The Dragon Never Sleeps

— 149 —

The Valerena was in her quarters with her replica when the alarm sounded. "That's Red One. They're going to do it. Head for WarCentral so you can be seen with WarAvocat while it's happening."

She turned to her small info screen, glad Tawn was elsewhere and did not have to be managed.

VII Gemina hit the habitat with the heaviest and most prolonged bombardment yet. It did no harm. That was not expected. The flash and crash was meant to keep the Godspeakers blind to what was really happening.

WarAvocat had borrowed from Kez Maefele again.

The chunk of cold matter inbound was eight kilometers by three and was moving one hundred twelve thousand meters per second when the Godspeakers detected it. It was too late for the habitat to prance aside.

Asteroid and habitat met head-on.

The Valerena loped passageways as naked of life as any of VI Adjutrix's had been. They were identically constructed. She located the nexus of nutrient delivery for the Core. It took two minutes to inject ten cubic centimeters of sterile freon into each of two feed lines.

She raced back to her quarters, invisible to the eyes of the thing she had attacked.

The physical effects of the embolisms were trivial. But Gemina forgot how to burn starspace drives and lost track of the critical function in calculations of how to climb onto the Web.

The door to the Valerena's quarters smashed inward. WarAvocat entered behind his living shadow, Colonel Klass, and her permanent sidekick. The Valerena queried, "Hanaver?"

"You overlooked one trivial technical detail when you sent your replica to distract me. She was a virgin. All else could be reasoned back from that."

The Valerena shrugged. "So I've failed to achieve my personal goal. The House is safe." The Guardship had started moving just before the embolisms struck. Helpless, VII Gemina was drifting deeper into the waste space.

"I wouldn't count on that," Strate said. "We hold grudges forever. Colonel."

Klass fired one shot, through the Valerena's brain.