She and Apollonia arrived at the event with thirteen minutes to spare. Two deacons, dressed in nice, pale blue robes greeted them.

Pirra did not know the men, but she did not have her system on to identify them.

Thirty-five thousand people on the Craton meant it wasn't possible to know everyone by sight, but Pirra still worried that she was just doing a bad job identifying individual humans without computer assistance. Humans tended to look very samey to Dessei, with mostly the same dull colors and small eyes.

"Do you know them?" she asked Apollonia quietly.

"Those guys? No," Apple replied.

She looked around for Alex, but she did not see him. Was he up with Father Sair, maybe? She saw the priest a few times, he looked paler than usual, perspiration on his forehead, but he was clearly very busy with last-minute details. First such event on the Craton, Pirra knew. At least of this scale. She was actually rather surprised at the size of the attendance; there were at least fifty people, all told.

At 1900, the deacons shut and locked the doors. Pirra watched carefully, but they were just the standard locks, not anything that couldn't be overridden. Good to know in case something happened and Response had to be called.

She was the only non-human here, but no one gave her any uncomfortable stares, just smiling and nodding to her, wishing her their traditional greeting; "Walk straight in the darkness."

She murmured it back to each one. It felt weird to be saying it, but it was just the polite thing to do.

She knew she kept glancing at Apollonia, and the girl noticed every time, glancing back.

I'm just making her more nervous, Pirra thought. The large eyes of Dessei, and their low range of movement, made such glances very noticeable. Pirra knew she needed to relax.

Alexander still had not come out as the lights were dimmed. Small glowing, flickering fire orbs were set along the edges of the seating. They were extremely lightweight, light enough to float on just a tiny thruster, and burned small, but bright flames inside a tough, transparent sphere - one of the safe ways to have a fire on a starship. The spheres were tougher than steel.

Father Sair came out, approaching three covered altars. He pulled the cloth back from one, and Pirra saw that it appeared to be made of actual stone, very old stone. The edges were crumbling.

It was very out of place in the room that was otherwise modern; the dim lights helped, but not that much.

Alex still had not appeared. Had he shown up late? Did she really . . . need to stay?

But the doors were locked. Perhaps she should go and see if Alex was out there. Even if it annoyed people, he might appreciate it.

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Then Sair raised his hands, letting out an eerie moan that filmed the room.

Pirra felt a shiver go down her back, and the thoughts of Alex were driven away.

It did not sound like there were speakers. There seemed to be no technology at all.

No one had a system, there were no cameras. Only the floating lights.

She shifted, as Sair's moan died into words.

"Ohhh," he called. "The Darkness yet grows, my children. It seeps into the dawn, dimming the very sun."

From the crowd, from dozens of murmured voices, came a reply. "We see the Darkness coming."

Pirra glanced around, her apprehension growing. She glanced at Apollonia and saw that the woman was watching her with wide eyes.

"It grows and approaches. It writhes in the dark places we cannot see. It is without us and within us. Oh, holy Darkness! Let us be vessels for you. Let us become hosts of Your Will."

"Let us do Your Will."

Sair leveled his gaze upon them all. "Beyond us . . . in the blessed Dark, a place of Their Design rests. It seeps - it seethes with untapped potential. Do you feel its power, My Children?"

"We do feel its power," the crowd said.

Pirra had never heard this prayer before, it was utterly unlike all of the others Alexander had told her or said around her.

Yet she found that she had spoken along with the others.

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Tred glanced around the corner at the doors to Event Room C13.

There was no one outside. This area was unusually quiet; the whole ship had been, he thought.

Something was in the air this evening. Few people were out on this night, most staying in their cabins. He had started to go back to his, but it had felt . . . stranger than normal. He did not want to be alone.

That had been the biggest factor that made him decide to come. The thought of a whole bunch of calmly confident religious people, so certain in their own high standing with their god or gods or whatever it was they worshipped, would surely be calming!

At least, he had imagined that.

But he hadn't thought the doors would really be locked already. It was . . . well, 1902. Only two minutes past the time and they had closed up.

He came up to the doors, looking around guiltily, but no one had come down this hall. Strange, really, this area usually teemed with people.

Though tonight the lights here seemed dimmer than usual. Eerie, in a way, now that he thought about it. He'd . . . actually hesitated turning down several paths that brought him here, his feet almost taking him the other way without thinking.

He reached up, fingering the collar of his uniform. The ship sometimes bothered him, but he knew it. He'd lived here for a long time.

Why did it feel so off tonight?

He reached out to try the door. It did not react to his hand wave, and when he tried the handle, it did not budge even the littlest bit.

He slumped. Damn it, this evening was getting worse and worse. Iago had invited him, but . . . it seemed these people really did not like tardiness.

He just knew if he joined up, even after this, he'd just disappoint and annoy them by being late to future get-togethers.

Yeah, it was best for him to just . . . forget about it.

He started walking away slowly, glancing back in the slight hope - and fear - that the door might open and someone would call him in.

But no one did. As he rounded the corner, he almost broke into a run, though he didn't know why.

He . . . he should just go to a restaurant. He didn't feel like anything fancy, but it was better than being alone at home!

He was running, and thoughts of his plans for the evening just fell away as a primal fear rose in him, the ancient fear man still held for predators of the dark, that hunted him. The fear of death.