Next day AnyKaat took advantage of her new mobility to go in search of friends. Jo watched her go. She looked troubled. Like she had not found what she wanted with her mother and son.
Jo knew. You could not go back. She had been through that time warp. A bad case of divergence shock awaited her now. She had evolved since last she was aboard VII Gemina.
The Guardship would not have changed.
That face of the future terrified her.
Amber Soul caught her at the exit hatch, in her dark musing. Seeker would consult with you, Jo Klass.
Startled, Jo grunted, recovered. “Of course.” He must be getting impatient.
It was her first visit to the suite the aliens shared. The smell hit her like a blow, made her eyes water. It was like a place overpopulated by untrained pets.
They had brought a little of home with them, murky lighting, odd furnishings, the smell that was mostly just of themselves, a chill to the air. Their only concession to her comfort was humanlike appearance. Jo realized she’d never seen them in their true shape.
Those who carry wickedness across the Web, who have made themselves the enemies of my people, which has not known violence since before yours evolved, have begun to move in more dangerous directions. They have found new weapons.
Jo pictured the Outsiders armed with Hellspinners. She did not take into account the imprecision with which her brain rendered what it received. She rubbed the tears away, tried to breathe shallowly. That did no good.
Time is a luxury no more, Jo Klass. They are planning moves. They are sufficiently pressed that they are not discussing those moves across the Web. They are afraid. Those who fear are doubly dangerous, and those who serve them nurture their fears, for they have a broader investment in their philosophical symbiosis.
“Wait a minute. Those methane breathers can read each other’s thoughts clear across the Web?”
Yes.
“And your people can tap into that? And you never told us?” Maybe Seeker had, she reflected, back when he’d had his first interview with WarAvocat. The implication had been there.
We are old as a species and as individuals. Our young are rare and precious, as is our solitude. Once we had our hour on the galactic stage, our time of exploration and adventure, but ages ago we turned away and returned home to contemplate what we had learned. We knew the Web well. It continued to be a source of news. We let the players on the galactic stage be. Most have been perceptive enough not to trouble the aged. Till your kind sprang up here and there, inexplicably, like fungi, and as often as not faded as quickly.
You excited a small, renewed outward interest because you were so absurd.
You came from nowhere, headed nowhere. You do not have one unique quality but the qualities you do have exist in paradoxical juxtaposition. You are capable of rejecting the evidence of science and reason in order to believe the impossible, yet you are so curious about hows and whys that you keep picking at a scab concealing a secret even knowing that it will devour you. You are lawless, predatory, capable of eating your own young in the search for profit, yet you created something unprecedentedly lawful in the Guardship fleet. That is flawed, skewed, even internally aberrant, but it is evolving toward what it should be. At the moment the messengers of shadow believe the Guardships are invincible. But soon they will be shown the truth.
I must find your WarAvocat and make him see. Amber Soul and I must make available the wisdom of our kind while the Guardships remain capable of becoming what they should be.
Jo did not know if something was getting lost or if she was just stupid. That had been Seeker’s longest and most revelatory communication ever and, she suspected, his most carefully rehearsed, but she did not think she had gotten the true sense of what he wanted to convey. She sensed his disappointment. She said, “If it’s that critical why waste time looking for VII Gemina? Go to Starbase.”
The warning must be presented to someone with the capacity, even the inclination, to listen. Will I find such a person at Starbase?
“Probably not.”
Then we must find the man who will listen. There is not much time. You must tell the other one.
What she had expected. Telling them to get their butts in gear. “I will.”
When AnyKaat came back, Jo figured it would be just to gather whatever she wanted to take with her. She went to the lounge to make up her mind if she would put herself through a farewell scene or just let it slide.
She had a drink. It did not help. She concocted another with twice the firepower, but then just sat there nursing it.
“There you are. I thought you’d disappeared.”
The moment had come. But AnyKaat did not look like she was going anywhere. Looked ragged as hell, in fact. “Hi.” Glumly. “Got a message for you from Seeker.”
“He wants to get moving. Don’t take much genius to guess that.” She sat down.
“You got it. How’d it go?”
“It didn’t. Jo, I can’t talk to my own mother. She doesn’t have the slightest idea what I’m telling her. The things she tells me all seem shallow and trivial after Merod Schene. And my son doesn’t know who the hell I am and doesn’t trust me enough to want to find out. My old friends are scared of me. Degas’s people aren’t the least bit shy about telling me it’s all my fault he isn’t here. Era’s people aren’t talking at all. The department is in a tizzy because the back pay they owe us, with the interest setup we had, will screw the budget for a couple of years. They wrote us off and stopped figuring us in. Not to mention what my accrued seniority might mean if I get plugged back into the system.”
Jo mixed her one of her favorites. “Chew on this.”
AnyKaat took a gulp. “I would’ve been better off if we hadn’t gotten off V. Rothica 4. Hell. Everybody would have been better off. They wouldn’t all hate me for turning up alive and making them feel guilty about how they feel.”
Jo grunted. She could not think of anything to say to that.
“It hurts, Jo. Even when you understand what’s going on. All that time hanging onto a thread, and here wasn’t here anymore when I got here.”
“I know. I’ve been through it. And it’s all I have looking at me when I catch VII Gemina.”
AnyKaat fiddled with things not there. “So how do you cope with it?”
“I don’t know. After a while we just avoid attachments and commitments. We put everything into being a good soldier.”
AnyKaat closed her eyes, expression momentarily surprised. Jo suspected she had realized that a certain Guardship soldier had formed an attachment despite herself. She hoped AnyKaat would not want to talk about it. That was when things got strange and scary and misinterpreted and turned into things they were not.
“I told Otten we were pulling out on the tenth. That’s about as long as Seeker will be patient. He’s real worried.”
AnyKaat took the offered escape hatch. “How come?”
“I don’t know. He don’t always make sense even when Amber Soul helps him try.”
“She’s weird. She gives me the creeps.”
“She gives herself the creeps. She’s lived through what you’re suffering right now, a hundred times worse.”
“Yeah.” AnyKaat reached across, touched the back of Jo’s hand. “Thanks, Jo.”
“Hunh? What?”
“Nothing. I got to check some things out.”
Jo watched her leave, puzzled.
AnyKaat was aboard Dawn Watch when the Traveler undocked. Her face was puffy from crying. She could not forget all she had chosen to leave behind, though she had lost it long ago. Jo left her alone.
Jo did not think she could have walked away rather than cling to the edges of the once known....
Seeker had a vague notion where to start looking, almost two months of hard running beyond the Rim. The crew did not argue. However they were being paid, it was enough to make them bite down on their fear.
With unavoidable stops, misnavigations, and evasions, four
months elapsed before Dawn Watch reached its destination. VII Gemina was not there. There was nothing in that system but the leavings of an old skirmish the defenders had not won. Seeker would have to continue spying on the methane breathers till he extracted a hint where to move next.
— 119 —
Blessed gazed in apparent benignity on the hundreds gathered in the back courts of his Fuerogomenga Gorge castle. Most were watching an outstanding nighttime display in the canyon. The Directors were all there. All the senior managers had come. Only T. W. Trice had failed to appear. No excuses, no regrets, no nothing, just no show.
Nyo came to stand beside him. “Fantastic party so far. You figured out which one she is?” He indicated the Valerena holding court below.
“The one out of the inner office. Cable says the others are holed up in the old place in the High City, having a party with some men they scraped up out of DownTown. Cable can take care of it.”
Nyo sighed, relieved. He was not handling the pressure well. “That puts a lock on it, doesn’t it?”
“Except for T. W. We don’t have her covered. But I can handle her.”
“What about Tina?”
‘Tina and Placidia are away from it and perfectly safe. Did you bring Rash Norym?”
“She’s inside.”
“Bring her out here. I want her seen with me.”
Nyo shrugged, went inside, herded a flustered Rash Norym onto the balcony. “Is this wise?” she demanded.
“Probably not for you if we screw up. Which means you’d better give it all you’ve got to make sure we don’t.” He smiled. Rash Norym had been a big help, but he could not shake the feeling that she was holding back. “Tonight is the night.”
“I... I don’t think you should.”
“Why not?”
“Uh... T. W. is sure there’s something going on. She’s doing things that look like she’s getting ready for something.” It had been a stroke of luck, finding Norym in Intelligence. Pity she could not have gotten closer to the center.
“Her people would have to be deaf and blind to miss all the signs, wouldn’t they? The question is, does she know where it’s coming from?”
“I don’t think so. But I don’t think you should count on that making any difference. She seems sure she can handle anything.”
“Let’s find out. Nyo, send out the word.”
Bofoku gulped a mouthful of air, bobbed his head, went to push the thing past the point of no return.
Blessed leaned on the balcony rail, smiling and waving, and waited for his soldiers to move in.
Kez Maefele had left him with a useful little army. Be a shame to waste it.
Cable Shike had left the High City house reworked to his own specifications when Blessed moved. Just in case, someday. Someday had come. He entered his codes. A prepped security system not only allowed him inside, it concluded that he was not there at all. He must be a ghost or glitch.
He asked how many people were in the house and where they were. Four men and three women, all in one upstairs suite.
He went.
They had the place to themselves. They did not need to close doors.
Cable glanced in from the darkened hallway. The Valerenas were in a NoGrav bubble with two men, preoccupied. A third man leaned against a sideboard, naked, dull-eyed, sipping something, watching like he had come along only because he had not had anything better to do. The fourth man was nowhere in sight. He would be behind the closed bathroom door.
The man at the sideboard glanced Cable’s way when Shike released the safety on his hairsplitter. The man said, “Aw, shit!” and squealed when the pellet hit him.
Cable snapped quick shots at the others as they broke it up, to slow any running starts, then finished it carefully, without them getting off a yell loud enough to disturb the man using the toilet. The Valerenas went out looking at him like they could not believe what was happening.
He still had trouble getting a hold on it himself.
He laid his weapon down, left the house at a brisk walk, pausing only to tell the security system to start raising hell. That poor bastard in the john. He was in for some heavy shit.
Shike checked the time. Fifteen minutes ahead of schedule.
He checked the time again as he walked in one of the ground level entrances of the Tregesser Pylon. Still fifteen up. Right on track.
The Directors, separated from everyone else, got real attentive after Blessed splattered the Valerena’s brains all over the wall. He settled atop a shaga wood desk that had belonged to his mother. He held his weapon negligently but pointed in their direction. “It’s a long story. I’ll only hit the high points.”
He told them the last thing Provik had let them in on was his grandfather’s death. He told them about the Simon Other trying to kill him, Valerena, and Provik. He told them about Valerena gaining control of VI Adjutrix and the fate that had befallen her. He told them about Provik making a deal with the surviving Valerenas, then about the campaign by the Outsiders to force Tregesser assistance. He told them about the hostages House Tregesser had been forced to give.
He slipped off the desk, walked across the room, walked back, slapping his hairsplitter into his palm. “With Provik gone there’s only one man on Prime whose testimony would get any serious attention if a question about the identity of the Valerenas arose. They were about to correct that. With help from some of you. I was lucky. I had a friend in the other camp.”
They would find that plausible. It fit the absurdities of House politics. Once they bought the whole, that could be transformed into a mandate for a housecleaning.
“I’ve moved first. A lesson I learned from Provik. The matter will be settled before dawn. You’re all here. We have a quorum. Before I go into the city I want my succession formally accepted.”
What choice did they have? Anyone who voted against him would set himself up to be purged.
Nyo settled into the skimmer beside Blessed, buckled in. Blessed asked, “What’s the matter?” He started the skimmer rolling, checked the time. “Cable will move soon. Trice will be all that’s left.”
Nyo glanced back at Rash Norym, squeezed into the luggage space behind them, and through the back light at vehicles carrying twenty nonhuman commandos. Norym was terrified. “I don’t know, Blessed. Maybe I’m turning wimp. But I have a feeling we missed an angle.”
Blessed was euphoric. He could not conceive of anything going wrong now. They would catch T. W. sleeping and that would be that.
Three and Five had sent an alarm to the family already when T. W. hustled in, still fuddled from sleep. “You got the flash from the High City?”
“Yes. This might be it.”
“Cable Shike just walked in downstairs.”
Shike’s half-brother and two associates from the Black Ring watched the three vehicles dwindle into the distance. “Right on time.”
“Let’s go.”
Two minutes later they were inside the castle, undetected by guards or security systems. Four minutes later still they reached the room where House Tregesser’s Directors were confined. There were no guards outside. They burst into the room, shot everyone there, and were out of the castle within eight minutes more.
The assistant assassins, with no idea who their victims had been, met a similar fate within minutes.
Blessed and Nyo entered the Pylon and started the long trek to the lifter banks. Commandos came in various entrances and drifted toward the banks, too. Blessed and Nyo would disarm the security checkpoints ahead of them.
Blessed glanced around. The place was as quiet as it should be. Cable was sipping a drink at the island usually occupied by someone from Provik’s office, security’s outermost sentinel. Blessed was now sure he could move fast enough no matter what alarms he tripped. He had the people and the equipment to do the job.
It went perfectly at every checkpoint. And the more promising it looked, the darker Nyo’s mood became, as if he was more afraid of success than he was of f
ailure.
They reached the level where Trice lived, spread out. Rash Norym had provided a floor plan. They penetrated at four points, advanced on Trice’s apartment, broke into that and headed for her bedroom.
It was empty.
Nyo said, “Oh, shit!”
Blessed was rattled but refused to show it. “So she broke routine. So we have to hunt her down. We’ve got the people.”
“She was in bed. It’s messed up. She’s gone. And she has the people, too. A lot of them, trained by the Ku while he was building in the planetary defense stuff.”
“These guys are veterans, Nyo. Come on. We’ll get her.”
The comm beside Trice’s bed beeped. T. W. appeared on its viewscreen.
“I knew it,” Nyo said. “She was laying for us.”
“Norym is dead meat.” Blessed covered the visual pickup, opened the circuit.
Trice said, “That level has been isolated, Blessed. Utilities and services are about to be withdrawn. If you want to talk your way out of this, send your people home. You and Nyo take the freight lift to Lupo’s office.” The screen went dead. The lights died a moment later.
“Better talk,” Nyo said. “We’d be fighting shadows. She knows where we’re at and what we’ve got. We don’t know what she’s got. We don’t know these aliens will stick if the shit starts flying.”
“Cable won’t be happy.” Shike wanted House security.
“He’ll understand. Hell, maybe she’ll give it up. She wants out alive, too.”
“Maybe.” Blessed wished he could see his soldiers to get a read on their attitudes. They knew what was happening. Nyo was right. They wouldn’t stick for all or nothing. “Damn her. We don’t have any choice.”
He had gone from euphoria to despair in two minutes.