The Dragon Never Sleeps

— 38 —

On impulse WarAvocat went to Kez Maefele's door. The Ku responded immediately. "WarAvocat?"

"We're due to break away soon. Approaching Starbase. I thought you might be interested."

"Am I that obvious?"

"I know your weakness now. Curiosity. I could use it to trap you."

"The Deified Makarska Vis took care of me when she was WarAvocat."

"By main strength and awkwardness. The woman's tactics had the subtlety and finesse of an ax murder."

"There is something to be said for overwhelming might."

"Speaking of Makarska Vis, word is you bluffed her into backing down."

"I am sure she did not stop harassing Midnight because I told her to back off."

"No. Your suggestion got backing from Gemina. She'd begun showing divisive, political tendencies. I'm going to Hall of the Watchers. Their wall gives the best view. Are you coming?"

"Yes. You have a motive for doing this?"

Startled, WarAvocat said, "No."

"You did not mean to impress me with the power of the Guardship fleet?"

"No." He started walking. The Ku followed. "We are a less complex people than you think."

"Maybe. Few of you are subtle."

"We have no need."

"Remarkable. Especially considering the longevity and persistence of the players."

"It's gone funny on some Guardships. Here it hasn't because the soldiers nourish the roots of the culture. Soldiers tend to be direct and simple."

"And if something evades immediate comprehension, they blow it up or kill it. Ku warriors were the same."

It took an hour to reach Hall of the Watchers, by which time VII Gemina was off the Web and closing with some stellar concourse in the form of a triple wheel station, the rotational axis of which was a hollow cylinder large enough to pass a Guardship. Traffic was heavy.

WarAvocat observed, "Somone else has come in recently, for refitting. There's always activity but seldom this much."

"This is Starbase Tulsa?"

WarAvocat chuckled. "No. This is the Barbican, Starbase's only intersection with the universe outside. This is as far as outsiders come. They make deliveries here. Our own ships carry materials from here."

"Then the Guardship fleet is not self-sufficient?" Was that overdoing it? If not, it was on the boundary. WarAvocat looked like he was wondering if that ignorance was feigned. He had, after all, spent a long life studying the Guardships.

"You sound surprised."

"Not entirely. Logically, no system could be entirely closed. I know it was open long ago. But I have been out of touch. I assumed self-sufficiency had been attained."

"We work toward it. But it isn't an overriding concern. Someday."

"Then the system is vulnerable."

"Possibly. Not very. House Horigawa, who have the monopoly on supplying us, have remained faithful through the most trying tests."

"To their extreme benefit." That was no secret. House Horigawa had become one of the dozen richest by serving the Guardships.

"They did come out of the Enherrenraat incident very well." In part because they had betrayed the conspiracy before it had been ready to move.

Turtle watched quietly as VII Gemina entered the station's axial cylinder. "Masterful steersmanship," he said.

"You have to do it right," WarAvocat said. "We have secrets even from ourselves, I think. No one's ever told me why we run the Tube." VII Gemina left the Tube and began accelerating. "We go back onto the Web now."

"I fear I've missed the strategy here." Turtle did not have to feign ignorance now. "Why should everyone break off the Web here?" The answer, by remaining elusive, had kept him from bringing the Dire Radiant in here.

"No choice. This is the most unusual strand on the Web. There's a break in the strand here. The gap is only a few light seconds across, but it's enough. Any attacker has to come off. He has to cross the gap under fire. Messenger ships are always stationed at the tag end on the other side. You can take the Barbican by surprise, but anything beyond will be a deathtrap before you get there."

"Has it been tried?" He knew it had. What he did not know was why attacks against Starbase inevitably failed.

"Everything has been tried. That, half a dozen times."

"And there were no survivors to carry the news."

"None. The price of attacking Starbase is absolute and final."

VII Gemina climbed onto the Web with hydraulic ease. The wall, still carrying a forward view, flashed on a gleaming strand. The Guardship surged along it. In seconds the wall went nova.

The light storm cleared. The wall revealed the shine of a guttering red dwarf glimmering off the backs of two orbital fortresses and the complex they guarded. The primary around which the three scampered was a supergiant with a thousand moons, a planet a minim short of being fat enough to become a star itself. Turtle wondered how it had come to be paired with the red dwarf.

"By the right!" he murmured. "Starbase. I never imagined... no construct can be that big. Unless there is some trick of perspective...."

"No trick," WarAvocat assured him. "And it's not the biggest construct around. You'll see that, too."

The relative motions seemed odd. "We are moving past it."

"I told you this was the most unusual strand on the Web."

"Then this is not Starbase."

"No. We call it Gateway. It's a decoy."

"No one outside even suspects." He never had.

"No. It's totally automated. Its complement consists of dupes of Deified from the fleet. Starbase itself runs the same way."

The supergiant rolled beneath VII Gemina. Turtle asked, "What is in that atmosphere to give it those blue tones?"

"I don't know. I can access the information."

"Never mind. It isn't important."

WarAvocat watched the supergiant dwindle. He wondered why he'd never been curious about its coloration, nor been particularly cognizant of the planet's beauty, with those thousand pearls in its hair. Nor even much curious about a strand that had a double anchor, supergiant and red dwarf, with a gap between.

VII Gemina clambered back onto the interrupted strand.

The construct waiting off the nether tag end was much larger than Gateway. It was a vast rectilinear shape guarded by eight orbital fortresses poised on the points of a cube. The array orbited a feeble yellow star that had no planetary family.

One more curiosity on this particular strand. The star was there but the strand was loose. An end, period. There was no strand leading away in any other direction.

The Ku said, "A battery of adjectives suggest themselves. But none are adequate."

"I know. It still awes me. I used to see it as the ultimate construct, the product of a golden age, never to be equalled. Its builders probably thought that, too. But Starbase Dengaida will make it look like a pyramid raised by clever neolithics."

"Starbase Dengaida?"

"The inevitable consequence of being what we are."

The Ku looked puzzled.

"Invincible. Canon has grown so vast we have a problem with travel times. We have Guardships operating against pirates beyond the Roberquan Rim, which did not exist when you went into hiding on V. Rothica 4. Their patrols take them a thousand light years Outside. The Rim keeps advancing. It can take them six months to reach Starbase. A year in and back. The problem will worsen. Soon after the Enherrenraat incident, foreseeing the problem, Starbase recommended we build a new Starbase out there."

"Word never filtered down into Merod Schene."

"Wasn't meant to. I doubt anyone outside the fleet and House Horigawa has guessed yet. It isn't something we want broadcast. Construction works are vulnerable."

"And it will be bigger than this?"

"A lot. We couldn't find another site to compare with this one, though. So we had to make it tougher to crack."

The Ku's attention remained fixed on Starbase.

Cues on the wall said Gemina was in touch with the Guardship already docked. Data flowed both ways, and back and forth between Gemina and Starbase Core. He picked the ID code out. "Kez Maefele, the Guardship already docked is XII Fulminata."

The Ku eyed him. "You do not seem excited."

"They aren't a social bunch, XII Fulminata crew." He turned away. "Access, OpsAvocat. WarAvocat here. I'd consider it a great favor if you docked us on the same face as XII Fulminata. Out." He turned back to the Ku. "They want to cut themselves a slice of our action. I'm going to let them gobble till they choke. We owe them one."

Starbase was spotted like a domino, with eight black circles to a face, in rows of four. As VII Gemina approached the block it appeared to rotate, bringing another face uppermost. On that face one black circle had been obliterated. XII Fulminata docked.

WarAvocat did not look forward to his next few days.