The Dragon Never Sleeps

— 29 —

The thing hidden at the heart of Simon Tregesser's end space citadel sensed a quivering on the Web. The vibration beat upon it from every direction, like the subtle neutrino flux of the universe itself.

For a minute the message drove it totally sane.

By means provided it called, "Simon Tregesser!"

Simon Tregesser did not respond.

It called again. The news had to be related! A juggernaut of disaster was rolling down the Web, and only inspired improvisation would keep it from bursting into the end space long before it was due.

Fate had carved itself a big slice. Fate and the machinations of enemies the Outsider had not known it had.

Tregesser would not answer. The madman must be off amusing himself. If enough alarms sounded, he would have to respond.

The Outsider's period of sanity ended as it began stressing the limits of its habitat. It twitched, spasmed. Its components turned upon one another. A convulsion cracked a gap in a seal supposedly proof against violence. High-pressure methane squirted through.

There was no explosion. A three meter sword of flame stabbed a control panel. Heat interrupted circuits. Smoke boiled. Plastics began to burn. Alarms whooped. Fire-suppressant systems reacted too late or not at all. Temperatures went up and up and up. More systems failed.

Fire reached a storage compartment for chemicals used inside the closed environments of Tregesser and the Outsider.

The Lupo who first reached the cavity witnessed the blow, which sent shrapnel rocketing unpredictably off the walls. But the Outsider knew nothing of that. Its components were dead already, some of asphyxiation, some of oxygen poisoning, some of decompression, or, failing all of those, of being broiled medium well.

The Lupo watched the violence subside, shook his head, went back topside to see if instruments had recorded anything that would explain what had happened. He doubted he would learn anything.

He did not.

He did get to wondering.