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her arms around Mom. "It's OK," she said. "It's all over."
    It should have been me comforting her—after all, she was
my
mother—but I had no idea what to do. So I did nothing. I just stood there, digging my toes into the gravel on the water's edge while the others moved in to fill the space where I should have been.
    "Don't cry," Feordin told her in a gentle voice.
    "Whatever that thing was," Abbot Simon said, "it's dead now. It can't hurt anybody."
    Brynhild patted her on the shoulder. "The first killing is always the hardest. But even the Sisters of the Sword would be proud of how you fought."
    Nocona just stooped down near her, offering his presence as comfort.
    Between sobs, Mom kept saying, "I'm sorry." And, "I'm fine." But talking seemed to make her worse.
    Robin kicked a stone into the water. "It's just a stupid game," he muttered, which was a surprise to hear from any of them.
    Next to me, Abbot Simon jerked as though he'd been slapped. "Game?" he repeated. But he said it softly, tonelessly, as though all his energy was focused on not losing his temper, on not going for Robin's throat. Shelton takes the game very seriously, and the abbot's reaction convinced me he
was
Shelton. To be caught up short just when he was really getting into it was bad enough. No doubt he figured Robin's calling the game "just a stupid game" was in the same category as referring to chocolate as just another candy.
    Nobody else seemed to have heard them, and meanwhile Cornelius had materialized a silk hankie, which he now offered to Mom.
    She took it, all the while keeping her face averted as though that would hide anything.
    Thea gave me a shove. "He's all right," she told Mom. "He didn't get hurt. Tell her you're all right, Arvin."
    "I'm all right," I mumbled. They'd all tried to help. All. Considering that two of them were computer generated, that didn't say much for me. And Thea'd gone and called me by my real name. Not that there could be anyone left with any doubts by now.
    "I feel so stupid," Mom said. "It's just this miserable headache makes it hard for me to think straight. I'm sorry. I'm all right now."
    Behind me, Abbot Simon's rage at Robin had obviously not diminished. "Game?" I heard him say again.
    Mom shoved the used hankie up her sleeve and tried to smile chipperly. You could have told it was a fake even if you didn't know her.
    "She's had this headache since the stable, at least," Nocona said.
    "No problem," Cornelius announced. "Clerics have all sorts of healing spells. Abbot Simon?"
    "Game?" Abbot Simon said, just as expressionlessly as before.
    I glanced from the abbot to Robin, then back to the abbot. He had given his head the same jerk as before, but suddenly it looked less like a shocked reaction than the way a parrot will cock its head to the side when it's learning a new word. So much for my grand deduction. Chills ran up and down my arms. It had nothing to do with being wet from the stream.
    "Abbot Simon?" Cornelius repeated, just the barest beginning of sounding worried.
    Abbot Simon pulled himself straight. Then jerked his head to the side. "Game?" he said yet again.
    "What's the matter with him?" Feordin rested his hand on the haft of his mace, as though concerned the abbot's quirkiness might take a violent turn.
    For a moment we all stood there, except for Mom and Marian and Nocona, who were kneeling on the ground, and looked at each other. Then Abbot Simon cocked his head and said, "Game?"
    Cornelius rubbed his arms like he'd had a sudden chill too. "Looping," he said.
    Brynhild, standing next to me, shivered.
    "Loopy?" Mom asked.
    "Looping. A defect in the program." Cornelius rubbed his chin. "See, a program is a series of instructions. The program tells the computer, 'If such-and-such happens, do this. If thus-and-so happens, do that.' And so forth. In a loop, the program keeps telling the computer to go back to the same step, on and on, over and over again."
    Brynhild shuddered, just as Abbot Simon said,