The Dragon Never Sleeps

— 119 —

Blessed gazed in apparent benignity on the hundreds gathered in the back courts of his Fuerogomenga Gorge castle. Most were watching an outstanding nighttime display in the canyon. The Directors were all there. All the senior managers had come. Only T.W. Trice had failed to appear. No excuses, no regrets, no nothing, just no show.

Nyo came to stand beside him. "Fantastic party so far. You figured out which one she is?" He indicated the Valerena holding court below.

"The one out of the inner office. Cable says the others are holed up in the old place in the High City, having a party with some men they scraped up out of DownTown. Cable can take care of it."

Nyo sighed, relieved. He was not handling the pressure well. "That puts a lock on it, doesn't it?"

"Except for T.W. We don't have her covered. But I can handle her."

"What about Tina?"

‘Tina and Placidia are away from it and perfectly safe. Did you bring Rash Norym?"

"She's inside."

"Bring her out here. I want her seen with me."

Nyo shrugged, went inside, herded a flustered Rash Norym onto the balcony. "Is this wise?" she demanded.

"Probably not for you if we screw up. Which means you'd better give it all you've got to make sure we don't." He smiled. Rash Norym had been a big help, but he could not shake the feeling that she was holding back. "Tonight is the night."

"I... I don't think you should."

"Why not?"

"Uh... T.W. is sure there's something going on. She's doing things that look like she's getting ready for something." It had been a stroke of luck, finding Norym in Intelligence. Pity she could not have gotten closer to the center.

"Her people would have to be deaf and blind to miss all the signs, wouldn't they? The question is, does she know where it's coming from?"

"I don't think so. But I don't think you should count on that making any difference. She seems sure she can handle anything."

"Let's find out. Nyo, send out the word."

Bofoku gulped a mouthful of air, bobbed his head, went to push the thing past the point of no return.

Blessed leaned on the balcony rail, smiling and waving, and waited for his soldiers to move in.

Kez Maefele had left him with a useful little army. Be a shame to waste it.

Cable Shike had left the High City house reworked to his own specifications when Blessed moved. Just in case, someday. Someday had come. He entered his codes. A prepped security system not only allowed him inside, it concluded that he was not there at all. He must be a ghost or glitch.

He asked how many people were in the house and where they were. Four men and three women, all in one upstairs suite.

He went.

They had the place to themselves. They did not need to close doors.

Cable glanced in from the darkened hallway. The Valerenas were in a NoGrav bubble with two men, preoccupied. A third man leaned against a sideboard, naked, dull-eyed, sipping something, watching like he had come along only because he had not had anything better to do. The fourth man was nowhere in sight. He would be behind the closed bathroom door.

The man at the sideboard glanced Cable's way when Shike released the safety on his hairsplitter. The man said, "Aw, shit!" and squealed when the pellet hit him.

Cable snapped quick shots at the others as they broke it up, to slow any running starts, then finished it carefully, without them getting off a yell loud enough to disturb the man using the toilet. The Valerenas went out looking at him like they could not believe what was happening.

He still had trouble getting a hold on it himself.

He laid his weapon down, left the house at a brisk walk, pausing only to tell the security system to start raising hell. That poor bastard in the john. He was in for some heavy shit.

Shike checked the time. Fifteen minutes ahead of schedule.

He checked the time again as he walked in one of the ground level entrances of the Tregesser Pylon. Still fifteen up. Right on track.

The Directors, separated from everyone else, got real attentive after Blessed splattered the Valerena's brains all over the wall. He settled atop a shaga wood desk that had belonged to his mother. He held his weapon negligently but pointed in their direction. "It's a long story. I'll only hit the high points."

He told them the last thing Provik had let them in on was his grandfather's death. He told them about the Simon Other trying to kill him, Valerena, and Provik. He told them about Valerena gaining control of VI Adjutrix and the fate that had befallen her. He told them about Provik making a deal with the surviving Valerenas, then about the campaign by the Outsiders to force Tregesser assistance. He told them about the hostages House Tregesser had been forced to give.

He slipped off the desk, walked across the room, walked back, slapping his hairsplitter into his palm. "With Provik gone there's only one man on Prime whose testimony would get any serious attention if a question about the identity of the Valerenas arose. They were about to correct that. With help from some of you. I was lucky. I had a friend in the other camp."

They would find that plausible. It fit the absurdities of House politics. Once they bought the whole, that could be transformed into a mandate for a housecleaning.

"I've moved first. A lesson I learned from Provik. The matter will be settled before dawn. You're all here. We have a quorum. Before I go into the city I want my succession formally accepted."

What choice did they have? Anyone who voted against him would set himself up to be purged.

Nyo settled into the skimmer beside Blessed, buckled in. Blessed asked, "What's the matter?" He started the skimmer rolling, checked the time. "Cable will move soon. Trice will be all that's left."

Nyo glanced back at Rash Norym, squeezed into the luggage space behind them, and through the back light at vehicles carrying twenty nonhuman commandos. Norym was terrified. "I don't know, Blessed. Maybe I'm turning wimp. But I have a feeling we missed an angle."

Blessed was euphoric. He could not conceive of anything going wrong now. They would catch T.W. sleeping and that would be that.

Three and Five had sent an alarm to the family already when T.W. hustled in, still fuddled from sleep. "You got the flash from the High City?"

"Yes. This might be it."

"Cable Shike just walked in downstairs."

Shike's half-brother and two associates from the Black Ring watched the three vehicles dwindle into the distance. "Right on time."

"Let's go."

Two minutes later they were inside the castle, undetected by guards or security systems. Four minutes later still they reached the room where House Tregesser's Directors were confined. There were no guards outside. They burst into the room, shot everyone there, and were out of the castle within eight minutes more.

The assistant assassins, with no idea who their victims had been, met a similar fate within minutes.

Blessed and Nyo entered the Pylon and started the long trek to the lifter banks. Commandos came in various entrances and drifted toward the banks, too. Blessed and Nyo would disarm the security checkpoints ahead of them.

Blessed glanced around. The place was as quiet as it should be. Cable was sipping a drink at the island usually occupied by someone from Provik's office, security's outermost sentinel. Blessed was now sure he could move fast enough no matter what alarms he tripped. He had the people and the equipment to do the job.

It went perfectly at every checkpoint. And the more promising it looked, the darker Nyo's mood became, as if he was more afraid of success than he was of failure.

They reached the level where Trice lived, spread out. Rash Norym had provided a floor plan. They penetrated at four points, advanced on Trice's apartment, broke into that and headed for her bedroom.

It was empty.

Nyo said, "Oh, shit!"

Blessed was rattled but refused to show it. "So she broke routine. So we have to hunt her down. We've got the people."

"She was in bed. It's messed up. She's gone. And she has the people, too. A lot of them, trained by the Ku while he was building in the planetary defense stuff."

"These guys are veterans, Nyo. Come on. We'll get her."

The comm beside Trice's bed beeped. T.W. appeared on its viewscreen.

"I knew it," Nyo said. "She was laying for us."

"Norym is dead meat." Blessed covered the visual pickup, opened the circuit.

Trice said, "That level has been isolated, Blessed. Utilities and services are about to be withdrawn. If you want to talk your way out of this, send your people home. You and Nyo take the freight lift to Lupo's office." The screen went dead. The lights died a moment later.

"Better talk," Nyo said. "We'd be fighting shadows. She knows where we're at and what we've got. We don't know what she's got. We don't know these aliens will stick if the shit starts flying."

"Cable won't be happy." Shike wanted House security.

"He'll understand. Hell, maybe she'll give it up. She wants out alive, too."

"Maybe." Blessed wished he could see his soldiers to get a read on their attitudes. They knew what was happening. Nyo was right. They wouldn't stick for all or nothing. "Damn her. We don't have any choice."

He had gone from euphoria to despair in two minutes.

Lupo and Two stepped into the office a moment after Blessed and Nyo walked in. Nyo said, "Oh, shit! This debacle had robbed him of his vocabulary.

Blessed looked like he was going to faint. "You?"

"Me, Blessed. Sit down." Lupo checked them for weapons. Two covered, smiling her little smile. "They're clean." T.W. glared at them, not pleased.

Cable Shike walked in.

Two's smile grew as Blessed worked it out.

"Cable?"

"I didn't want it this way."

"Why?"

"Placidia. Tina. Sooner or later you were going to realize you weren't Placidia's father. Sorry."

Blessed glanced at Provik. "Did you know?"

"I suspected. Don't be too broken up. He couldn't make up his mind till the last second. Not that you could have pulled it off anyway. Though you might have gotten to T.W. Which makes her real happy. She keeps muttering about how she used to change your diapers."

Nyo looked more desperate by the moment. He did not understand everything—especially not Lupo and his woman being here instead of off with the Ku—but he did see that he and Blessed had stumbled into a position where the others could not forgive and forget.

Blessed was slower. He didn't get it till Cable said, "I'm really sorry," and walked out.

"T.W.? You want the honors?"

"Provik! You can't do this! I'm the Chair!"

"You're the Blessed Other. You just tried the biggest double-shuffle of all time. As Shike will explain to the Directors when he releases them. If the Ku comes home, Cable can discover a huge miscarriage of justice. I won't care. I won't be here."

Lupo secured the comm, grim. "That was Shike. It's not over. He found the Directors all shot to death when he got home. Five, Six, you go. Take forensic people. Find me something."

He was angry and depressed. He did not have time for this. Why couldn't Blessed have waited?