Third WatchMaster was astonished. Marmigus alive had had a reputation for informality and irreverence, but in a formal inquiry dignity was mandatory.
“Up first, disposition of the krekelen. There is no ambiguity in the law. The damned things were judged useless. The only thing we can do is kill it. But WarAvocat has petitioned for a stay. He may be able to use it against those who loosed it. Anybody object? No? WarAvocat, you’ve got your pet.”
Hanaver Strate was playing a strong hand these days, getting elected Dictat while he was still alive, getting this without demur from the contentious Deified.
“Next item. Disposition of the Cholot Traveler Glorious Spent. I and I and STASIS can’t fabricate a case for detaining the vessel. Its Chief has asked that the quarantine be lifted.”
Third WatchMaster snapped to attention, clicked his heels, shot a fist into the air.
“Commander Haget?” WarAvocat offered the recognition.
“Deified sirs. Stipulating that nothing concrete has been established, nevertheless I wish to insist that there is something very wrong aboard the Traveler.”
Timmerbach cursed.
WarAvocat beamed down at Third WatchMaster.
Intuition had done him right.
Others looked at him like he was a treacherous shill for WarCrew.
Strate asked, “What disturbs you, Commander? The aliens?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Isn’t their documentation in order?”
“It’s impeccable, what there is of it. But it’s awfully thin.”
“Exactly! Thank you, Commander.” WarAvocat continued, but Third WatchMaster could not hear him. A pillow of silence had fallen upon the witness dock.
Timmerbach continued grumbling against fate in general and no one in particular.
WarAvocat appeared to be making an impassioned statement against resistance from the Deified. That made no sense. Arguments could be battled out in the electronic realm in picoseconds.
The truth struck him as a pair of shipboard security types entered the silence to fetter the krekelen. WarAvocat and Deified, krekelen and witnesses, all were part of a dramatization for slower biological minds. If any crew were watching.
“Sir?”
“Yes?” A sinking feeling. More security types had appeared.
“WarAvocat would like you to join him in his quarters. Will you accompany us, please?”
Third WatchMaster turned, marched, mind numb.
— 10 —
Simon Tregesser kicked his closed personal grav sled across Central Staff’s vast Information Center, came to a hover behind Lupo Provik. He turned up the gain on his prosthetic eyes, still could not make out what interested his strategist. “Fresh data, Lupo?”
A hint of exasperation faded from Provik’s features as he turned. His plain face, shelled by ginger hair, assumed its habitual cool blandness. Only blue-grey eyes hard as diamond drillheads betrayed the man within. “The new gun platform just broke away. We’ve started siphoning the intelligence packet.”
No honorific. Never an honorific from Lupo. Simon would tolerate that from no one else. But Lupo’s loyalty did not need to be compelled or paid for in the coin of terror. Provik had been with him all his life. Provik had masterminded the gambit by which he had rid himself of a tyrannical and sadistic father. Provik found those subtle traps in Valerena’s schemes his own genius overlooked. As bodyguard Provik had lapsed only once. And for that, unforgiving Simon Tregesser had forgiven him.
Simon did not understand Lupo Provik but willingly used and even liked the man, in his odd way. Lupo was as courageous, merciless, remorseless, and brilliant as Simon Tregesser imagined himself to be. And he was no threat. He had suffered one defensive lapse. Offensively he had been invincible.
Simon most appreciated the fact that Lupo was not intimidated by Guardships. Few were they of whom that could be said.
“Anything exciting?”
“Standard fare. Antiquated Guardship sightings. Nothing tagged for special attention.” Provik was trying to create a model of Guardship movements. After years of work he could guess the whereabouts of six with a fifty-fifty chance of being right.
Easily disappointed, Tregesser drifted away. He spat curses at a pod of Chtrai’el-i computer technicians.
Aliens! Outsiders everywhere! Central Staff was infested. But it was impossible to recruit humans with balls enough to try it with the Guardships. Guts and determination! That was the recipe for accomplishing the impossible.
A vagrant curiosity ambled the surface of his mind. How many of these monsters were agents of what passed for Houses Outside? Most, probably. But it would not matter. Lupo would see to that.
Provik watched his employer drift away. He felt no irritation anymore. He had no feeling at all. Simon Tregesser was a device, a mask, a tool, the means whereby Lupo Provik worked his will upon a universe that must be manipulated with the tongues and fingers of the lords of great Houses. Simon Tregesser had his allegiance and protection so long as he shared a passion for empire building.
From the outside it appeared that Lupo Provik had no other passions. From the outside it seemed that Lupo Provik had no weaknesses or vulnerabilities. From the outside it appeared that Lupo had neither friends nor loves. From the outside it seemed he did not believe he was missing anything.
From the outside.
Central Staff was of a magnitude in keeping with its mission. In the slowest hours of third shift, five hundred beings were on duty in Info Center, controlling the forces outside. Financing had come from the same sources as most personnel. Outsiders desperately wanted to break the Guardships’ deathgrip on the Canon Web.
Simon Tregesser managed one of his smiles. Valerena failed to appreciate a genius that got others to pay the freight and set them up to take the fall.
Tregesser stared from an observation blister, watching the new ship. It would come to Central to have Guardship-grade shielding installed — and its ability to get back on the Web removed.
When the Guardship came, no one would have the option of retreat.
“Simon.”
Tregesser withdrew his attention from the gunship. “Yes, Lupo?”
“One interesting datum did come in the intelligence packet.”
Tregesser waited.
“XII Fulminata came off the Web at C. Payantica. It stayed only an hour, then climbed back on, presumably bound for Starbase Tulsa. This is the first sighting of XII Fulminata in sixteen years.”
“It couldn’t be the easy way.” Tregesser glared at the gunship. XII Fulminata! “Starbase is only a dozen anchor points from P. Jaksonica, isn’t it?”
“Yes.”
“It would suit the drama of the thing, wouldn’t it?”
“There’s no cause to assume XII Fulminata will take the trail. But the possibility now exists.”
“Does that change anything?”
“No. XII Fulminata carries no more firepower than any other Guardship.”
“It would be one of the crazy ones,” Tregesser mused. There was no response. He rotated his chair.
Lupo was headed back to work, satisfied that XII Fulminata’s reputation would not stall the project.
Tregesser snorted. He could not stop it if he wanted to.
Simon Tregesser suffered one nagging worry. The reliability of the thing secreted down below. Its great value was an ability to know what was happening countless stars away. As promised, it had known when the bait’s Traveler had broken off the Web at P. Jaksonica....
It had delivered no news since.
Tregesser was... concerned. As was the monster, he knew. It responded strangely when pressed. Something was wrong.
He ought to get down and check. Lupo’s news was not reassuring. XII Fulminata, indeed!
He keyed a signal to Noah to ready the bell.
Time to shed this damned toy, anyway. Nothing could make it comfortable.
Lupo glanced up as Tregesser drifted into the lift to his hideaway. He blinked as thou
gh trying to clear smoke from his eyes. “Be back in a few minutes,” he told his staffers. He activated his beeper and headed for the shipping docks.
Valerena had asked to see him before she left.
— 11 —
Five people were there with the serving robot: Third WatchMaster, the female soldier, Timmerbach, Magnahs, and Otten. Third WatchMaster stared at the deck and rummaged his mind for what he had done. Only Otten and Magnahs conversed.
Hanaver Strate walked in, flashed a grin. “Everyone comfortable? Had refreshments?”
Only the soldier had the nerve to respond. “Sir, what did we do?”
WarAvocat looked baffled. Then, “I see. You’re wrong. It’s not disciplinary. I intend deploying you against whoever sent the krekelen to catch a Guardship’s attention.”
“Sir? Someone sent it?”
“So the Deified say. The krekelen was a telepathically linked communal beast originally. The isolated individual became a low-grade moron that could be programmed like a robot. Our krekelen was programmed to give itself away.”
“Isn’t that a little unsubtle?”
“Only fools would expect us not to be suspicious. Someone wants us to react. Probably to backtrack.
“We have an advantage. Chance placed us here when the incident occurred. That puts us two and a half months ahead, that being optimum turnaround when a call goes out for a Guardship. Commander Haget, let’s assess the I and I reports and see if we can’t find a basis for your outburst.”
Magnahs, Otten, and Timmerbach gave him dark looks.
“I’m sorry, sir,” Haget said.
“The interruption was useful and timely. Saved me doing it myself.”
“There wasn’t anything solid, sir. Just my conviction that there was something wrong.”
“Intuition?”
“It was more that I couldn’t manage an interrogation. Whenever I tried the methane breather, I became so repelled I fled.”
“But you went back.”
“And ran again.”
“And went back again. But I won’t argue about standards you set yourself. What about the other one?”
“It bothers me more. The methane breather is a creepy-crawlie. The other seemed all right. It didn’t bother me. But I never got around to getting anything from it.”
WarAvocat asked Timmerbach, “Did your people have similar experiences?”
“Yes, sir. I even ended up moving all passengers off B Deck. They couldn’t stand it near the methane breather.”
“The other one?”
“No problem. It didn’t socialize. It just wanted to look at the worlds we visited.”
“Hunh. Commander Haget. Where did they come from? The methane breather has a commercially arranged temporary courier’s credentials. The other has a Treaty World diplomatic pass.”
“Gemina didn’t know the methane breather, sir, and only that there’s a Closed Treaty arrangement with the homeworld of the other, the one the Travelers know as Seeker of the Lost Children.”
“Sounds like a job description.”
Third WatchMaster shrugged. “The methane breather calls itself Messenger. Seeker’s home is the Closed Treaty System M. Meddinia, which is in the Sixth Presidency, near the Atlantean Rim. It’s a fixture on the commercial runs in the Sixth and Second Presidencies. It’s been traveling without a destination for several hundred years. Like the Chief says, it’s unsociable. But it pays well to be carried around and left alone.”
WarAvocat nodded. “Thin. What about the other one?”
“A colonial intelligence previously unknown in Canon space. Even ships that trade Outside didn’t know it. It boarded at A. Chancelorii 3B on open itinerary.”
WarAvocat nodded. “Chief Timmerbach. Aren’t the Manesa Systems, S. L. Manesica and B. L. Manesia, in the same Presidency as A. Chancelorii and M. Meddinia?”
“They’re neighbors, sir. All part of the same cluster. The Web there is a tangle, there are so many interconnections between anchor points.”
“And though it didn’t cross paths with you till V. Rothica, the krekelen began its odyssey on the Cholot world S. L. Manesica 7. Interesting.”
The Chief just shrugged.
WarAvocat leaned back, steepled his fingers. “The Deified say the chance of a connection between at least two of the aliens is close to unity.”
Third WatchMaster had begun to relax. He had done a good job. No blame on him if he could not find data that did not exist. Might even be a good mark when advancement reviews came up.... The way WarAvocat looked at him aborted his confidence.
Strate was going to shaft him.
WarAvocat’s thin lips stretched in what he thought was a comradely smile. “It won’t be as bad as you think. You could end up elected to WarCrew without loss of grade.”
What the hell? “Sir?”
“I thought you’d see it. The Deified want to go after this one. VII Gemina is headed for V. Rothica. While we’re charging around looking for the krekelen’s masters, I want you and a team with Glorious Spent.”
“Me and a team? Sir?”
The soldier got it first. “Shee-it!” she muttered.
“I’m going to put you aboard the Cholot Traveler. The Sergeant will go along. You’ll stay out of sight. Legwork will be handled by people we’ll borrow from P. Jaksonica 3B STASIS on a TAD contract. Otten, I want three good ops, preferably volunteers.”
Often’s thoughts left specters on his face.
WarAvocat continued, “The krekelen will be reprogrammed, set into Cholot shape, and put back aboard Glorious Spent.”
Magnahs, Otten, and Timmerbach sputtered. Klass swore softly. Timmerbach found his voice first. “Sir! You can’t do this!”
“We can and will, Chief. You’ll be paid for your trouble. Might even be a lifting of the Ban on some Cholot systems. Can you cry about that?”
Timmerbach could but kept his mouth shut.
WarAvocat said, “Consider the circumstantial evidence. The krekelen started from a Cholot world and ended up on one, made the last leg from a Merod world disguised as a Cholot, carrying Cholot documentation, aboard a Cholot Traveler, accompanied by a member of the Cholot Directorate. Suppose you were dealing with IX Furia?”
Timmerbach blanched.
IX Furia’s style was to shoot first and forget about questions. Or, some said, to shoot first and then shoot the survivors.
WarAvocat said, “Thank you for coming. Commander Haget, you and the Sergeant get your kits together. You’ll find sealed orders at departure bay. I’ll talk to the Station Master, Director, and Chief while you’re getting ready.”
Those three did not look delighted.
Third WatchMaster shambled toward the exit, deflated. He wished he could extinguish himself in drink or drugs. The soldier said something he did not catch. He grunted, trudged toward his quarters. There were people who would kill for this opportunity. But they had to send him.
It felt more like punishment than reward.
— 12 —
The wind licked and pranced through the ruins, muttering and chuckling. Superstitious DownTowners thought the ruins haunted. The wind carried voices that said something if you listened closely.
It carried dust and leaves, too. The dust kept getting behind Turtle’s nictating membranes. “I’d forgotten what it was like out here,” he told a squat Immune called Lonesome Mike. “Midnight can’t come outside alone.”
Lonesome Mike grunted. He was no conversationalist. He had not become Immune because of brainpower.
Turtle stared across the barrens at Merod Schene. “Looks like a dream city from here. Can’t see DownTown at all.”
It was the sort of view that ended up in tourist lures, Merod Schene glittering against the tapestry of a creeping orange sky, the High City wavering like seaweed amongst hurrying chubby clouds.
“How long we got to stay in that hole, Turtle?”
They had moved into the headquarters bunker of an archeological dig abandoned
when an attitude shift among the House Merod Directors had cut off funds. It was comfortable but primitive. Lonesome Mike objected because he felt isolated from the action.
“Till we find out if Lord Askenasry can get out the garrison. Maybe only a few days. If he fails, we wait it out.”
Turtle figured at least three months before the Guardship came. The Immunes had laid in supplies for six. No point worrying the future beyond that. What would be would be decided by then.
The day began fading. UpTown grew sparkly. Then its lights were overwhelmed by the fairy fires of the High City. Turtle stared a while, motionless as the old block on which he sat. Then he went below for supper and the day’s rancorous exchange with an emissary from the Concord.
Those fools flat refused to take no for an answer. As long as the Immunes rejected Concord, half the population of DownTown did. Turtle expected overt threats soon.
That was the night Amber Soul sent the messenger scurrying, heart ready to burst with terror.
Three nights in succession the Concord fools threw the darkest denizens of DownTown at the ruins. Three nights in succession Amber Soul sent them flying.
“As if murdering us will sell the justice of their cause,” Turtle said. “Just it may be, but it’s doomed. They never see that. They never think. And they never learn.”
It was the fourth night. Shouts rolled down from the watchers. “Here we go again,” Turtle grumped. “This time we send them home carrying their heads under their arms.”
Amber Soul touched him. It is not that. Lord Askenasry failed.
“Damn!” Turtle raced to the surface.
The violence of the explosions was sufficient to send muted thunders tramping fifteen kilometers to the ruins. The elfin towers of the High City listed thirty degrees.
“They didn’t have sense enough to sheer the mooring cables.”
“Or couldn’t.”
“It’s going to drop on UpTown.”
The disaster was a long time coming, but come it did, the High City settling onto UpTown, UpTown’s supports collapsing. Turtle imagined screams running with the thunder. “I’m going to pack.”