Fuerogomenga Gorge was four and a half kilometers deep here, and thirty wide. The bottom could not be seen. Cold air from the north flowed down into the moist air above a thousand hot springs and kept the canyon deeps veiled in mist. The region below the mist was known only through radar and infrared scan and unreliable remote telemetry.
Men had tried going down there. Most had turned back. Those who had kept going had not returned.
Sudden scatters of lightning shot between the ten thousand spires and buttes and islands which rose from the mist. Shike gripped the protective rail so tightly his knuckles popped. Six billion years of geologic history lay exposed down there, in those variegated layers. An eon and a quarter down, nearly two kilometers, there were what appeared to be artifacts left by an unimaginably ancient civilization. No one had yet recovered any of them, exciting as they were, though Blessed suggested that was because of House policy rather than any lack of ingenuity in providing safety for scientists and explorers.
From the beginning the Tregessers had had an almost superstitious dread of a world history so deep it had produced three evolutionarily independent sentiences. Maybe four, if that down in the chasm was of native origin.
“I’m going down there someday,” Cable told Blessed. Determined. Nyo came up on his other side, facing his own lesser phobia.
The Gorge was so vast only the foreground seemed real. The distance gave no sense of depth of field. It seemed like a background matte painting.
The spider dance of the lightning played out. The reverberations faded. Nyo said, “You ever really go, I want to go with you.” He leaned out, looked across at Blessed. “You were going to say something.”
“There are things involved here. Including my ego. The way it works best is for me to take the Chair.”
“How do you take what you’ve already got?”
“Who knows that? Us. The Valerenas. Lupo. His girlfriend. Not the Directors. They don’t know what year it is. Lupo won’t tell them.”
Nyo grunted. He got that part. Provik was going away. The Valerenas could make a move since the Directors didn’t know about Valerena Prime.
“Who runs this House, Nyo?”
Nyo shrugged.
Shike concentrated on the Gorge.
“Lupo Provik does. The Valerenas keep the Directors off his back. He decides everything. And he hasn’t done an awful job, except he’s really only interested in his shadow games.
“I may be Chair but he doesn’t let me in on anything. And I don’t think he’ll ever turn loose. If we both live two thousand years he’ll still be regent because I’ll be learning.”
A lightning firefight broke out up the Gorge. It sent light and shadow chases scampering their way.
After a while, Cable said what Nyo was probably thinking. “Head to head with Lupo Provik isn’t smart, Blessed. People get prematurely dead that way.”
“I thought one Cable was worth several Lupos.”
“Maybe in a footrace. Not in a fight. I changed my mind after him and his girl took those people when the Others tried to get us.”
Blessed chuckled. “That woman intrigues me. I wish he hadn’t taken her with him.”
Cable was uncomfortable. He thought Provik had accepted the Outsiders’ conditions too readily. Did he have himself covered? Or was he just that sure of T. W. Trice? “Blessed. You recall Rash Norym?”
Glazed look. Computer mind running a file search. “Governor at M. Shrilica when we took over.”
“You set her up in the Pylon. In case we needed a friend inside. She’s got a mid-level job in security now. You’d better call that one in.”
Nyo agreed. “We don’t have to hurry. Provik will be gone a long time.”
Cable said, “If we do this let’s do it right. Not like your mother always did.”
“We’ll do it right.”
The lightning began to play down the Gorge. The display was not as impressive as the one below the castle. Valerena had built where she had because the promontory overlooked the wildest discharges.
Shike pushed away from the rail, closed his eyes. That was the one way he could convince his hands it was safe to let go. “Call that one in, Blessed.”
Nyo asked, “What about Tina?”
“From now on she stays out in the dark,” Blessed said. “She’s not with us anymore. We don’t have to stop being friends, but we can’t forget she has a different loyalty now.”
“Yeah. That’s sad, you know? Hey! Cable! Wait up.”
Shike was headed inside to calm down. He paused but did not turn around. He resumed walking when Nyo caught up.
“I still don’t get it,” Nyo said.
“I don’t think that matters. It’s what he wants. It makes sense to him.”
Nyo snorted. “How can he all of a sudden do without Midnight?”
“Symbolic gesture. Telling the world he’s all grown up now. He’s throwing away his last toy. And I think he was scared of the hold she had. He figured this would be the smaller pain.”
“Not to mention her being out there will keep his Other headed the right direction.”
“There’s that. Can it. We don’t know who belongs to who here.”
Cable went to his quarters, to his desk, slipped a tape in to view, leaned back, chewed a hangnail. The tape was an oddity, nothing but Tina doing mother things with Placidia.
— 113 —
Turtle prowled restlessly, wishing he was over on Anton Tregesser with his brethren. But the Outsiders were not that trusting. His followers had a pair of Outsider pilots who could not be coerced. He and the hostages were here on a Traveler wearing false ID, babysat by a hundred commandos. The councillors were safe on a Traveler also masquerading, excepting a handful who had gone out on a fourth ship to talk it over with the Godspeakers.
His people would be alert for the courier, ready to start shooting if the answer was “No.” They would cripple this Traveler and try to board before the Outsiders could dispose of their hostages. They would take out the Outsider delegation, for whatever pain that would cause.
The Outsider soldiers stayed out of his way but kept him in sight. They did not trouble him. He had lived most of his life surrounded by enemies.
Midnight, though, did trouble him.
His pacing brought them face to face. “You’ve been avoiding me, Turtle.”
“Yes. I don’t know how to make you understand.”
“Why are you doing this?” Ignoring what he had said. And not appealing for information but accusing him by asking a question for which there would be no acceptable answer.
“Because I am what I was made to be. Like you, I have no choice.” That should make sense to her. “I was created to battle the dragon.”
Midnight would not be able to grasp a long-range plan. She lived in a perpetual now, with only the vaguest feel for any future more than a few days distant, and had no more grasp on the past. Did she even recall WarAvocat or Merod Schene? She never spoke of them. She no longer asked what had become of Amber Soul.
“Do you have to even when it serves a greater evil?”
She might not illuminate the universe with her brilliance, but she could arrow in on the hard questions. He did the one thing she always understood. He hugged her.
He stepped back and really looked at her. And was troubled by what he saw.
She had Blessed to herself now, without competition from Tina Bofoku or the House. She should be radiant. But she seemed a little frayed, her wings a little off-color, wilted, like a leaf just begun to fade. He felt a touch of sorrow.
The breath of time had fallen upon Lady Midnight.
An artifact of her sort stayed looking young longer than women of woman born, but not forever, and when age did come it came quickly. Soon she would be capable only of a crude imitation of her dance in flight, and then only in free fall. Her wings would fade, then wither and stiffen, then would fall off. And if she did not take her own life in despair, she would have only a few months more.
&nbs
p; She would not know what was coming. She would be puzzled and hurt but innocent. By that much was her inability to focus beyond the moment a boon.
She had, at the most, ten years. Likely closer to five.
Such were the sorrows of being a Ku warrior trapped inside this time-linear human culture. The friends all fell while the enemy went forever on, persistent as the stars themselves.
He hugged her again. There would be little time left in which to know and appreciate her.
Alarms hooted. He felt the electric crackle as inertial systems cranked up. “The courier has broken away. Go to your cabin. Stay there till we know what happened.” He used that tone he knew she would not question. She went, hurrying.
He went to his own quarters to await the decision of fate.
Lupo Provik looked in half an hour later. “They went for it.”
Turtle knew. He would have been dead or rescued by now had the decision gone the other way.
— 114 —
Jo and AnyKaat put three meters between them, approached the shuttle cautiously. An unscheduled shuttle was unprecedented. One that asked for them specifically, claiming it had orders to lift them topside, seemed impossible. Had one of their letters gotten through? That had become too much to hope.
Far easier to believe that House Tregesser had sent someone to finish what Provik had begun.
One nervous spacer stood at the base of the boarding ladder, watching. Above, a scab-on weapons turret turned slowly. They were inside its angle of depression. Promising, but not entirely reassuring. The killers might want to make sure they hit the right targets.
The spacer sweated the weapons centered upon him. He gulped air before he croaked, “Lieutenant Jo Klass? Is one of you her?”
Jo asked, “What about it?”
“There’s a Traveler at station looking for you. If you’re her. They chartered us to get you.”
“Who?”
“I don’t know.”
AnyKaat said, “I don’t like it, Jo.”
“If it’s our friends from... the ship, they might not want anybody to guess who they are.”
“Neither would our enemies.”
“Still the best chance we’re going to get. We’ll be off the ground.”
AnyKaat could not argue with that.
“You want to go in first? Or should I?”
AnyKaat darted forward.
“Wait a minute!” The spacer grabbed and missed. The muzzle of Jo’s hairsplitter came to rest beside his left eye. “She can’t go in there.”
“Why not?”
“Klass is the one we’re supposed to get.”
“It’s your lucky day. You get two for the price of one.”
“But...”
“She goes. Or we all stay.” She drew the weapon given her by the Ku. “One pop from this and that skin isn’t fit for vacuum. Right?”
The turret whined. The air barked a baby thunderclap. Somebody watching had gotten too excited or too close. That would be the only warning shot.
“You got a way with words, Lieutenant.”
“You want to get out of here? Let’s move.”
The spacer climbed a few rungs, stopped. Jo prodded him. He climbed.
AnyKaat waited inside the hatchway. She had another one sprawled on the deck plates. She guessed, “One more in the turret and one in Control. Four is all they have on one of these.”
“Control, then.”
AnyKaat led. The spacers followed sullenly. The shuttle, despite the turret, was not set up for rough trade. Control’s hatch could not be locked and was not closed when they reached it.
The man at the controls was overweight and balding. He eyed women and weapons, shook his head, clucked his tongue. “STASIS can sort this one out.” He punched a button. “Come on down, Mag. We’re gonna lift.”
AnyKaat took one of two empty seats. The older man rolled his eyes. “Plant yourself, Mark. Rest of you get back to the cabin so we can get this circus off the ground.”
Jo eyed him, then nudged the man who had lost his seat. “Let’s go. Watch comm, AnyKaat.”
“I’m on it.”
The turret operator was down when they reached the passenger cabin. She was a match for the older man. Was this a mom and pop operation? These days? But this was V. Rothica 4, almost wholly abandoned by House Merod.
Liftoff came so smoothly Jo barely noticed. She divided her attention only two ways, between the people she watched and the people she might encounter soon. The latter had become the greater worry. These seemed content to let station deal with two hardcases.
The shuttle clunked into its dock. Systems wound down. Jo popped her harness and backed to the Control hatchway. “How does it look, AnyKaat?”
“They behaved.”
“What have we got? You get a visual outside?”
“There are two Haulers in, one Merod and one Majhellain Specialized. The Merod has been here five months with a down tractor vane. The Majhellain came in last week and is replacing the Merod’s vane. I got a visual confirm. The only other ship in is a Pioyugov Traveler, Dawn Watch.”
Which meant nothing. Pioyugov Navigation were mercenaries of the pure blood. They worked for anyone who met their price and would play all ends against the middle to squeeze the maximum profit.
“We’ll go out with these four. How far around from the Traveler are we?”
“A kilometer.”
“Great. What’s the visual on dockside?”
“Dead except for a standard docking crew for a shuttle, a crabby looking bitch in Admins, and a kid wearing Spacers with Pioyugov patches. Looks like he might hit puberty any minute.”
The shuttle’s master shoved a gigantic smoke stick into his mouth. He did not fire it. “What kind of desperados are you broads, anyway? Besides crazy? This is V. Rothica 4 station, not some pirate hangaround.”
“We’re live desperados,” Jo told him. “Going to stay that way, too. Get it shut down and let’s go.”
He went to work, shaking his head. “The people you got to deal with in this business.”
Ten minutes later it was time to leave. Jo put the shuttle crew in front, which they accepted with more amusement than resentment. The older man went straight to the woman waiting dockside. “Made it one more time, Cyn.” He gave her a cassette. ‘Twenty-six tonnes dry atmosphere. Credit us.”
‘Two passengers? I’ve only got paperwork for one. What’s going on?”
“They’re real convincing.”
“Which one is Klass?”
“The mean-looking one. Have fun.” He started walking. His bunch followed. Jo saw no reason to stop them.
The Admin woman glared at something in her hand. “Klass, Lieutenant Jo.”
“Yeah?”
“ID and documentation.”
Jo showed her the business end of a haiisplitter. AnyKaat watched the dockworkers. They did not seem interested. “This is all the ID you’re going to get. Let’s take a hike over to that Pioyugov Traveler.”
The woman looked at the weapon, maybe not recognizing the type but certainly the threat. “Regs say I have to...”
“Are regs to die for?” AnyKaat asked. She caught the Pioyugov boy’s arm. “Where you going? Stick around. We need you both. Something happens, we want you right in the middle of it.”
The woman said, “You people are crazy.”
“And still alive after all these years.” Crazy could be situational, sometimes. “Start walking.”
No one paid them any heed the whole kilometer, except for normal curiosity.
The boy got restless as they approached the docked Traveler. AnyKaat told him, “Don’t even think about running. You look like a nice kid. Be a shame to blow a hole through your head.”
Same song, third verse with the Pioyugov purser. He didn’t have any Karwin AnyKaat on his list. He relented when they showed him heavy caliber boarding passes.
“Operating bridge,” Jo snapped the instant they were inside. “You two go ah
ead of us,” she told the purser and boy. She had let the Admin woman go. “Hurry.” They would be hearing from STASIS soon.
“Let’s don’t get trigger-happy now, Jo.”
“I’ve got it under control.”
A normal watch was on bridge for a Traveler in dock. They were startled when the human wave rolled in. Hands flew into the air, jaws dropped, one spacer cursed softly, thinking they’d been boarded by pirates. Jo thought they probably looked it. She wasn’t wearing her dress blacks. “I’ll cover. You hit the boards and see what’s going on.”
“Right.” AnyKaat dragged a Pioyugov out of her seat.
The watch officer demanded, “What the hell?...” His question evaporated as Jo pointed the hairsplitter.
AnyKaat fiddled for several minutes. It had been a long time and she was not sure what to look for.
Jo heard something in the passage outside. She did not have her back to the hatchway. “Company, AnyKaat. Cover.”
“Right.”
Jo spun to cover the passageway.
Lieutenant Jo. I have found you at last.
“Seeker? You old sonofabitch! AnyKaat. It’s Seeker. I think. What the hell is this? Was that really you in my nightmares?”
It was a thin thread and a weak one, Jo Klass. It has been a long, hard search.
“You found us. I could kiss you. Couldn’t you kiss him, AnyKaat?”
“Yeah. Station’s on with a bitch, Jo.”
“Screw station.” She had a thousand questions.
Now we must find your commander.
“Haget? He’s dead. Long gone. You know that. You were there.”
The one called WarAvocat Hanaver Strate Dictat. There is much to tell him.
“You bet your ass we’re going to find him. We’re going to let him know what the hell has been going on, then we’re going to kick some ass.”
“Jo.”
She looked at AnyKaat. She saw a lot of pain that would not have awakened had they never broken free of Merod Schene. AnyKaat had a kid she hadn’t seen in more years than they had figured out. Just one anchor point away. A lot closer than this station had seemed from Merod Schene till a few years hours ago. “Yeah. Right. Seeker, we got to go on down the strand to P. Jaksonica. Got to.”