"I hope so. For your sake."
So. Even she had doubts.
M. Meddinia presented no surprises but plenty of frustrations. Even Gemina could make only limited sense of exchanges with the ground. But it did seem that Seeker of the Lost Children and Amber Soul had come home before the destruction of the station, presumably by Outsiders. But neither was down there now, near as Gemina could figure. It was possible the locals meant they were dead.
WarAvocat gave up, ordered VII Gemina back to D. Zimplica in the face of protests from the Deified. He paused there only long enough to issue a Fleet Directive offering a reward for the Ku. He did not include Amber Soul because he saw no reason to fear it. He did fear Lady Midnight but ignored her for political reasons.
He had maneuvered himself into a precarious position without quite knowing how.
And he caught his sole friend watching him worriedly when she thought he would not notice.
— 111 —
Turtle looked at Provik. Provik looked back. "This is it, isn't it, Kez Maefele? Your hour."
"Yes." He did not just have to go into that next room and sell those dour Outsiders a strategy for killing Starbase, he had to go in having sold himself. And he had not yet conquered Doubt, the devil that gave him no peace.
He had been too long among humans, or not long enough. He understood them too well. Their thinking had infected his own. But he did not yet understand them well euough to become one of them. Those grim old torturers beyond that door had more in common with Lupo Provik than Kez Maefele ever could.
"I can do it," Turtle said. "I will do it. But I could do it more easily if I believed I was doing the right thing for the right reasons. The motive is as important as the deed. Have you never done the right thing for the wrong reason?"
Some shadow of memory darkened Provik's eyes. "Sure. And the wrong thing for the right reason. But that was then and this is now. Why lose sleep over it? You want more motivation, remember they put a price on your head."
Was that a threat?
"No. Wrong choice of words. We weren't smart when we started. People on Prime know your name. Some are the type who would try to collect the reward. Be hard to avoid them all. Unless you spend your life locked up in the Pylon the way the Chairs do."
"Or I can go out there with the Outsiders and fight back?"
"You know their conditions. We go through that door and we're committed till they turn us down or turn us loose. The Valerena and Blessed can dodge it. You and I can't."
"Can't you?" Turtle eyed Provik narrowly.
Provik was startled. And understood. "How long have you known?"
"Since they tried to kill you, Blessed, and Valerena. They did kill you. It was on that tape. But it was you who brought the tape, and a female with impossible reaction times."
"And you never used that."
"I'm not human," Turtle said, which he suspected Provik would take to mean that he had not yet found a reason to draw the bolt from his quiver.
"I owe you one."
"Not necessarily."
One of the female Proviks appeared, escorting the chosen Valerena. She raised an eyebrow. "Another moral crossroads," Lupo said. "We're going to survive it, I think. Where's Blessed's Other?"
"On his way. Says he'll be a few minutes late. I think he wants to be the last to arrive."
Provik grumbled something. "Well, Kez Maefele, there's the final curtain. Can you bring yourself to save this House?"
"You go to save your House, Mr. Provik. I'll go to raze the dragon's lair."
There were few Ku left. A few thousand were scattered across Canon. A few tens of thousands lived on the old homeworld, their backs resolutely to the stars and yesterday. And beyond the Rims there were tiny, scattered guest colonies and a few nomadic ships surviving by carrying whatever cargoes they could acquire. In all, surely, fewer than a hundred thousand Ku, fading from the stage faster than their conquerers, lacking any real will to survive.
Provik had let him spend a fortune to find out how hopeless his people were.
There was not a one of those Ku who did not know the name Kez Maefele. Maybe if they heard that the legend lived and had stormed the fortress unvanquishable, the spark of will might be breathed back to life.
Most especially if he got himself killed. Most especially then. All the best heroes did.
The Ku loved their martyrs.
He wore a replica of the uniform he had been compelled to give up the day of the Surrender, a gift from those scruffy volunteers hiding out at Blessed's castle. "Come follow me through the final curtain."
There were twenty-eight of the bastards in the room and none were like any Outsider who had come before. Those had been soldiers, necessarily flawed. These were masters. These were perfect. One wished he had let one of his brothers come instead.
Four felt the chill, too. She moved a step closer. The Valerena did the same. The Ku did not seem affected. One wondered if anything intimidated him.
These were the real bosses of the Outsider empire. These were the men who talked to the things that talked to the Destroyer. These were the men who decided what words the Destroyer had put into the Godspeakers' minds.
One had no doubt that, however much and whatever they might believe, these men had their high priests saying whatever they thought it was best for them to say. These were the true creators and rulers of the Outside empire, however servile they might be in the presence of the Godspeakers.
He stepped to a rostrum. His companions seated themselves. He looked around. Everything had been set up right. The Ku's gear, sideboard with food and refreshments enough to sustain a siege, toilet facilities which allowed privacy but no egress.
"Good day, gentlemen. I'm told you've provided yourselves with an adequate translation system. If not, we have a good programme...."
"Proceed," said a gray box occupying a front row seat. "We note the absence of one ordered to appear here."
"Maybe I'd better bring in our system. I see a problem with yours already. You don't ‘order' us. Mistranslation could cause misunderstandings. But we'll keep your system's flaws in mind. For the record, Blessed was detained but should arrive momentarily."
"Get on with it."
Their speaker was the man he expected, a skinny, leathery, wispy-haired old character who looked like a mummy wrested from its tomb and reanimated for the event. His ornate title boiled down to First Speaker. He came without a personal name. He was a generation older than his companions and dead set against any alliance of convenience. He was so old and so near death, the last of his contemporaries, that he could afford doctrinal intransigence.
One said, "Life extentions approaching a thousand years are not impractical in Canon space." Sowing a seed of temptation just for the hell of it.
"Our agents visited yours in the Hemebuk Neutrality. They found the payments offered generous and sufficient." Five, Six, Seven, and Eight had taken Kez Maefele's commandos and a dozen armed Tregesser ships. They had seized the treasure convoy to forestall the treachery planned by these wicked old men, who did not yet know that. The treasure had been awesome in magnitude.
"We've decided to accept your commission. We'll take Starbase. Providing you approve. Kez Maefele will outline how he expects to accomplish the impossible."
Blessed made his entrance.
Damn!
He had brought Midnight. Which made one thing absolutely, incontestably clear. This was not the Blessed Tregesser Other, this was Blessed himself.