and my ideas had got fuzzy.
But mostly Bruce was just calmly drinking by himself. Every once in a
while Lili would look at him and stop dead in her dancing and laugh.

I'd figured out this Bruce-Lili-Erich business as well as I cared to.
Lili had wanted the nest with all her heart and nothing else would ever
satisfy her, and now she'd go to hell her own way and probably die of
Bright's disease for a third time in the Change World. Bruce hadn't
wanted the nest or Lili as much as he wanted the Change World and the
chances it gave for Soldierly cavorting and poetic drunks; Lili's seed
wasn't his idea of healing the cosmos; maybe he'd make a real mutiny
some day, but more likely he'd stick to bar-room epics.

His and Lili's infatuation wouldn't die completely, no matter how rancid
it looked right now. The real-love angle might go, but Change would
magnify the romance angle and it might seem to them like a big thing of
a sort if they met again.

Erich had his _Kamerad_, shaped to suit him, who'd had the guts and
cleverness to disarm the bomb he'd had the guts to trigger. You have to
hand it to Erich for having the nerve to put us all in a situation where
we'd have to find the Maintainer or fry, but I don't know anything
disgusting enough to hand to him.

I had tried a while back. I had gone up behind him and said, "Hey, how's
my wicked little commandant? Forgotten your _und so weiter_?" and as he
turned, I clawed my nails and slammed him across the cheek. That's how I
got the black eye. Maud wanted to put an electronic leech on it, but I
took the old handkerchief in ice water. Well, at any rate Erich had his
scratches to match Bruce's, not as deep, but four of them, and I told
myself maybe they'd get infected--I hadn't washed my hands since the
hunt. Not that Erich doesn't love scars.

* * * * *

Mark was the one who helped me up after Erich knocked me down.

"You got any omnias for that?" I snapped at him.

"For what?" Mark asked.

"Oh, for everything that's been happening to us," I told him
disgustedly.

He seemed to actually think for a moment and then he said, "_Omnia
mutantur, nihil interit._"

"Meaning?" I asked him.

He said, "All things change, but nothing is really lost."

It would be a wonderful philosophy to stand with against the Change
Winds. Also damn silly. I wondered if Mark really believed it. I wished
I could. Sometimes I come close to thinking it's a lot of b