Fuerogomenga Gorge was four and a half kilometers deep here, and thirty wide. The bottom could not be seen. Cold air from the north flowed down into the moist air above a thousand hot springs and kept the canyon deeps veiled in mist. The region below the mist was known only through radar and infrared scan and unreliable remote telemetry.
Men had tried going down there. Most had turned back. Those who had kept going had not returned.
Sudden scatters of lightning shot between the ten thousand spires and buttes and islands which rose from the mist. Shike gripped the protective rail so tightly his knuckles popped. Six billion years of geologic history lay exposed down there, in those variegated layers. An eon and a quarter down, nearly two kilometers, there were what appeared to be artifacts left by an unimaginably ancient civilization. No one had yet recovered any of them, exciting as they were, though Blessed suggested that was because of House policy rather than any lack of ingenuity in providing safety for scientists and explorers.
From the beginning the Tregessers had had an almost superstitious dread of a world history so deep it had produced three evolutionarily independent sentiences. Maybe four, if that down in the chasm was of native origin.
"I'm going down there someday," Cable told Blessed. Determined. Nyo came up on his other side, facing his own lesser phobia.
The Gorge was so vast only the foreground seemed real. The distance gave no sense of depth of field. It seemed like a background matte painting.
The spider dance of the lightning played out. The reverberations faded. Nyo said, "You ever really go, I want to go with you." He leaned out, looked across at Blessed. "You were going to say something."
"There are things involved here. Including my ego. The way it works best is for me to take the Chair."
"How do you take what you've already got?"
"Who knows that? Us. The Valerenas. Lupo. His girlfriend. Not the Directors. They don't know what year it is. Lupo won't tell them."
Nyo grunted. He got that part. Provik was going away. The Valerenas could make a move since the Directors didn't know about Valerena Prime.
"Who runs this House, Nyo?"
Nyo shrugged.
Shike concentrated on the Gorge.
"Lupo Provik does. The Valerenas keep the Directors off his back. He decides everything. And he hasn't done an awful job, except he's really only interested in his shadow games.
"I may be Chair but he doesn't let me in on anything. And I don't think he'll ever turn loose. If we both live two thousand years he'll still be regent because I'll be learning."
A lightning firefight broke out up the Gorge. It sent light and shadow chases scampering their way.
After a while, Cable said what Nyo was probably thinking. "Head to head with Lupo Provik isn't smart, Blessed. People get prematurely dead that way."
"I thought one Cable was worth several Lupos."
"Maybe in a footrace. Not in a fight. I changed my mind after him and his girl took those people when the Others tried to get us."
Blessed chuckled. "That woman intrigues me. I wish he hadn't taken her with him."
Cable was uncomfortable. He thought Provik had accepted the Outsiders' conditions too readily. Did he have himself covered? Or was he just that sure of T.W. Trice? "Blessed. You recall Rash Norym?"
Glazed look. Computer mind running a file search. "Governor at M. Shrilica when we took over."
"You set her up in the Pylon. In case we needed a friend inside. She's got a mid-level job in security now. You'd better call that one in."
Nyo agreed. "We don't have to hurry. Provik will be gone a long time."
Cable said, "If we do this let's do it right. Not like your mother always did."
"We'll do it right."
The lightning began to play down the Gorge. The display was not as impressive as the one below the castle. Valerena had built where she had because the promontory overlooked the wildest discharges.
Shike pushed away from the rail, closed his eyes. That was the one way he could convince his hands it was safe to let go. "Call that one in, Blessed."
Nyo asked, "What about Tina?"
"From now on she stays out in the dark," Blessed said. "She's not with us anymore. We don't have to stop being friends, but we can't forget she has a different loyalty now."
"Yeah. That's sad, you know? Hey! Cable! Wait up."
Shike was headed inside to calm down. He paused but did not turn around. He resumed walking when Nyo caught up.
"I still don't get it," Nyo said.
"I don't think that matters. It's what he wants. It makes sense to him."
Nyo snorted. "How can he all of a sudden do without Midnight?"
"Symbolic gesture. Telling the world he's all grown up now. He's throwing away his last toy. And I think he was scared of the hold she had. He figured this would be the smaller pain."
"Not to mention her being out there will keep his Other headed the right direction."
"There's that. Can it. We don't know who belongs to who here."
Cable went to his quarters, to his desk, slipped a tape in to view, leaned back, chewed a hangnail. The tape was an oddity, nothing but Tina doing mother things with Placidia.
— 113 —
Turtle prowled restlessly, wishing he was over on Anton Tregesser with his brethren. But the Outsiders were not that trusting. His followers had a pair of Outsider pilots who could not be coerced. He and the hostages were here on a Traveler wearing false ID, babysat by a hundred commandos. The councillors were safe on a Traveler also masquerading, excepting a handful who had gone out on a fourth ship to talk it over with the Godspeakers.
His people would be alert for the courier, ready to start shooting if the answer was "No." They would cripple this Traveler and try to board before the Outsiders could dispose of their hostages. They would take out the Outsider delegation, for whatever pain that would cause.
The Outsider soldiers stayed out of his way but kept him in sight. They did not trouble him. He had lived most of his life surrounded by enemies.
Midnight, though, did trouble him.
His pacing brought them face to face. "You've been avoiding me, Turtle."
"Yes. I don't know how to make you understand."
"Why are you doing this?" Ignoring what he had said. And not appealing for information but accusing him by asking a question for which there would be no acceptable answer.
"Because I am what I was made to be. Like you, I have no choice." That should make sense to her. "I was created to battle the dragon."
Midnight would not be able to grasp a long-range plan. She lived in a perpetual now, with only the vaguest feel for any future more than a few days distant, and had no more grasp on the past. Did she even recall WarAvocat or Merod Schene? She never spoke of them. She no longer asked what had become of Amber Soul.
"Do you have to even when it serves a greater evil?"
She might not illuminate the universe with her brilliance, but she could arrow in on the hard questions. He did the one thing she always understood. He hugged her.
He stepped back and really looked at her. And was troubled by what he saw.
She had Blessed to herself now, without competition from Tina Bofoku or the House. She should be radiant. But she seemed a little frayed, her wings a little off-color, wilted, like a leaf just begun to fade. He felt a touch of sorrow.
The breath of time had fallen upon Lady Midnight.
An artifact of her sort stayed looking young longer than women of woman born, but not forever, and when age did come it came quickly. Soon she would be capable only of a crude imitation of her dance in flight, and then only in free fall. Her wings would fade, then wither and stiffen, then would fall off. And if she did not take her own life in despair, she would have only a few months more.