowned, broken an arm; been kicked by horses, fended off an amorous merchant in a tent bazaar, slept on deck in the Adriatic, and driven Piccadilly Circus at rush hour. I’ve waded in two oceans and four of the seven seas, and I want to visit the Amazon, the Serengeti, and see the volcano in Antarctica. I can read history in a potsherd, observe time in a stream-bank, and function in a gadget ancient or modern—none of which has ever cured me of losing my car keys or putting things together before I read the instructions.”

Sale of this book without a front cover may be unauthorized. If this book is coverless, it may have been reported to the publisher as “unsold or destroyed” and neither the author nor the publisher may have received payment for it.

A Del Rey Book

Published by Ballantine Books

Copyright © 1990 by C.J. Cherryh

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. Published in the United States of America by Ballantine Books, a division of Random House, Inc., New York, and simultaneously in Canada by Random House of Canada Limited, Toronto.

Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 90-559

ISBN 0-345-37351-0

Manufactured in the United States of America

First Hardcover Edition: October 1990

First Mass Market Edition: October 1991

Cover Art by Keith Parkinson