— 79 —
Lupo scanned the report again. "What business could she have in the Black Ring?"
For three days a Valerena Other had been seen going into the Black Ring. The past two Provik ground people had tried following her and had failed. This Other seemed to have no existence outside its jaunts. Where it came from was as mysterious as where it went.
"Smells to me," Three said.
"You and Four go see if you can pick her up today. Be careful. Have the regular team back you up."
Three and Four left before he changed his mind, fleeing routine.
Lupo returned to work but twenty minutes later yielded to a hunch. "One. Call Operations. Tell T.W. to scatter stationary watchers around where she turns up."
Four trailed Three by twenty-five meters, self-conscious there in the fringes of the Black Ring, though nobody paid her any attention.
Three gave the Other more room. The two men of the regular ground team kept pace across the street.
Four became uneasy as they approached the area where the Other had vanished twice before. She loosened her weapon.
It was a wide open aisle between ranks of warehouses where surface transports could maneuver into loading docks. But there were no transports there. There were no workers. The warehouses had been sealed up and broken open again by thieves and vandals. The walls were enscribed with folk literature that was short, pithy, anything but ambiguous.
Three hesitated, stepped out after the Other. Four exchanged looks with the ground men, shrugged, followed.
She saw it coming before it started. She was amazed that Three did not.
She shot the Other before it finished giving the signal to the assassination team. Shooting with mechanical precision, she blew three of those out of their hiding places before the ground men reacted.
One had icewater for blood. But the weapon he chose was a camera. He stood there taping while the shit flew. The other shot back, with no more luck than the rattled ambushers.
Four shot three more before the rest ran for it. She shot two of those. Two got away while she slapped a new charge pack into her weapon.
No matter. She knew where to find one of them.
She went to Three, knowing there was nothing she could do. He'd been hit at least twenty times.
The Other groaned.
Four stepped over. The Other looked up, eyes appealing.
"Goodbye."
"No!"
Four shot her once through the forehead. The burn looked like a small caste mark.
She shot each of the attackers the same way, alive or dead. Then she set for a wide beam and worked her way back, collecting weapons and charring the right hand of each corpse.
It was a message from Lupo Provik nobody in the Black Ring would misinterpret.
She crisped the Other's face, too, so nobody would connect it with Valerena Tregesser.
"What about him?" the man with the camera asked.
Without exception the captured weapons were House issue. Their charge packs could be used as grenades. Each had a timer that could be set for a delay up to twenty seconds.
She told the ground men what to do.
They did it, then ran.
There was enough energy in the captured charge packs to consume Three and turn the eight weapons to slag.
Four shouted, "But they even had House weapons!"
Lupo looked at her. She had kept cool till she had gotten back. She'd even retained the presence of mind to isolate the ground men. But now she had broken.
"I tell you it's too pat. Come. Let's do an update." To spread some of that emotion around, to dilute it, before it poisoned her.
"Don't you even care?"
"Come and find out."
After the meld Lupo asked, "Were we supposed to notice where the Other came from or only meant to follow her into a trap where I could be burned?"
Two said, "The Worgemuth kill."
"Right. Valerena didn't order that. Blessed couldn't have. We need to see him." He fiddled. A street map appeared on one wall. "Four. Here's where the stationary observers picked up the Other. Coming this way. Suggest anything?"
Four's hysterics had vanished but her emotional state remained ragged. The meld could not adjust hormonal balances. "That's a hundred meters from the place we used to slide Simon in and out of the Pylon."
"Right."
"Have you been in there yet?"
"No. You and Five go watch it. Don't disturb anyone. Two and I will see Blessed. One. Hang on here."
— 80 —
Valerena grumbled. Everything wanted attention at once. She could not keep up even with her Others helping. She summoned the most trustworthy from the adjoining office.
"I just had a call from my father's Other. He wants to talk to me about Lupo. Right now. I don't have time. Go down and listen to his latest paranoid fantasy. Nod in the right places. Don't mention the Guardship."
The Valerena Other entered the new office assigned the Simon Other. He greeted her with crazy laughter. She asked, "What about Lupo now? I'm pressed for time."
"The load will lighten soon, Valerena."
"What about Provik?"
"What about Provik?" More laughter. "This about Provik. He's dead."
"Since when?"
"Since an hour and a half ago down in the Black Ring." The Simon Other's bell drifted to one side. Another Valerena Other stepped from behind it. She carried a hairsplitter.
"What the hell?"
"The Others are running amuck, Valerena. They're taking over the world." More mad laughter.
The hairsplitter rose.
"Wait a minute!..."
Sodium shrapnel cooked her brain.
The Valerena Other dropped the hairsplitter, started stripping the still twitching body. "Damn! She shit herself."
"Just put on her outer clothes. Rinse them out if you have to. Hurry. Before Blessed or T.W. hear about Provik. If you don't get control of the security forces, we're dead." He started grumbling about the massacre in the Black Ring. It had claimed a quarter of his hired hands.
The Valerena Other left smiling. As far as anyone would ever know she was Valerena Tregesser.
Valerena glanced up as the door opened. "What did the silly sack want this time?"
The Other gaped. Her jaw moved but no words came out.
A chill struck Valerena. This was not the one she had sent.... It was trying to pull a gun....
Valerena dived into the knee space beneath her work center. "Blazon!" she shouted. "Enemy!"
A roaring whir, like the beating wings of ten thousand small birds. The desk thrummed. Glass broke. Things fell. The Other mouthed one gurgling scream.
"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.