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of her shoulders and the light slapping across her face insisted that she had no choice. The rhythm became more personal; by degrees, it dragged her from her
diamondraught
-sopor. When she wrenched her eyes open, the moonlight from the open port limned Cail’s visage. He stood on the stepladder so that he could reach her to awaken her. Her throat was sore, and the cabin still echoed her screaming.
    “Cail!” she gasped. Oh my God!
    “Your sleep was troubled.” His voice was as flat as his mien. “The Giants say their
diamondraught
does not act thus.”
    “No.” She struggled to sit up, fought for self-possession. Images of nightmare flared across her mind; but behind them the mood in which she had gone to sleep had taken on a new significance. “Get Covenant.”
    “The ur-Lord rests,” he replied inflectionlessly.
    Impelled by urgency, Linden flung herself over the edge of the hammock, forced Cail to catch her and lower her to the floor. “
Get
him.” Before the
Haruchai
could respond, she rushed to the door.
    In the lantern-lit companionway, she almost collided with Seadreamer. The mute Giant was approaching her cabin as if he had heard her cries. For an instant, she was stopped by the similarity between her nightmare and the vision which had reft him of his voice—a vision so powerful that it had compelled his people to launch a Search for the wound which threatened the Earth. But she had no time. The ship was in danger! Sprinting past him, she leaped for the ladder.
    When she reached open air, she was in the shadow of the wheeldeck as the moon sank toward setting. Several Giants were silhouetted above her. Heaving herself up the high stairs, she confronted the Storesmaster, a Giant holding Shipsheartthew, and two or three companions. Her chest strained to control her fear as she demanded, “Get the First.”
    The Storesmaster, a woman named Heft Galewrath, had a bulky frame tending toward fat which gave her an appearance of stolidity; but she wasted no time on questions or hesitancy. With a nod to one of her companions, she said simply, “Summon the First. And the Master.” The crewmember obeyed at once.
    As Linden regained her breath, she became aware that Cail was beside her. She did not ask him if he had called Covenant. The pale scar which marked his left arm from shoulder to elbow had been given him by a Courser-spur aimed at her. It seemed to refute any doubt of him.
    Then Covenant came up the stairs, with Brinn at his back. He looked disheveled and groggy in the moonlight; but his voice was tight as he began, “Linden—?” She gestured him silent, knotted her fists to retain her fragile grip on herself. He turned to Cail; but before Covenant could phrase a question, Honninscrave arrived with his beard thrust forward like a challenge to any danger threatening his vessel. The First was close behind him.
    Linden faced them all, forestalled anything they might ask. Her voice shook.
    “There’s a Raver on this ship.”
    Her words stunned the night. Everything was stricken into silence. Then Covenant asked, “Are you sure?” His question appeared to make no sound.
    The First overrode him. “What is this ‘Raver?’ ” The metal of her tone was like an upraised sword.
    One of the sails retorted dully in its gear as the wind changed slightly. The deck tilted. The Storesmaster called softly aloft for adjustments to be made in the canvas. Starfare’s Gem righted its tack. Linden braced her legs against the ship’s movement and hugged the distress in her stomach, concentrating on Covenant.
    “Of course I’m sure.” She could not suppress her trembling. “I can feel it.” The message in her nerves was as vivid as lightning. “At first I didn’t know what it was. I’ve felt like this before. Before we came here.” She was dismayed by the implications of what she was saying—by the similarity between her old black moods and the taste of a Raver. But she compelled herself to go on. “But I