The azi were all out, she reckoned. She walked among them, saw that Merry had taken her at her word, for the dead lay in a group, half a dozen not counting the one above, on the bridge; and a little apart from them were four with disabling injuries; and apart from them was a large group of wounded; and a group which bore virtually none. She looked back that course again, suddenly understanding how they were grouped, that the wounded, huddled together, simply waited, knotted up as she had seen Jim do when he was disturbed.
Waiting termination.
She cast about in distress, reckoned what would be the lot of any left in beta care. “We carry those that can’t walk,” she told Merry, and cursed the luck, and her softness, and turned it to curses at the hale ones, ordering the emergency litters, ordering packs made, until men were hurrying about like a disturbed hive.
And the beta captain limped to her…she recognised the greying brows through the mask. “Stay with the ship,” he urged her.
“Stay yourself.” Her head throbbed and the sun beat through the cloth; she forced herself to gentle language. “Take your chances here, ser. Kontrin feud. Stay out of it.”
And seeing her own folk ready, she shouted hoarse orders and bade them move.
North.
Toward Newhope, toward any place with a computer link.
xi
Morn Hald paced the office of the ISPAK station command, waited, settled again at the console.
Such resources as the Family had at its command he called into use; a code number summoned what vessels waited at Meron, and long as it would take for the message to run via intercomp, as long as it would take those ships to reach Istra—they were as good as on their way.
He relied on the Hald for that.
The Meth-maren had provided the overt provocation the Movement needed, the chaos she had wrought at station, that elevated the matter above a feud of Houses. Panicked Outsiders were running, refusing all appeals to return—had firedon a Kontrin vessel. Morn’s thin hands were emphatic on the keys, violent with rage.
Hiswitness, under hiswitness the Meth-maren had managed such a thing; and he was stung in his pride. Outsiders were involved. He had hesitated between destroying them and not; and the thought of embroiling himself with that while the Meth-maren found herself escape and weapons—for that he had pulled away, to his prime target, to the dangerous one. There was no knowing in what she had her hand, where her agents were placed by now.
Revenge: she had never sought it, in all the long years, had wended her insouciant way from dissipation to withdrawal, and retaliated for only present injuries. The Family had tolerated her occasional provocations, which were mild, and seldom; and her life, which crossed none; and her style, which was palest imitation of Pol’s.
Morn read the comp records and cursed, realising the extent of what she had wrought in so few days: the azi programs disrupted, export authorisations granted, winning the allegiance of ITAK, which was therefore no longer reliable—she knew, she knew, and Outsiders, perhaps not the first to do so, were scattering for safety in their own space. News of that belonged in the hands of the Movement before it reached Counciclass="underline" he sent it, via Meron, under Istran-code, which would be intercepted.
So she might have launched instructions to Meron, to Andra, to whatever places an agent might have become established over two decades. They had worked to prevent it, had found no agent of the Meth-maren in all the years of their observation; and that, considering what she had done on Istra, disturbed all his confidence.
Betas hovered distressedly in the background of the command centre, as yet simply dazed by the passage of events—betas who had learned to avoid his anger. But any of them—any of them—could be hers. His own azi stood among them, armoured and armed, discouraging rashness.
To disentangle a Kontrin from a world was no easy matter. It was one which he did not, in any fashion, relish. His own style was more subtle, and quieter.
He put in a second call to Pol, waited the reasonable time for it to have relayed wherever he was lodged, and for Pol to have responded. He kept at it, sat with his chitined hand pressed against his lips, staring balefully at the flickering screen.
SALUTATIONS, the answer came back.
He punched in vocal, his own face instead of the Kontrin serpent that masked his other communications; Pol’s came through on his screen, mirror-wise, but Pol’s was smiling.
“Don’t be light with me, cousin,” Morn said “Where are you?”
“Newport.”
“She’s been here,” Morn said. “Was here to meet me, as you were not.”
Pol’s face went sober. He quirked a brow, looked offended. “I confess myself surprised. A meeting, then, not productive.”
“Where is she based?”
“Newhope. You’ve not been clear. What happened?”
“She cleared in a shuttle and station picks up nothing.”
“Careless, Morn.”
Morn gave a cold stare to the set’s eye, suffered Pol’s humour as he had suffered it patiently for years. “I’m holding station, cousin, and I’ll explain in detail later why you should have taken that precaution. It may not please you to learn. Get after her. I’d trade posts with you, but I trust you haven’t been idle in your hours here.”
He had sobered Pol somewhat “Yes,” Pol said. “I’ll find her. Enough?”
“Enough,” Morn said.
BOOK EIGHT
i
Jim went about the day’s routines, trying to find in them reason for activity. He had washed, dressed immaculately, seen to a general cleaning for what rooms of the house were free of majat. But the sound of them filled the house, and what jobs could occupy the mind were goon done, and the day was empty. One frightened domestic azi held command of the kitchen, and together they prepared the day’s meals on schedule, two useless creatures, for Jim found himself with no appetite and likely the other azi did not either, only that it was routine, and maintenance of their health was dutiful, so that they both ate.
There was supper, finally, with no cessation of the frenetic hurryings in the garden, the movements at the foundations. Night would come. He did not want to think on that.
“Meth-maren.”
A Warrior invaded the doorway, and the domestic scrambled from the table over against the wall, throwing a dish to the floor in his panic. “Be still,” Jim said harshly, rising. “Your contract is here and the majat won’t hurt you.”
And when it came farther, seeking taste and touch, he gave it. “Meth-maren azi,” it identified him. “Jimmm. This-unit seeks Meth-maren queen.”
“She’s not here,” he told it, forcing himself to steadiness for the touch of the chelae, the second brush at his lips, between the great jaws. He shuddered in spite of himself, but the conviction that it would not, after all, harm him, made it bearable—more than that, for she was gone, and the majat at least were something connected with her. He touched Warrior as he had seen her do, and calmed it.
“Need Meth-maren,” it insisted. “Need. Need. Urgent.”
“I don’t know where she is,” he said. “She left. She said she would come back soon. I don’t know.”
It rushed away, through the door to the garden, damaging the doorframe in its haste. Jim followed it past the demoralised house-azi, looked out into the ravaged back garden where a deepening pit delved into the earth, where the neighbour’s wall had been undermined. Guard-azi stood their posts faithfully, but as close to the azi quarters door as they might. He went out past the excavation, past the guards-sought Max, and having located him in the azi quarters, told him of Warrior’s request, not knowing what he ought to have answered.