"Possibly."
"Cut off his sources of information. We'll tend to friend Cassius ourselves."
"Deeth... Never mind."
Deeth studied the old man. Rhafu's nervous degeneration was so advanced he had trouble managing a drinking glass.
"I want this one, Rhafu. We'll hit them and move somewhere else."
"As you wish."
They entered the hotel by separate doors. Unfortunately Rhafu had the only clear shot.
The old man's nerves betrayed him. He missed.
Cassius did not.
Deeth's nerve betrayed him. He froze. He never touched his weapon.
Deeth found himself aboard his escape vessel without remembering how he had gotten there. Just one image remained clear in his mind. Meeting the eyes of Cassius's companion in the street, over Rhafu's body.
It went sour after that. He did not have Rhafu's enchanted touch.
Storm stunned Deeth by attacking Helga's World. He gathered the Norbon forces. His raidships blundered into a trap more disasterous than that at Amon-Ra.
Blackworld was becoming a debacle. Michael just could not handle his half of the chore.
Deeth remembered a shattered piece of jade and wondered.
He lost his temper. He ordered the attack on the Fortress of Iron, "I may not get them all," he told himself, "but they'll know they paid the price of Prefactlas."
He had abandoned hope of profiting from Blackworld. And he had abandoned Michael Dee.
"My son, if you've done your best, you deserve an apology. But I suspect you've subtly sabotaged the whole thing. Enjoy the trap you've built yourself."
His last few fighting ships reached the Fortress's surface. His troopships went in. His men forced the entry locks.
The fighting continued for days, cubicle to cubicle, corridor to corridor, level to level. His soldiers encountered only women and old people, but they too were Legionnaires.
Near the end one of his people told him. "Lord Deeth, enemy scoutships have been detected... "
"Damn!" The Fortress was almost clear. Only a handful of defenders remained, holding out in the old Combat Information Center. "Very well." He could not run now. He had to finish. For Rhafu. For his father. For his mother and the Prefactlas dead.
"All right. I want everyone out but the crew of Lota's raidship. Take space like you're in a panic. Let them intercept messages that will convince them that there's no one left alive here."
"Yes sir."
Deeth joined the one raidship crew in the final attack. His participation brought him face to face with Storm's wife, Frieda.
Book Three—GALLOWS
What are the carpenter's thoughts as he constructs the gallows?
Fifty-Two: 3052 AD
Never be amazed by me. My teachers were classics. Strategy and Tactics: Professor Colonel Thaddeus Immanuel Walters. Command and Administration: Professor Colonel Gneaus Julius Storm. Hatred, Vengeance, and Puppet-Mastery: Professor Sangaree Head Norbon w'Deeth. Cute Tricks, Cunning, Duplicity, and Artful Self-Justification: Professor Entrepreneur, Adventurer, and Financier Michael Dee. Between them they provided me a very solid background. Cuss the Admiral if you want. The most he did was give me an opportunity to do post-graduate work.
I was a stinker when he recruited me.
—Masato Igarashi Storm
Fifty-Three: 3032 AD
Mouse crouched over his father for a long time, holding Storm's hand, fighting back tears. Someone came and rested gentle fingers on his shoulder. He looked up. Pollyanna had come over, using a laserifle as a crutch.
"He's dead," Mouse said. Disbelief distorted his face. "My father is dead."
"They're all dead. Everybody's dead but us." Her voice was as dull as his.
He rose slowly, mumbling, "Everybody. Helmut and Thurston. And Lucifer. And everybody." The magnitude of it slowly sank in. His father and two brothers. His father's friend. And all the people and family who had died already...
"I'll kill them," he whispered Then, screaming, "All of them!" He started smashing consoles with his rifle. But it was a delicate weapon. Soon he held nothing but a shard.
"We've got things to do, Mouse," Pollyanna reminded, indicating the corpses and wreckage. Her voice held no real interest. She was in such a state that getting on with the job was the only glue holding her together.
"I suppose." The dull voice again. "Will you be all right while I hunt up some of our people?"
"Who's left to hurt me?"
Mouse shrugged. "Yes. Who's left?"
He went hunting Legionnaires, using business like a sword with which he could fend off the madness clawing at his mind "All of them," he kept muttering. "Someday. Every Dee. Every Sangaree."
Withdrawing from Twilight took a day. Too many people, including Hawksblood and the brothers Dee, could not make it to the Ehrhardt under their own power. And the dome had to be patched, and someone had to be found who would take charge in Twilight, someone whose loathing for Sangaree was insurance that Michael would have nowhere to run, insurance that Twilight would not come under the worldwide sanctions being threatened by her Blackworld sister cities. Mouse found his candidate after a long search. Most Twilighters wanted shut of any identification with the seat of power. They seemed afraid the Sangaree disease was contagious.
Time to leave arrived. And a new problem raised its Scylla-like head.
"Polly," Mouse said, "I don't know if we're going to make it back "
"What? Why not?"
"I'm the only pilot left, and I'm not rated on anything like the Ehrhardt."
"Call for somebody to come up here."
"Can't waste time waiting for somebody to come overland. I'll just give it my best go myself."
"Don't be stupid."
"It can't be that much harder than piloting Cassius's corvette. I managed that fine."
"With him there to help if you got in any trouble."
"Yeah." He truly believed he could handle the cruiser. And he was determined to try. "Strap in, lady."
"Mouse... "
"Then get out and walk."
She grinned. "You're as stubborn as your father."
He grinned back. "I'm his son."
His liftoff was a little rocky.
"Gah!" Pollyanna grunted, nearly throwing up.
"We're off!"
"That was the part that had me worried. Anybody can come down. It's just how fast you're going when you get there... "
"A man does what he has to," Mouse told her.
For a few hours the pain and hatred did not touch him. The cruiser demanded all his sweat and guts and concentration.
He managed to get the Ehrhardt to and down on Edgeward's landing field without any irreparable damage.
Getting down required some careful maneuvering. A bank of ships had arrived during their absence. They were the battered bones of the Legion's once-powerful little fleet. They had brought Hakes Ceislak in from Helga's World. They were still off-loading the commando battalion.
Mouse had not informed anyone that he was returning, but the word was out by the time he entered Edgeward. Blake was waiting for him.
"Where's Colonel Storm?" Blake asked. His face was drawn. He feared the worst.
"My father was killed in action against Sangaree... " Mouse stopped to look inside himself. Somehow, for the outside world, he was removing himself from his feelings. He was reporting it as if it had happened to a stranger.
"And Albin Korando?"
"Killed in action, Mr. Blake. I'm sorry."
"No. That's terrible. I'd hoped... What about Colonel Darksword?"
"Dead, sir. If you don't see someone with me, he's dead. The cruiser is full of bodies. It was rough up there."
"Your brother Thurston, too?"