“Code Sane! Code Sane!” The whir ceased.
She crawled out shaking, dragged herself upright. The needle storm had demolished the office, had shredded the Other.
She lost her lunch.
“What happened?” One of the Others from the outer office stood in the doorway.
“Get out! Get out! Get out!” Valerena flung herself at the door, slammed it, locked it, leaned against it while the heaves doubled her over. Then she stumbled to her desk to call Lupo.
The comm system had been destroyed along with everything else.
She was trapped. With a corpse. With no way to summon help.
— 81 —
Turtle returned the comm to its cradle.
“What was it?” Midnight asked.
“I’m about to get a closeup look at Lupo Provik. He’s here to see Blessed. Blessed wants both Cable and I there.”
“Don’t show off.”
“I won’t.”
Shike and the Bofokus arrived before he did. Blessed asked, “You didn’t come armed? Never mind. It’s too late.”
They were in a vast room in the rear of the second level of the High City home Blessed had taken over from his mother. Valerena had used it for large parties. Blessed settled in a chair against a wall. Tina sat at his left, Nyo at his right. Shike stood farther to his right. Turtle took his place at Tina’s left.
A man and a woman stepped through a doorway fifty meters away.
They moved with polish, disposing themselves without a word or signal, the woman falling back and drifting out so Provik was exactly in Shike’s line of fire when they halted.
They had read him as unarmed and Shike otherwise. The woman could shoot him and Shike both before he could reach her.
Blessed asked, “What brings you slumming, Lupo?”
“Some gunplay in the Black Ring.”
Blessed frowned. “There’re gunfights down there every day.”
Turtle relaxed. He read Provik as having no violent intent. He tried to get a feeling for the man. It was difficult. There was nothing obviously remarkable about him. He would not stand out in a group unless he chose to.
Turtle eyed the woman. He saw the same qualities there.
Provik replied, “I was lucky enough to get this on tape. I want you to see it.”
Blessed frowned again, off balance. “Tee? Would you take that? There’s a player over there.” He rose, started walking. He said something to Provik’s companion. She just smiled.
The tape was brief. It began in the middle of the action, with a man collapsing while Provik’s friend gunned down everyone in sight. There was no need but Provik let it roll through the coups de grace.
Turtle looked at the woman. There was that little smile, just for him.
Very, very dangerous.
“One of Mumsie’s Others,” Blessed said. “Leading your people into an ambush? Why come to me?”
“One of your mother’s Others, yes, but she wasn’t what brought us here.”
Provik’s companion was watching Shike now. Turtle stepped forward. “Excuse me, Tina.” He rolled the tape back, zeroed in on the moment he wanted, froze the action. Two men in flight, one looking back. “Can we blow this up, Tina?”
She did it. Blessed said, “I see what you mean, Lupo. But Cable hasn’t been out today.”
“So who is that man?”
“Cable?”
“I have a half-brother.”
“Is that him? Would he get into something like this?”
“It might be. He would if he was paid. If he didn’t know it was House politics.”
“I’d like to talk to him. Could you arrange it?”
“If it was a chance to get him out from under whatever’s hanging over him.”
Blessed glared. That was not the answer he wanted from his number one boy.
Provik’s companion snapped into motion with the suddenness of an unexpected explosion. As she turned she produced a hairsplitter with her right hand, a House issue energy gun with her left. She never looked at Turtle but the energy gun flew straight to his hand.
Provik moved half a heartbeat behind her, drawing identical weapons, throwing his energy gun toward Tina.
Turtle snapped the weapon out of the air. The hairsplitters made thwock thwock thwock! noises at people charging into the room. He shot twice himself and moved forward, on the woman’s left, while the people over there were dumbfounded by the failure of their surprise.
He glanced at the woman, saw a hunting animal totally intent on its prey.
She was not as fast as a Ku. Neither was Provik. But she had begun moving before anyone had come into the room. She and Provik had begun shooting as targets materialized. Despite the range, the woman dropped four and Provik two before he took his own first shot.
Turtle glanced back.
Shike had Blessed and the Bofokus down behind a couch, was estimating the best way to get them out.
A man with a four-tube rocket launcher leapt through the doorway. Hairsplitter pellets hit him before Turtle could shoot.
They were anticipating.
That was worth remembering.
The dead man launched his missiles by reflex. Into the floor. Two warheads exploded immediately. The other rockets ricocheted. One proved a dud. The other blew a hole in the ceiling.
Turtle stood. He shot pieces of furniture, to blow them apart or set them afire. Provik and his woman picked off the people they sheltered when they tried for new cover.
His charge pack went dead. He got down.
He glanced back, saw Shike push Blessed through a doorway, jump through after him.
Blessed was angry. “Who the hell do you think you’re shoving, Cable?”
“The guy I’m going to keep alive. Even if I have to knock him in the head and drag him away.”
“He’s right, Blessed,” Tina said. She was calm. Nyo was the rattled Bofoku.
Shike said, “Let’s keep moving. There were at least twenty of them. The Ku and Provik won’t beat those odds. Tina. Rearguard. Nyo, stay in front of him. I’ll lead.”
Blessed demanded, “How did they get past the alarm?”
“Your mother used to live here.”
“She’s trying to kill me?”
“Maybe. But Provik was getting at her Others. Be quiet. Analyze it after we’re safe.”
“I can’t just be a lump while you take the chances.”
“You’d better. The way I hear, your grandfather ended up in a bottle because he had that attitude.”
Two men appeared ahead. They looked like household staff. Shike shot them both. He approached warily, toed a dropped hand communicator blinking for attention. “Nyo. Get their weapons.”
“Where are we headed?” Blessed asked.
“Out. To Tina and Nyo’s place.”
The hall turned twice and ended on a balcony hanging seven meters above the lobbylike entry foyer. Shike looked down at an empty floor. He heard a voice.
“Keep after them. If even one gets out, we’re dead.” That voice belonged to Valerena Tregesser. It came from beneath the balcony. There was a cloakroom down there. Someone hidden there could cover the entrance, both stairs, and the freight and passenger elevators beside the stairs.
A second Valerena voice said, “I can’t get Chocki. They must have gotten past him.”
“Then be quiet. They’ll be here soon.”
Shike backed away. “Tina, go around the balcony as far as you can. When I wave, shoot at the cloakroom. Take an extra charge pack. Nyo, cover the hallway.” He took a captured charge pack himself, along with his own hairsplitter and extra magazine. He ran along the crescent balcony in the direction opposite Tina, to its end, where it met a black marble wall. He waved.
Tina was no sharpshooter. She hit the cloakroom only four times.
Good enough. A cursing Valerena showed enough of herself to shoot back.
Shike hit her shoulder with his hairsplitter. She screamed and kept on screaming. Sh
e stumbled out.
Blessed cut her down.
Shike emptied an entire magazine into the cloakroom hoping to start a fire or get a hit with a ricochet. He failed.
A bolt missed Tina by a handspan.
They could not get past.
A second hallway, which led to the room where the shooting had started, opened on the balcony near the passenger elevator. Four men and a woman stumbled out, the men in pairs supporting injured comrades, the woman firing back along the hallway.
They never had a chance.
Lupo moved onto the balcony carefully, stepping over bodies. Tina Bofoku and Cable Shike relaxed as they recognized him. He moved toward Blessed, who was slicing cloth away from a burn on Nyo’s leg. “That should be all of them.”
Shike said, “There’s another one in the cloakroom. I couldn’t figure how to get her.”
Lupo looked over the rail. “There were two?”
“It was their command post.”
“We don’t have to use the front way.”
Blessed turned Nyo over to Tina, joined them. “Valerena. You’re the last one left. You want to die in a closet?” He looked at the Ku, who had followed Lupo. “She doesn’t come out, go get her.”
“You’re too ambitious for me, boy. You want her, you go dance through the gunfire.”
Lupo observed with interest. The Ku did not act like a hired hand.
The Valerena walked to the center of the serpentine floor. She saw Lupo. “You’re not dead.”
“Not yet.”
Blessed shot her five times.
Two stepped off the stair and stood beside the passenger elevator, hairsplitter held loosely at her side. Lupo said, “That’s all for now, Blessed. Though I’d like to see Shike’s brother sometime.”
Turtle watched Provik descend the stairs and move to the front door, where he stood relaxed while the woman made the last leg of her withdrawal. “That’s a dangerous man, Blessed.”
“I know.”
“I mean more dangerous than you think. I don’t think he can be killed.”
Blessed was in a foul mood. He wanted to argue. Turtle refused. “He left that tape in the machine. I want to see it again.”
But there was no tape there when he checked.
The woman must have gone back while he and Provik were chasing the survivors.
Maybe they were right when they said Provik made no mistakes.
— 82 —
There was a caution waiting at the lower watchpoint with Goshe. Lupo called One. He listened briefly. In the privacy of a lifter, he told Two, “A couple of Valerena’s Others, from her office, turned up asking for protection. One’s been putting them off hoping we’d get back and handle it ourselves.”
“Sarcastic, are we?”
“He could have handled it.”
“Then got bitched at because things were happening and you weren’t being kept informed.”
“Probably. I reserve the right to be unreasonable, inconsistent, and arbitrary in an unreasonable, inconsistent, and arbitrary universe. What did you think of Blessed’s new bodyguard?”
“Deadly. And smart, maybe. He never stopped studying us.”
“We’ll keep him in mind. Now let’s worry about our Valerena trouble. I can’t help recalling that she left three of them on that Guardship. What mischief are they up to out there?”
A minute later, still smelling of fight, they stepped into the office where the Valerenas waited. Lupo questioned them only long enough to get a glimmer of what had happened. He signalled One. “Call Blessed. We need him here. Use your imagination if you have to. Then get T. W. up here. I’m going to check on Valerena.”
He hammered on the door. “Valerena! It’s Provik.”
Muffled, “It’s unlocked.”
He eased the door open, spied the shredded corpse, the demolished furniture. He went in slowly.
He found himself facing a cutter.
“It is you.”
“I think so.”
“You took long enough.”
“I was in the High City keeping Blessed from getting killed by your Others.”
“Blessed too?”
“All of us. They tried me this morning.”
“A clean sweep.”
“Except for T. W. Come down to my office. They don’t know they didn’t get you, either.”
“Of course they do. Two got away when I did that.” She indicated the corpse.
“Those two are all right. They came straight down to let me know you were in trouble. If they’d been on the other side there would have been another try.”
“Unless I’m not Valerena Prime.”
“I’ll know about that after I get you to my office.”
T. W. got through so quick her call had to have been expected. “T. W. Trice!” the Simon Other boomed. “How the hell are you? I haven’t seen your ugly puss since...”
“Can it. I’m not in the mood. Lupo got himself killed this morning.” She had been Provik’s lover once and was well known as his designated heir.
“Killed? Lupo Provik?”
“Lupo. I know. It sounds unlikely. Since Valerena took over, I’ve had orders to get with you if anything happens to him. Can you come down?”
“Why don’t you come up? More private here.”
“I can’t. Somebody tried to burn Blessed and got the bad side of his bodyguards. I’m riding monitor on the cleanup.”
Pause. “I’ll be right down.”
“Use the freight lift. I’m back in the big office.” She secured. “That good enough, Lupo?’”
“Perfect. He’ll be foaming at the mouth, worrying.”
Two came in. “Blessed is on his way. He brought the Ku instead of Shike.”
“He knows we wouldn’t let him in armed.”
Blessed arrived moments before the guest of honor. There was no time to brief him. The Simon Other came out of the freight lift booming, “T. W! Where the hell are you, woman?”
“In here.”
The bell came sailing in. “What’s this shit about somebody trying to... Hell.”
T. W. said, “I’ll leave now, Lupo.”
“You don’t have to.”
“I want to.”
“Go ahead.” Provik faced the bell. “You and Simon wondered how it would come out if we went head to head. Now you know. You were clumsy, hasty, sloppy, overconfident, and your communications and reserves were inadequate. You defeated yourself. I didn’t see it coming.”
“I had one throw of the dice. I took it. And you know damned well victory don’t always go to him with the most resources. I don’t have any regrets. Do what you have to do.”
Lupo allowed time for Valerena or Blessed to comment. Neither spoke. He wished he could read the Ku. The alien seemed amused.
“You’ve overlooked your value to the House. Or maybe you didn’t. Maybe you were counting on it.”
The Simon Other did not respond.
“You’re the Chair, Valerena. What do we do with him?”
“What do you think we should do?”
“You’re the Chair. It’s your job to decide. Mine is to carry out your decisions. I never let Simon duck responsibility for the unpleasant things we did, and I won’t let you, either.”
“You’re a bastard.”
“I know.” He watched Blessed obliquely. The boy remained a cypher. “But this does have to be resolved.”
“Can we deal with the Outsiders without him?”
“Probably. It may take longer.”
“I don’t need the aggravation of always having to watch for a next time.”
Lupo smiled thinly. How often had she tried to get to her father? “Blessed. You have an opinion?”
“No.”
Just here. Just watching. Just learning what it meant to be a Tregesser. “Go home, then. My people will come clean up. Don’t relax. There could be a few severed limbs of this thing flopping around still.”
Blessed left without a word, his
alien drifting behind him.
“What was that thing?” Valerena asked.
“A Ku warrior. His bodyguard. Ready to talk about your Others?”
“Yes. But I have a problem with it.”
“What?”
“After what happened in my office I realized there’re several of them I can’t account for.”
“That’ll be my next project. After we dispose of this body and equipment.”
Two had shut the Simon Other down while Blessed was leaving, before it could leave a legacy of distrust by mentioning its suspicions about the circumstances of Simon Tregesser’s death.
— 83 —
It took four days to clean up the station. Haget put together a long-winded report and entrusted it to the Horigawa Hauler. Then he ordered the Traveler on to M. Shrilica.
“He didn’t even mention how well you handled the station, Jo,” AnyKaat said.
“He’s busy.”
“Stop making excuses. You know what he’s busy doing? Using that station as a median point to develop a descriptive probability from which to predict which other stations might have been infiltrated.”
“It has to be done.”
“At Starbase. We got a job. Catch the runaways.”
Jo did not want to argue. Especially since AnyKaat was saying what she was thinking.
Haget was having trouble handling an ongoing relationship. He was evading by burying himself in work.
They visited M. Shrilica station. They made the locals nervous for two days. But the more sure Jo, Degas, and Vadja became that there was something worth finding there, the more perfunctory became Haget’s attitude. Fifty-three hours in he decided to go after the phantom phantom.
Five strands anchored on M. Shrilica. One led toward Starbase, one back to the station already policed. Haget presented a search program moving outward from the next anchors of the remaining strands.
“He’s screwed up royal,” Degas said. “Why doesn’t the Deified jump him?”
Jo could not defend Haget.
Vadja said, “Not to worry, Jo. We scavenged every bit of information except what’s locked up inside human minds. He’ll come back. When he does, we’ll know what questions to ask.”
Vadja launched a record pod that would lie dormant till a Guardship broke off the Web.