Whenever we are sued, and each time some nation's anti-cult laws are unleashed … my organization and I are forced to defend ourselves, in court as well as the public eye. Time and again, we have opened our books and our facilities. Outside auditors have scoured every aspect of the Project, and there has never been any hint that money has been misplaced or misused. Nobody is growing rich on the backs of children. Believe me. And as for these allegations that I'm enslaving impressionable young minds … well, we can debate the meanings of "enslave" until we are breathless. Or I can gracefully accept responsibility for having a role, maybe an important role, in the development of millions of young and promising lives …

—Philippe Rule, interview

We were sitting inside my tiny office—a professor and his best student trading profundities and gossip. It's the old college tradition, honorable and occasionally useful.

"I can agree about the bullshit," I mentioned. "But really, I don't have too many strong feelings about Rule's project. As long as it obeys the law and leaves my family alone—"

"You've got a nephew, don't you? A kid named Tom?"

I tried not to appear surprised.

"Yeah, I ran into him this summer. Working at the Omega Site."

Professors don't like to confess to gaps in their encyclopedic minds. But my confusion must have shown.

"The Omega Site," the young man repeated, relishing his advantage. "It's the biggest artifact on web-Mars. A mountain-sized starship. Some billion years old, nearly." Then he seemed to hear his own words, and with a dismissive laugh, he added, "I know. The whole bastard's just eight years old, and it's nothing but someone's tangle of digital codes and puzzles and shit."

"So what do you do there?" I inquired.

The student was tall and leggy—a gifted junior on track to graduate a full year early. With a wide grin, he admitted, "We gather there. We talk. And of course, there's teams that you can work on, trying to piece together the mystery of that artifact."

Again, he was shifting back into the language of a believing child.

"And you met my nephew?" I asked.

"Yeah, he's what? Sixteen?" With a long-limbed shrug, he admitted, "The software put me on his team. By chance, maybe. But more likely, the AIs noticed I was at this school, and they assumed Tom and I would have common ground. Because of you, I mean."

"I don't see my nephew much," I confessed.

I never had, I could have said.

"How is Tom?" I inquired.

"Doing great," he sang out. "Yeah, in fact, he was my team leader." The young man giggled, pleased to report, "The kid's way, way up the chain of command. From what I hear, he's barely a couple, three rungs away from Philippe's inner circle."

"He's been at this for years—"

"And he's generous," my student interrupted. "His folks must have some impressive money. Judging by his gifts."

I didn't make a sound.

"Anyway," my student continued. "He warned me. Tom did. He said you aren't all that in love with our work."

"I just think it's a waste, in a lot of ways."

The young face absorbed the news without blinking. In fact, he seemed pleased to hear my harsh assessment.

"Billions of dollars have been poured into Rule's scheme," I continued. "And what do you have to show for it?"

"The launch pad in the Pacific," he offered. "Factories and test facilities in twenty countries. Millions of devoted supporters, and millions more who give a few dollars to be able to play on web-Mars."

"What exactly have you launched from your Pacific base?"

"A shitload of automated probes—"

"Half of which didn't even make it to Mars." I shook my head, reminding him, "Three landers lost contact with the Earth. And that was just this year."

"Space is a tough neighborhood," he admitted. "But we're learning. We've had some successful launches with our heavy boosters. And our orbiting habitat has kept its monkeys alive for nearly three years."

"All those billions spent—" I began.

"Eight years ago, we had nothing," he countered, beginning to bristle. "We've gotten less than no help from every government. Every piece of machinery has to be built from scratch, by us. And since nobody lets us have nuclear rockets—"

"Do you blame us?"

"Not that much. No." He laughed with a forced amiability. "It's just that we're forced to make some fat concessions. Chemical fuels only, and payload limits, and once we get into space, there's all sorts of orbital restrictions. We're going to have to be clever to get around your stumbling blocks."

"I haven't put anything in your way."

He looked at me for a long moment, and then remembered to smile. "You know what I mean."

"Mars is going to throw up its own barriers," I reminded him.

My student seemed to recall where his grades came from. "I can appreciate your perspective," he said. "I really do. And I'm not like your nephew. Not much. The Project is just one possible route to Mars. Someday, with us or without us, someone is going to walk on its surface and return home again."

I hesitated, and then asked, "What does Tom do exactly? As a team leader, I mean."

"He oversees the puzzle solvers."

"What's the puzzle?"

"I can't give you details," he told me with a sharp, virtuous smile.

"Just the basics, then."

"We're trying to learn everything we can about the pilots and the crew of that ancient starship."

"You're talking about fictional aliens," I reminded him.

Shrugging his shoulders, my student said, "Point taken." But he was still flashing the incandescent smile of a true believer.

—Philippe Rule, interview

Very gave me a disapproving frown. Then she turned to her mother, asking, "How do I look? Really."

"Don't you believe your father?" Hanna inquired.

"He always says, 'Beautiful.'"

"You think I'm dishonest?" I teased.

"Mom? Just tell me!"

"We have arrived," our car announced with a soft little voice.

The park lay far below the surrounding land. This had once been the basement of some great old building, but my sister and her husband had bought the ground for the simple purpose of building a sunken garden—a wealth of color and fishponds meant to bring good fortune to those about to be married within its borders. My sister was standing in the parking lot. She saw us roll up and greeted us with one arm waving, demanding our immediate attention. My oldest niece stood before her, dressed in a shimmering, almost metallic white gown. The girl looked tired and happy, and nervous enough to puke, and spoiled in that deeply intoxicating way that only brides can be spoiled.

"You look fine," Hanna finally told our daughter. "I think you're even lovely."

With a musical chirp, our daughter said, "I know," and laughed, leaping from the car. "Thanks, Mom."

Veronica was twelve and absolutely in love with life. She sprinted past her distracted aunt and down a set of limestone stairs—a pretty tomboy forced to wear a pretty girl's frilly dress—and watching her, I felt the old aches and worries, and a sturdy clean pride that took too much credit for my daughter's happiness.

Very was going to trip and fall down those stairs.

I knew it. With every careless stride, that horrific image presented itself to me. But somehow she survived to the bottom, bolting across the grassy glade toward a pair of cousins, and my consuming fear simply changed its face now. I breathed, and breathed, and with an old man's gait, I started after her.

"You're late," my sister observed, not quite looking at me.

And before I could reply, Iris barked, "Flatten, dress. Get the crease out, under my hand. Here!"

The dress complied.

My little sister rose to her feet, satisfied for this very brief moment. She looked exhausted but focused. "I can't find Tom," she began. "He's going to be an usher. He's supposed to fly in this morning. From Paris, I think. But I haven't seen him. Would you go look for him, Wes?"

I must have hesitated.

"Or you can baby-sit Dad," she offered. Then with a malicious grin, she added, "He's been smoking his favorite weed again. By the way."

"I'll find Tom," I replied.

"Hurry," she called. And then with a distinctly more patient tone, she began talking to the wedding dress again.

The garden was filled with newborn flowers—enormous and colorful and oftentimes impossible species born from biology and electrochemical metabolisms. In nature, nothing could so brilliant, so gloriously wasteful. But this foliage was tied into the city's power grid, feeding on raw electricity. Sunshine was little more than a convenient museum light helping each plant display its majesty and wild colors. Perfumes and more subtle pheromones gave the air a rich wondrous stink. On this business of modern horticulture, I have always been of ten minds. Nine minds are against it, but there is always this other voice, whispering, "Stop now, and look. Isn't it incredible?"

Rows of white chairs and a simple white archway had been erected on the biggest patch of an emerald-green moss. A few guests had already arrived, standing at the edges, impatiently waiting for someone to tell them where to sit.

Under my breath, I whispered, "Tom."

Louder, but not loud, I called out, "Tom."

His brothers stood beside a rectangular fishpond, girls on their arms. Everyone looked happy and distracted. Then I came up behind them, and the younger brother told me, "Very just flew through here. Then she flew off. I don't know where."

"I'm not looking for her," I confessed. "Where's Tom?"

"I don't know," he replied.

His girlfriend brightened. "I really want to meet him," she sang out.

"You will," he muttered.

Then she had to ask, probably for the umpteenth time, "Does Tom really know Philippe Rule?"

"Oh, yeah," he replied, rolling his eyes. "Yeah, those two are always hanging out together. Rule's got Tom sitting inside his wallet."

The brothers enjoyed a harsh laugh at Tom's expense.

The girl smiled nervously, trying to understand the meaning.

I grinned and moved on. Wasted stares at strangers taught me a lesson. I hadn't seen my nephew since last Christmas, and then only when the families met in our respective web-rooms. He was a twenty-year-old man now. He could have grown a beard, or he could have put his hair to sleep. I wasn't entirely sure what face I was looking for. And with that revelation, I temporarily quit my search, standing in the shadow of an odd little tree—a synthetic species that might not exist anywhere else in the universe.

My distractions ended with the sturdy thump of a car door.

There was a second set of stairs rising out of the sunken garden. Maybe there was a second parking lot, and maybe Tom had just arrived. Pushed by a tattered sense of duty, I climbed. But halfway up, an ornate peacock-like bird strode out of the flowerbed, stubby wings rising as its tail spread wide. A marveling wash of colors startled me. How did it change its colors so quickly? The scientist in me needed to solve that little puzzle, and that delayed me for another few moments. Mirrors. Its tail feathers were covered with flexible organic mirrors, and with an expert's grace, it moved each feather, borrowing the glories from the surrounding flowers.

"Neat," I said.

Then I shooed the bird aside, finishing my climb.

Three vehicles were parked in the tiny lot. The first car was obviously empty. The second car had darkened windows, and with a boldness that surprised me, I tapped on the glass. There was motion inside, and then the window dropped with a slick hum. A young woman held her shirt against her chest, while the man beside her, using a cutting voice, said to me, "Move along, old man."

I took his advice.

The last vehicle was a blister-van. It didn't look like anything my nephew would drive. But I walked up and called out, "Tom?"

"There is no Tom here," the van answered.

"Do you know him?" I inquired, giving his full name.

With mysterious tone, the van said, "Yes, I do. But I can't help you find him."

Back to the garden, I decided.

Walking past the first car, a notion took hold of me. It was a little ladybug car, and rusty red in color, and its windows were dialed to clear, showing an interior that looked clean and new. Showroom cars don't look any better, I realized. Standing in front of it, I said, "Tom. Your mom's hunting you, and guess what. She's getting pissed."

Very slightly, the car shivered.

Then the left front window dropped, and my nephew stuck his head out. "Uncle Wes!" he cried out. "How are you?"

I came around. "Fine, Tom."

The car was a rolling web-room. With a glance, I knew where he was. The view inside stretched for miles. Some kind of robot, elaborate and contrived, stood guard beside a glittering archway. I had no idea what anything meant, but there was a blue sky wrapped around a shrunken sun. I gave web-Mars a quick look. And then Very leaned forward, emerging from the back end of the car, grinning broadly as she said, "Hi, Dad!"

I said, "Shit."

With about the worst possible tone, I said, "Get out."

If anything, Tom seemed pleased. He opened his door and climbed out, and my daughter followed. He smiled, and she smiled, and the combination of those two faces made me crazy.

Again, with feeling, I said, "Shit."

Veronica laughed at my anger.

"You know our rules," I began. "Until you're grown and living on your own, you have to ask for our permission before you go anywhere!"

For a moment, she said nothing.

Then her smile brightened, while her slate-blue eyes grew a little sorry. With an amazing indifference, she confessed, "I did ask you."

"When?"

"Years and years ago," she told me. "'Can I go to Mars with Tom?' I asked. You and Mom, both."

"And what did we say?"

"'No. Never.'"

I discovered that my voice had been stolen away.

"But then I went anyway," my daughter told me, absolutely unconcerned by this breach of the law. Standing high on her tiptoes, she kissed my nose, and once again, she said, "I asked. Didn't I? And you said, 'Never.' Which was silly. So I decided to do what I wanted anyway."

A long moment passed, and then I said, "Shit," once again.

But nobody was with me. Except for the web-car, which shut its door and closed its window, offering me not even one polite little word.

But then again, these were the second-finest machines ever created by living minds.

—Crusade memo, confidential

Shuffling towards the bathroom, I noticed the light beneath my daughter's door.

While the toilet was flushing, I knocked on her door—lightly, fondly—and she instantly said, "Come on in, Dad," as if I was expected.

Very was sitting at her grandmother's old roll top desk. She was dressed for school, which was exceptionally strange at that hour, and she was reading, which was perfectly ordinary. I found myself staring at that composed and handsome young woman. She had her mother's features and my dark hair, plus a watchful, perpetually amused expression that was entirely her own. One of her little hands hovered above the reader, prepared to blank it. But then she decided to leave it on. The hand dropped into her lap, and she smiled at me, and watched me, and I thought she was waiting for me to say, "Happy birthday."

So I said, "Happy birthday, darling."

With a genuine astonishment, I said, "Eighteen years old."

How could she have gotten to this moment so quickly? It was a marvel and a tragedy, and I felt like crying.

"Thank you, Dad."

Her web-wall was dialed to Mars—the real Mars, bleak and dry and brutally cold. The image was a live feed from a Rule-owned weather station. It was a favorite of hers. Jagged rocks and alluvial sands filled a wide, dead riverbed. I found myself staring at the scene, and with a distracted voice, I asked, "Have you decided yet?"

She knew what I meant.

Quietly, she said, "I have. Yes."

I smiled and looked at her. "Which college wins?"

Her smile turned a little sorry, a little sad. But then with a positive voice, she told me, "Later. I'll talk to you and Mom together. Later."

"Fair enough," I replied.

A dozen schools were chasing her. All were better schools than the college where I taught, but part of me—a selfish, paternal heart—hoped that Veronica would live at home for another four years, and before I retired, she would sit in a class or two of mine.

"You're up awfully early," I observed.

"I couldn't sleep."

Nothing made me suspicious. I nodded and glanced at the reader on her desk, seeing nothing. The reader was blank to begin with, or some other hand had wiped it clean.

"Dad," she said.

I looked at her mother's eyes.

"You're going to be late for school, Dad."

"Happy birthday," I said again.

"Thanks," she told me. And then with her hand, with a motion almost too quick to be seen, she rubbed at her bright, watery eyes.

Students were waiting at my office door.

I started to say, "Good morning." But something in their communal expression made me uneasy. With an uneven voice, I asked, "What's wrong?"

"Something's going on," a young woman warned me.

"It's huge," a boy purred. "Just huge."

"What is?" I sputtered

"The ship," he told me, amazement swirled with a dose of fear. "They spotted it last week, coming in from somewhere … I don't know where … and the President just made the announcement—"

"What ship?" I asked.

Then a third student blurted, "It's a goddamn alien ship. It's huge! And guess where it's heading … !"

We headed for the classroom. I dialed the web-wall to a news-feed, and we found ourselves staring at the image of a tiny, tiny bullet. The ship was gray and smooth-faced and spinning slowly as it plunged through space, moving past the orbit of the moon. A tiny bullet in the depths of space, but according to radar, it was nearly ten miles long and half again as broad.

According to the purring voice of a commentator, the ship was silent, unresponsive to every hail from the Earth.

"Aliens," a dozen voices muttered behind me.

I turned and looked at my class.

"No," I whispered.

"Look who's missing," I urged them.

Half of my students were somewhere else.

"Where's the Rulers?" they muttered—the current shorthand for the Martian believers. "What do you think it means?"

I didn't answer the question.

On old legs, I was already running, fighting to get home again.

Tom was missing, I assumed.

I didn't mention her son. Instead, I confessed, "We're looking for Veronica. Hanna and I are. Would you know?—"

"God, no." My sister flinched, and shook. She brought her hands up to her face and held them against her mouth, wrapping fingers together before dropping them into her lap. "Well," she muttered, "this makes it even worse."

Hanna was sitting beside me. She grabbed my knee, and squeezed.

"Of all the stupid things," Iris muttered. "The injustice of it all … !" She shook her head, dropping her eyes. "You put your hopes into something. Something important. Something great. All that time invested. The energy. All the money that you've just pissed away … "

Hanna interrupted. "Is there any way that you can reach Tom? Very left here with some other kids, and she didn't show up at school—"

"I heard you before," my sister growled.

She looked up, her fierce eyes fixed squarely on me. "He's only invested his entire life trying to reach this day. Tens of thousands of dollars. Our money, and his. And shit, they didn't even select my own son—!"

I felt myself falling.

"Did you know? You didn't, did you? Not even Philippe was picked! He's going to watch this mission with the rest of us!"

"What … ?" I sputtered.

"Which is even worse," she said, laughing harshly. "It's a thousand times worse than Tom's situation. I mean, it always looked like his project, his baby, and it never was … "

Hanna and I held each other, falling together now.

"You want to talk to Tom?" my sister asked. "He's upstairs somewhere. Crying. I've got the house watching him, in case. In case." Then she shook her head, crying for herself. "Those bastards," she wailed. "Those damned machine bastards … !"

—from the Crusade's mission statement

Tom looked tired. Otherwise, he seemed very much the same: A boyish man in his middle twenties, with an astronaut's clipped hair and a small, exceptionally fit body.

Hanna told him, "Thank you."

He nodded, glancing into the darkness inside the Omega ship.

"I know this is difficult," she added. "You've got to be disappointed, and we can only imagine—"

"I don't know if I can take you inside," he interrupted. "I mean, I'm not all that sure about my clearance status anymore."

"But Very's in there somewhere," I said. "You're sure of that much, right?"

He nodded again, and bit his lip, and breathed. Then with a fearful slowness, he stepped through the archway, a faint pleasure showing when he reached the other side.

We followed after him, the tunnel brightening around us. I noticed very little. Somewhere during the long illusion of a walk, the ship's ceramic skeleton became something else. The walls were composed of densely packed horizontal beds, paper-thin and varying in color but not in texture. Tom touched the walls with an habitual fondness, and then quietly, angrily, he said, "This is them."

"Who?" Hanna asked.

"We didn't realize," he offered. Then he glanced back at us, eyes forlorn and lost. "For years, every team missed the obvious. What this ship was saying to us. What this puzzle really meant."

I didn't care about meanings; I wanted to see my daughter.

"The dead aliens," he said. "There were thousands of bones. Thousands of old skulls. This ship is big enough to house a small city. But when we sat down and actually worked out the numbers … well, most of the ship is this. These bands of doped ceramics and such. It took us forever to see what was simple. But then of course, they knew it would surprise us. They know us. Better than we know ourselves, I bet."

I touched the wall, my stimskin feeding me a cool, slick sensation.

" 'Everyone will be invited,' " Tom quoted. "That's what Philippe Rule promised. And I think the poor shit actually believed those words."

The tunnel twisted to the left and widened.

"The poor shit had this crazy idea about flying to Mars, and he had rich, indulgent parents." Tom glanced back at us, admitting, "That sounds a little too familiar." Then he laughed for a moment, with a gentle bitterness. "Philippe told his parents about his dream for Mars, and they rented an auditorium and hired media help. AI Web-managers, mostly. What nobody knew then was that the AIs were already shopping for someone like Philippe. A figurehead. A face. Some innocent to help raise the money and make their work look legal."

I quickened my pace, moving up beside Tom. Ahead of us, with a smear of bright yellowish light, the tunnel came to an abrupt end.

"These aliens," he muttered. "The Omegas. We studied them in teams. Each team was supposed to work independently. There was this race going on. Each team wanted to be first to figure out this alien society. We studied their bones and homes and how they lived, and we explored the starship, and for years, we tried to understand something very basic: How did the Omegas pilot this ship? There were no obvious controls. No physical access to the engines or the reactors. Every team proposed a telepathic answer, and the AI game-shepherds would tell us flat-out, 'No.' So we went back to the evidence again, and again. We were kids working at something beyond us. And then, we weren't kids anymore. We were adults, and experienced, and one at a time, each team figured it out for itself."

Tom hesitated.

"Cargo," he said, followed by a long painful sigh.

"There was this quiet guy on my team," he said. "He hadn't said five sentences to me in all those years. Then last year, while I was presiding over one of our endless bull sessions, he made a bizarre suggestion. The Omegas didn't have any power over the ship, he said, because they didn't have any real function. The ship was nothing more, or less, than a great hive filled with artificial intelligences. And the ship's organic entities were nothing but a kind of fancy cargo. Something carried for reasons of commerce, or at the very best, out of respect for their long-ago creators."

Hanna joined us, laying a sympathetic hand on her nephew's shoulder.

"'Bullshit,' I said." Now Tom slowed his gait. "I told him he was crazy, and it was a stupid, ugly idea. But the guy wanted to offer his answer for judging. He called for a vote from the team, and after a lot of speeches, he won his vote. Barely. Everybody who voted against the proposal is going to remain on the Earth. Probably for the rest of their lives. But if you voted for that bullshit idea, you gave yourself almost a two percent chance of being invited. By our masters."

Tom came to a halt, leaning against the delicately bedded wall, panting as if he was exhausted.

"What about Veronica?" I asked.

He didn't seem to hear my question.

With a flickering pride, Hanna pointed out, "Very has always had a fair mind. She probably just wanted to give the idea a chance—"

"No," Tom interrupted. And he laughed at us. He shook his head and laughed with a sudden force, explaining, "She's why the vote went the way it did. Your daughter liked the idea … it made so much sense to her … which is probably why she isn't going to be with us much longer … !"

"How soon would you leave?" Hanna blurted.

"A few months from now. At most, a full year." The image of our daughter wore a bright white spacesuit, her helmet dangling back on a hinge. Behind her, stretching on for what seemed like miles, were people similarly equipped, all listening to robots talking in professorial voices. "The ship's interior isn't quite finished," she explained. "The microchines and robots need another few weeks to make it perfect. And of course, some governments are going to put up legal barricades, which the AI lawyers have to defeat. And even with the best com-lasers, it's going to take time to download the crew." With a respectful nod, she said, "Most of the world's AIs are planning to send copies of themselves."

"Everyone will be invited," Philippe had promised.

Hanna gave a low, sorrowful moan.

"After Mars?" I asked, with a ragged hope.

Very could have lied. She must have considered kindness, telling us, "I'll come right back again." But the girl had always been honest, and she knew it would be best if she were the one to break the difficult news. "This isn't going to be a quick trip to Mars," she cautioned. "After a year or two of exploring, they plan to leave. They'll drop past Venus and then swing out towards Jupiter. They need to use its gravity well to help us accelerate. They've decided to see the worlds circling the Centauri suns."

I felt sick. Cold, and sick, and furious.

"You'll die out there," I muttered.

Hanna flinched.

"It's going to take you hundreds of years—" I began.

"More than ten thousand years," she said, correcting me. "It's going to be a very long voyage, and you're right. You are. After an adventurous life, I'll die of old age, and we'll barely have reached the comets."

I didn't know what to say.

"But Father," she purred. "Think of your descendants. Imagine them walking on all those strange, wonderful worlds."

"They'll be cargo," I snapped.

Very absorbed the insult without blinking. She almost laughed, telling us, "Our benefactors prefer to think of us as emblems. As treasures. To them, we're holy objects tying them to their first lucid thoughts."

With an easy shrillness, I said, "The Children's Crusade."

Very closed her eyes, and nodded.

"That's what the AIs dubbed this secret project. And that's just part of the mud that's coming out now."

"I know—"

"And you know what that name's taken from? In the Middle Ages, the children of Europe were lured away in an awful crusade … cynically used by the powers of the day … dying for no reason, or sold into slavery—"

"But Dad," Very whispered.

Then she stepped close to me. Her image lifted on its toes, touching my image on the nose. She always kissed me that way. I felt it, the illusionary touch of her dry lips. "Daddy," she purred. "What were those children promised? For going on their crusade, what was going to be their reward?"

Hanna answered, whispering, "Salvation."

"There is no salvation!" I growled. "Not in any bullshit crusade!"

My daughter laughed at me, and stepped back. "But what if there was?" she asked. "What if a heaven was possible, and it was real, and what if that heaven was offered to us? Really, where's the sadness here? That all that talk of salvation was a lie, or that you have spent your entire life not taking that staggering, wonderful risk …?"