Blaisse sat back in his soft chair, sipped his drink, and rubbed his forefinger back and forth across his upper lip as though in deep concentration. "I don't know about that."
"They would follow us. They would follow whoever controlled their sanctuary."
"Oh, that's quite true," Blaisse said easily. "Except a few of them, perhaps, but they could easily be gotten rid of."
Yale, behind him, shifted uneasily, as though she too could hear capitulation in Blaisse's words. Subtwo smiled, ready to accept a bloodless surrender.
"On the other hand," Blaisse said, "then you would have to fight the Families."
Subtwo made no involuntary movements of surprise, but this was new data, needing to be processed. "We are accustomed to opposition."
Subone seemed to be paying no attention at all to the conversation; Subtwo felt alone. He wished his pseudosib would stop his benign gazing at Yale: he understood her glare.
"You don't quite understand."
"Understanding is not necessary." Subtwo performed his shrug again. "If they oppose us, we will destroy them."
A small smile of pleasure began to form on Subone's face, and Yale's fingers curled around her belt near the holster of her lance.
"You'll destroy Center if you insist on total power." Blaisse did not sound perturbed.
"You dealt with these 'Families.' "
"No, that was my father, years ago. He was. a very ambitious man." Blaisse's expression was contented. "Your information is incomplete."
"Indeed?"
"My presence saves the shipowners from having to concern themselves with alliances in Center itself, you see, but my ties are indispensable all the same. An attack on me is an attack on the Families. And it's they, not I, who control the city."
"Ties may be cut and rewoven."
"Not ties of blood."
Subtwo thought of arcane rituals, the piercing of veins, vampirism. "Blood?"
"It was thought appropriate, since I control access to other worlds, that I be partnered with the eldest child of the Family which controls access to the rest of earth outside Center. My brother, in turn, lives with her people." As Blaisse explained, Subtwo slowly understood that he did not mean "blood" but genetics, and biological and social relationships. It was a most ridiculous way of forming alliances, though perhaps no more ridiculous than some he had witnessed. It was the way Center was ruled.
He saw that his choice was between dealing with the existing situation and engaging in an extended conflict. His and Subone's people could take over the Palace easily; they could even make it self-sufficient. But it would be exactly that, a closed citadel, lacking interchange with Center. They could build a citadel anywhere. But old earth was one place no official of the Sphere would ever come; and Subone had chosen this spot on the planet simply because of the city.
Subtwo's enthusiasm for this conquest flagged rapidly, for he saw that afterwards they would have to function within limits others had set. He wondered if this was what he had escaped to: a return to ancient history, with children traded between kingdoms for a joining of lineages.
"Perhaps," Subone said in a tone of preoccupation, still gazing on the young guard, "the partnerships could be rearranged."
Blaisse stared at him for a moment, then began to laugh, a loud, low, barking sound. He stopped when Subtwo half-rose from his chair, though he did not look afraid.
"There can be no 'rearrangements' of the Families," Blaisse said. "My blood is their blood. The ties are unbreakable. The Families would prefer suicide to capitulation."
"Then our problem would no longer exist."
Subone leaned forward, letting the motion bring his hand very close to his lance. Yale tensed at his actions.
"Neither would you, nor the city," Blaisse said. "Center is powered by a fission reactor. I understand that it is not difficult to make it—'go critical'—is that the term?"
Subtwo was disgusted by the very idea of a filthy fission reactor; that any human being, civilized or not, would even consider allowing one to explode was inconceivable.
The slave, Saita, lowered her head and touched a lock of her long silver-blue hair to Blaisse's instep.
Blaisse chuckled. "After all, I'm much more suited to the position than you. You'd be unhappy, confined to Center the rest of your lives. But I'm reasonable, and I'd be glad to be allied to anyone who can overcome our seasonal isolation."
"We will not be subordinates."
"The relationship could be arranged in a businesslike manner." He reached out and patted his slave's head absently, as he might an animal's.
In his mind, Subtwo rearranged images of the manner in which he had expected this meeting to proceed. As he was accepting the changes and making himself pleased with them, Subone stood up and strolled around the small room. By his carriage Subtwo knew he was neither pleased nor resigned. Subone paused next to the small grid of the intercom, and touched its controls. To anyone else, it would appear that he was fingering them absently, but Subtwo knew he was inferring the capabilities.
"Why should we believe you, about these 'Families'?"
Blaisse looked up at Subone abruptly, eyebrows arched, and his mood shifted instantly to fury as he rose from his chair and stood shaking. "Do you think I care if you or any other of your castoffs believe me?"
Subone spoke into the intercom. "Draco?"
"Here," Draco answered in his laconic manner. "All's well."
Subone observed Blaisse's anger calmly. "We are in control now."
"In control? My patience is ended. If you refuse the protection of my alliances, then try to make your own. I'll laugh at you from hell—and I'll welcome you there soon."
Subone smiled.
Subtwo understood abruptly what was about to happen. He stepped forward as Subone made one jerky, indefinite, deliberate motion of his hand toward his lance. Subone hesitated a fraction of a second while the young guard, left-handed, clumsy, pulled her own weapon. Yale had no chance against him. He shot her in the chest. Her spine arched backward at the shock, and she fell against the wall, collapsing to the floor. Her body convulsed once. The reek of burned flesh permeated the room.
"Stop—" Subtwo took the lance from his pseudosib's hand. A few months before, he would have known from the beginning exactly what Subone was planning. Not having known this time, an indication of their growing independence, did not comfort him.
Blaisse sat heavily in his chair, but his voice was steady. "That was unnecessary."
"She would have killed me," Subone said. He pointed to Yale's weapon, flung into a corner.
This was the second murder Subtwo had been involved in so directly, the second by burning, and he did not like to be forced back to his earlier memory. He did not know how to expiate his guilt, yet he did not say that Subone had provoked the incident. They had not yet grown that far apart.
"This is unfortunate," Subtwo said. "To. disrupt us, just as we agree."
"Agree—!"
Clamping his fingers around Subone's bicep, Subtwo brought him to a sullen silence. Though their characters had diverged, Subtwo still led, and Subone had insufficient emotional leverage to affect his pseudosib in this matter. "We will be your equals," Subtwo said, "but you will retain your position."
Blaisse did not even glance toward the small crumpled body shrouded in his colors. Uncertainly, Blaisse said, "If she did something foolish."
Subtwo spoke quickly, to deter the Lord from any thoughts of revenge. "Then we are agreed?"
"For the moment," Blaisse said, and sighed.
"Subone?"
Subtwo responded to Draco. "We've made an agreement with Blaisse. Did you follow orders?"
"Didn't hurt anybody," Draco said.
"They are not prisoners. We are not in conflict."