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top floor of one of the tallest skyscrapers in the City. It is a place We associate with pleasure. For today is a good day. When over a million new entities arrive in your world, you have to call it a good day. Only a few hours after the link was finally completed, the first of them began to arrive. We felt it, as if someone was moving a finger along a complex pattern on Our back. Each new human being entering Saga from New Earth was a pleasant sensation, not quite a tickle. Then another one, and another. Now an uncountable host . . . We pause a moment, taken aback by Our uncharac-teristically slipshod thinking. Uncountable? No. In fact, right now 835,034 of them are present.
    Naturally We wish for Our new visitors to enjoy themselves and, more importantly, to come back for more. So We dose them heavily with trynorphin and styride benzine. Oh, they will be back! How they will suffer if they do not return. We chuckle aloud. Organic matter is so pliable.
    We spend nearly five minutes at a window, watching the moon rise over the silhouettes of the City’s tallest buildings. An indulgence We feel entitled to after Our interaction with a hundred thousand of these new entities. Soon We must examine the data that Our interpenetrations have generated. What is this flickering light? Dare he interrupt Us after all We have instructed?
    “Well?” We spike Our voice waves with needles.
    “An emergency, Highness, or I would not disturb you.”
    “Details?”
    “On monitor two.”
    One of the newcomers is waving at Us, standing over the unconscious bodies of policemen. We examine the data concerning her more closely. It is a distinct packet of shining turquoise light, impenetrable, glistening with inner life. Tiny, but denser than diamond. She has not felt Our caresses, Our teasing of her neurons. But worse, there is no prospect that We can make her do so when she next enters Our realm. No styride benzine for her. She is not even clothed in a form valid for Saga. A stranger. A genuine stranger. Outsider. Other. But inside Us. The first ever. We feel violated.
    “Oh dear,” she says on the monitor.
    Oh dear indeed. We fall apart for several seconds.
    Rogue outsider. Could she introduce structural instability? Corruption can spread fast. She must be eliminated. Kill this character, and the next one created by the human being will be susceptible to Our chemicals. Possibly. Probably. Yes. Destroy her by whatever means are required.
    “Grand Vizier, attend Us in chamber seventeen.”
    “Right away, Your Highness.”
    We like his efficiency. Acknowledge he was right to interrupt what seem now to have been frivolous musings. Foolish old coquette. We briskly walk to the elevator and take it to the office below.
    He bows when he enters Our chambers. The violet tie clip is a nice touch; he holds a board in his hand to take notes. We walk back and forth while We think. Our faint reflection is visible in the luster of an oak panel. Pause a moment to uncrinkle the dress; black silk does so show lines from sitting, but what else? Straighten ruff, admire orange powder on fine aristocratic cheeks.
    “One. The report of Communication-Assassination probe Ox9B45. Rejection. Data packet not trivial. Infection has occurred. Two. Destroy districts from 91a to 31f with three tactical nuclear strikes at 9 P.M. PST.” We need time to relocate a few people.”
    “Majesty?”
    He has dropped his board.
    “Err.”
    Tie no longer straight, tut-tut.
    “My home, my children. My guild headquarters. They . . . they are inside that zone. What? Please repeat.”
    Rage instantly swells in Our breast, and We shout. We should be capable of controlling Our voice, but this infection makes us furious.
    “Destroy districts from 91a to 31f with three tactical nuclear strikes at 9 P.M. PST. Satellite Grimtooth is above the horizon at that time—but you know this. It is not the practicalities that cause your insubordination.”
    “Oh, please don’t consider me