The Dragon Never Sleeps

— 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.

She would not know what was coming. She would be puzzled and hurt but innocent. By that much was her inability to focus beyond the moment a boon.

She had, at the most, ten years. Likely closer to five.

Such were the sorrows of being a Ku warrior trapped inside this time-linear human culture. The friends all fell while the enemy went forever on, persistent as the stars themselves.

He hugged her again. There would be little time left in which to know and appreciate her.

Alarms hooted. He felt the electric crackle as inertial systems cranked up. "The courier has broken away. Go to your cabin. Stay there till we know what happened." He used that tone he knew she would not question. She went, hurrying.

He went to his own quarters to await the decision of fate.

Lupo Provik looked in half an hour later. "They went for it."

Turtle knew. He would have been dead or rescued by now had the decision gone the other way.