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with an astonishing force for someone who so nearly had been impaled. "Assassin," he said to me. He grunted and tried to stand.
       I told him that it was a wormrunner who had pushed him, but he said, "If not you, then your mother's hirelings. She hates me because she thinks you'll be held to your oath. And for other reasons."
       I looked at the circle of people standing over us. Nowhere could I see the two black-bearded wormrunners.
       "But she's wrong, Moira is."
       He held his side and coughed. Blood trickled from his long nose and open mouth. He beckoned to a nearby novice who approached nervously. "Your name?" he asked.
       "Sophie Dean, from The Nave, Lord Pilot," the pretty girl answered.
       "Then," he said, "your Lord Pilot in the presence of the witness Sophie Dean releases Mallory Ringess from his oath to penetrate the Solid State Entity."
       He coughed again, spraying tiny red droplets over Sophie's white jacket.
       "I think your ribs must be broken," I said. "The race is over for you, Lord Pilot."
       He grabbed my arm and pulled me closer to him. "Is it?" he asked. Then he coughed as he pushed me away and began skating towards the Academy.
       I stood there for a moment staring at the drops of blood burning tiny holes into the blue ice. I did not want to believe that my mother had sent assassins to murder Soli. I could not understand why he had released me from my oath.
       "Are you all right, Pilot?" Sophie asked.
       I was not all right. Though my life was saved, I felt sick to my stomach, utterly wretched. I coughed suddenly and vomited up a chyme of black bread and black coffee and bile.
       "Pilot?"
       Sophie blinked her clear blue eyes against the sudden wind cutting beneath my garments, and in my mind was a knowledge, a complete and utter certainty that I would keep my oath to Soli and my vows to the Order no matter the cost. Each of us, I realized, must ultimately face death and ruin. It was merely my fate to have to face them sooner than most.
       "Pilot, shall I call for a sled?"
       "No, I'll finish the race," I said.
       "You're letting him get a lead."
       It was true. I looked down the Run as Soli turned onto the yellow street leading to my secret shortcut to the west gate.
       "Don't worry, child," I said as I pushed off. "He's injured and full of pain, and he's coughing blood. I'll catch him before we get halfway to Borja."
       I was again wrong. Though I struck the ice with my skates as fast as I could, I did not catch him as we passed the spires of Borja, and I did not catch him as we circled the Timekeeper's Tower; I did not catch him at all.
       The wind against my ears was like a winter storm as we entered Resa Commons. The multitudes cheered, and Burgos Harsha waved the green victory flag, and Leopold Soli, barely conscious and leaking so much blood from his torn lungs that a cutter later had to pump plasma into his veins, beat me by ten feet.
       It might as well have been ten light-years.

Chapter 3
The Timekeeper's Tower
The goal of my theory is to establish once and for all the certitude of mathematical methods ... The present state of affairs where we run up against the paradoxes is intolerable. Just think, the definitions and deductive methods which everyone learns, teaches and uses in mathematics lead to absurdities! If mathematical thinking is defective, where are we to find truth and certitude?
       David Hilbert, Machine Century Cantor, from
On the Infinite
    The days following the pilot's race and Leopold Soli's near-murder passed quickly. The clear, dry, sunny weather gave way to winter's deep powder snows that continually fell on the glissades and kept the zambonies busy. Soli's would-be assassins were never caught. Though he made full use of the Order's resources, and the Timekeeper set his spies to listening at doorways and peeking in windows (or whatever it is that spies do), our Lord Pilot could do