There was a flight into the dust cloud, sniffing cold spoor, and another team of bath who tired of fruitless, driven pursuit. She turned back to the starship, and as she approached it she received a touch.
A darkship with a crew symbolically selected from four dark-faring orders awaited her. It bore a desperate petition from the new most seniors of the various Communities, the silth she had expected to come hunting, but who never had.
What was this? Some cunningly laid trap?
She approached the meeting with extreme caution.
The Mistress of the courier ship was a Redoriad survivor of the battles with the Serke, one Marika knew and had little cause to suspect-though she had participated in Balbrach's attempt to steal the derelict. Her skills in the void were second only to Marika's own. She said, "You see before you the only Mistress of five sent who survived the effort to escape the homeworld. We all carried the same plea. Your talent is needed at home, Marika."
"For what? What has happened now?"
"The brethren. Of course. You were right about them. Somewhere, somehow, while silthdom diverted itself with other matters, they built a starship modeled on the alien. It appeared a month ago. It carried many brethren whom we could not harm and weapons of the alien sort. Many silth have perished. They seized the mirrors and orbital stations. Now they are down on the planet, attacking us everywhere. They have powerful suppressors that take our talents away and force us to battle them in their own fashion. Though you hurt them badly before, they have gained strength because they have won the sympathy of the bonded population."
Marika recalled the attitudes of her elders when she was a pup. The Communities had not ever had the hearts of common meth. "You would not listen, you silth. You would not learn. I do not want to come. The homeworld has done nothing but cause me grief. Yet I have made promises to my dead. I will come. And I will die, I think, for if none of you can destroy them, what hope for me alone? For if this is a lure into a web to avenge those I punished for their stupidity and cupidity, what chance that I will prevail? The bait would not be set out till the trappers felt certain of their ground."
The Redoriad ignored her suggestion of potential treachery. "You have the wooden darkship. The rogue cannot see you in the void."
"Little good may that do."
"You will come? For certain?"
"I said I would. Let me rest. Let me grieve for myself and all my stupid sisters who would not hear my warnings, so beg me now to kalerhag for their salvation. I should allow them to be eradicated. I should hope a smarter generation would arise after them. But I will come. I have nothing for which to live. Nothing but the destruction of my enemies."
"This is not true, mistress. It has taken a disaster of grand magnitude to convince the sisterhoods that the solitary voice crying warnjng held more wisdom than all their ruling generation. They believe, Marika. They beg you to take the mantle and show the way, to forge the new unity ... "
"I do not want to lead. I never wanted that. Had I wished, I could have taken command long ago. All I ever wanted was to walk the starpaths with my friends, finding new things. I have been allowed little opportunity to chase that dream. The wickednesses of silth have compelled me always to turn elsewhere. And now they have robbed me of all who were dearest to me. Then when they must pay the price of their folly they beg me to save them."
"You are bitter."
"Of course I am. But enough of that. Tell me what you know of the orbits occupied by the rogues." She did not believe treacherous silth would have craft enough to weave a luring tale with sufficient verisimilitude to include properly shaped imaginary rogue orbits. She would go, but the Redoriad's report would tell her what she faced. II Marika paused on a world a short jump from home. She rested her bath well. She carried a doubled and heavily armed crew. The Redoriad she sent ahead to scout. Shortly before she expected the Redoriad to return she took her darkship up and gathered ghosts for the Up-and-Over.
The Redoriad appeared. They are in polar orbit, she reported. Inside the orbits of the smallest moons. They are arming the mirrors and stations, though there are not really enough of them to operate all the systems. Touch I had with the surface was grim. Several small sisterhoods have been entirely destroyed. All the larger are in trouble. The only damage done the rogue ship was by a homecoming Mistress who committed kalerhag when she saw she could not reach the surface. After her rites she plunged her darkship into the rogue's drives. It cannot maneuver. Unfortunately, it remained in a stable orbit.
Marika thanked the Mistress, then questioned her closely about the rogue ship's orbit. She wanted to arrive near it, to allow it no time to respond to her appearance.
She skipped to the edge of the system, took control of a great black, then made the long jump, mind tight upon the innermost of the home world's minor moons, which orbited inside geocentric altitude and well askew from the equator.
She came out within a mile of the moon and hid behind it. It was fewer than a thousand miles from the rogue, and would move closer. She hurled the great black the moment she regained her equilibrium. She drove it with all the strength her hatred could inspire. She ignored the rest of the system. If she did not beat that ship nothing else would matter.
The Redoriad Mistress was right. The ship was brethren from its conception and mimicked the alien in line and armament, though it was smaller. It began firing soon after she started her approach. It had not had much trouble detecting her.
She moved in fast, though, directly toward the ship's stern, where there was a cone of space in which it was difficult for the ship's weapons to track her. She evaded or destroyed what little did threaten her, then entered a smaller cone where no weapon could reach her at all.
She probed the ship's suppressor fields and found a crack where the sister had smashed her darkship. She flung the great black at it, set it to ripping metal and the flesh beyond.
She brought her darkship into physical contact with the rogue's stern. Rogue weaponry on the moons and stations dared not fire upon her there.
Marika touched her reserve bath, who would have to play the roles so long filled by Grauel and Barlog. Plant a charge. They hurried out the arm touching the starship. Once they returned Marika drifted a short distance away.
This would surprise the brethren. They still expected silth to think like silth. That made them vulnerable to more mundane techniques.
The explosion left a satisfactory hole in the starship's skin. Marika drifted to that gap, tethered her darkship, and threw herself in amid the twisted metal. Her bath followed her.
The great black made the ship's interior a place of madness. So condensed was it there that the place seemed thick with a noisome, hate-filled fog. The bath teetered on the edge of insanity. Marika had difficulty maintaining her sense of direction.
She found a pressure door through which she could enter that part of the starship that retained hull integrity and opened it.
Rogues waited on the other side. Their determination collapsed, though, in the fog of the great black. They did not wear suppressor suits. Perhaps they had grown lax within their orbiting fortress.
Marika allowed the great black to spread through the vessel, overcoming without killing. Many of the crew went mad. They fired at one another or shot themselves. They screamed and screamed and screamed. The bath captured and restrained those they could.
The control center was a greater problem. It was shielded by independent fields. Marika could find no weak points. She did not want to damage the ship any more, but had no choice if she wanted her way. She sent two bath to fetch more explosives.