Bryt removed the headpiece of the memory displayer, done with her story, and the hologram-projection prism on which twenty eyes had been fixated opaqued itself. She looked at the time-keeping device set in the wall and was surprised to see that four hours had gone by. The men of the IGA committee had just witnessed the highlights of her life as a Colossan missioneer through her own eyes. She shook her head, stunned. She'd relived all these memories as the machine put them on display for everyone to see. This was what these technologically advanced people termed "reporting."

One of the ten committee members stood and spoke. "I think it's safe to say that the situation on this planet has spiraled well out of control. We'll immediately send aid � to all people dwelling there � and if not resolve the conflict that's existed for so long at least terminate the warfare. When this is done a team will be assigned to recover lost knowledge about the planet's history, and determine how its present condition came to be."

Bryt was surprised that he man hadn't understood how everything had started from the memories he'd harvested, but she didn't comment. Her mind was incredulous and overjoyed at his words. "Terminate the warfare." They were going to end the war! Her mission, their mission, the mission, would finally be accomplished!

The committee was true to its word. A team was dispatched to planet Skye to take command and control. Bryt had no idea how they planned to do this, but she believed it nonetheless. She wasn't among the ones sent � she was too valuable as a specimen for study to be let go.

It sounds worse than it was for her, put that way. She was always treated well, and inadvertently discovered far more about the new world into which she'd come than its inhabitants did of her. She learned much about the wonders of their technology, though most of it remained wonderful and miraculous � she understood little of how these omnipresent machines worked. However, she found that few people who'd lived all their lives in the presence of such technology understood it, either, and this puzzled her. She didn't worry much over it, though. There was plenty about this place that defied logic.

Bryt also learned things she hadn't known � in fact things she doubted anyone living had known � about the history of her planet and her people. She learned that her earliest traceable ancestors had been an organized band of rebels fleeing an ancient tyrannical government that had ruled their planet. In secret, they'd built an enormous spaceship (many times the size of the one in which she'd left her home planet) which they'd dubbed the "Colossus," and smuggled themselves away in it, blasting off and escaping to freedom. They'd found a place to go � a newly discovered planet, reported as habitable but devoid of intelligent life, which the Intragalactic Alliance had not yet even had the chance to explore and chart. It had been designated planet 5KY3-37278, meaning that it was located in sector 5K of known space, and was the third planet from a yellow sun. The number at the end was the code for that star. This new planet was so far from where they'd taken off that by the time the Colossus reached it all of the original rebels were several generations passed on. The people now thought of themselves as Colossans, as the ship was the only home they'd ever had. So, unbeknownst to anyone, the Colossans claimed and settled planet 5KY3, or Skye.

When the busy IGA finally did send a team to chart the planet, the Cols had been living there happily for many years. Upon finding the planet illegally inhabited, the team reported the problem back to the IGA, which sent a military vessel called the Baron to remove the rebels. The Colossus had also been well armed, however, and the Cols managed to disable their attackers' communication link with the outside world. The entire planet infuriated, every element of both ships was either destroyed or dismantled to utilize as weaponry in the fighting that ensued, and both sides quickly lost all but the most basic technology and deteriorated into the Cols and Barons as she knew them. With communication severed, the small planet was forgotten by the outside world, left to fend for itself. And only now, after centuries of endless war, had it been rediscovered. This was the account put together by the IGA researchers charged with uncovering the truth behind the backwards planet and the origins of the war.

It was strange that some of the aspects of life on Skye in which the IGA was most interested were those that Bryt considered dullest. For example, they emptied her memories and asked question after question about the planet's political and social structures, its inhabitants' laws and basic rights. And they were fascinated by empathy � apparently it was a phenomenon found only on planet Skye, and only among the Cols. Bryt didn't understand much of their explanation for this, but what they concluded was that one of the original rebels must have possessed a genetic tendency for heightened emotional perception, and because of factors such as a limited gene pool and something called inbreeding, the trait had accentuated with each subsequent generation. As a living sample and test subject, they harvested much of Bryt's blood and spinal fluid and put her through examinations and experiments for which she could see no point at all, though some of them did pique her curiosity a little.

It was fair, then, that the discovery that amazed her the most was one which her companions considered basic. From space, the planet Skye's land and ocean masses had finally been mapped, and it turned out that the Third Continent not only existed, but was accompanied by a Fourth and Fifth, each of them more vast and richer in resources than the two meager pieces of land that the Cols and Barons had for long contended. These three continents were still untouched by man, the closes thing to intelligent life there being a grand variety of puffans.

It was five years before Bryt returned to planet Skye. By that point the Cols and Barons certainly would not be called friends, but their war was over and technology and leadership supplied by the IGA had considerably improved matters, and also helped to deal with the chaos that began to break out in response to the end of the fighting that was all anyone there had ever known. Bryt's name had become a legend on her planet, much to her own embarrassment, and when the ship carrying her home landed she was greeted by a large throng of Cols, most of them leaders and executives who spoke to her as if she were their equal. She wondered amusedly if they'd ever found out how many of their laws and traditions she'd broken in her brief stint as a missioneer; in fact, how few she'd kept. In all fairness, she realized, she should be in prison right now. Should have been there long ago, with her teammate right beside her.

Tuck was dead. Bryt knew that without trying to look it up on any list. Even if he'd kept his promise and tried to escape, it would have been futile. He'd left her that day perfectly aware that he'd be dead by nightfall, probably welcoming it. She knew her teammate would not be recorded as an honorable death � he'd deliberately disobeyed a direct order, even if in doing so he had saved the lives of half an army. Besides (and she felt like the world's greatest traitor for it), Bryt couldn't have looked him up even if she'd tried. She didn't even remember his full name. Throughout all this long time she'd kept the torn strips of his blue shirt that had been tied around her waist as bandages. They were all she had left of her teammate and closest friend.

One of the Col leaders milling about when she made her triumphant return caught her attention and informed her that he had a Captain waiting who claimed he knew her, and asked politely if she'd speak with him. She replied that of course she would, and he left to bring the man. Bryt wondered who it might be�and was utterly exasperated that a War Captain now considered himself too unimportant to demand her attention.

Now her memory as admittedly pretty shabby, but when the Captain walked up she was positive she'd never seen him in her life. Sure, it had been five years, but�oh. She realized that the reason the man wasn't speaking was because he was waiting for her to address him. Bryt wanted to roll her eyes. She was still only a missioneer!

And what could she say to a man she didn't recognize? "Um, hello, sir�" she began uncertainly.

"It's not actually me whom you've met, but two of my missioneers, only we didn't trust our executives to consider their rank high enough to rate an audience with you," the Captain explained with an apologetic smile.

She stared at him for a second. "I am a missioneer!" she could no longer refrain from crying.

"Okay," the Captain agreed with a chuckle, and gestured behind him above his head. A man rushed excitedly up through the throng.

Unfortunately, she couldn't place this man, either. He, however, had no inhibitions about speaking before spoken to. "Do you remember me, Bryt?" he asked with an eager grin.

Her mind raced to identify him. He did seem a little familiar�something about the voice and impudent manner, and a strange pattern of scars under his pale blond hair, about a tooth that was missing from his smile�

"Nik?"

"Yes! I knew you'd remember me!" he was thoroughly pleased.

"I'm glad to see you!" Bryt replied heartily, relieved to find someone she'd known before she was mighty and famous. "Are Torrey and Cat and Furball here, too?" She knew the chances of that were slim, but if the makeshift team had managed to stay together�

Nik paused before answering. "Furball's dead," he said. "An honorable death in battle. I was there when it happened, and he did it just to save one other soldier. I don't know if I could have done that." The young man had obviously matured since she'd last seen him. "I have no idea where Torrey is. And Cat�Cat's one of my teammate."

"How's that?" she asked. "He's not even a missioneers."

"Funny to hear you tell me that," he teased.

Bryt had to laugh, and Nik explained. There's been such a shortage of medics," he said, "that anyone with any skill at all was needed."

As if cued in by the conversation about him, Cat finally stepped into sight. The shy man Bryt remembered, though he'd also plainly matured, had been much more reserved about pushing his way through a crowd of high-ranking leaders than had his outgoing teammate.

"When we heard that you were coming back, our Captain agreed to let us come," Cat spoke up, smiling along with his teammate, "since missions aren't so urgent anymore since there's no real war. And anyway, they never go as they're planned�"

She stayed and talked with Nik and Cat awhile more, preferring their company to that of the mostly self-important executives. She thought of returning to a base to try to locate some of her old friends � Captain Gill or Randa � but didn't, partly because she was afraid of finding that one or both were no longer alive, and partly because after so long she really had nothing in common with them anymore. She didn't want to sit down with her old teacher and tell him stories of her glorious adventures in outer space.

Bryt was given the option to remain on planet Skye or to leave with this ship when its crew's task was complete, and she elected to leave. The planet may have been the place of her birth, but what it had become was no longer home to her. She didn't really have a home, and was content that way. After all, the best time she'd ever had had been the few months between Mission Training and Pathic Training and space traveling that she'd spent out missioneering. And while she could no longer be a missioneer on Skye, the world of the IGA, even after five years there, still offered plenty to discover, and in the precious comfort of anonymity. Maybe she chose the pursuit of knowledge as a distraction from the fragmented remains of what had been the most wonderful adventure of her life, or maybe it was a retreat, or perhaps her natural furtive curiosity had found a new source of satisfaction and refused to return to what was already known and safe. Whatever the reason, the choice was an easy one to make. If Bryt had truly learned anything from her experience it was that she was happiest when she kept on exploring, even if she got lost, feeling fear and doubt but pressing on anyway, improvising when established plans fell short, just to give the romantic and impossible the slightest chance to survive and triumph.