The Dragon Never Sleeps

— 80 —

Valerena grumbled. Everything wanted attention at once. She could not keep up even with her Others helping. She summoned the most trustworthy from the adjoining office.

"I just had a call from my father's Other. He wants to talk to me about Lupo. Right now. I don't have time. Go down and listen to his latest paranoid fantasy. Nod in the right places. Don't mention the Guardship."

The Valerena Other entered the new office assigned the Simon Other. He greeted her with crazy laughter. She asked, "What about Lupo now? I'm pressed for time."

"The load will lighten soon, Valerena."

"What about Provik?"

"What about Provik?" More laughter. "This about Provik. He's dead."

"Since when?"

"Since an hour and a half ago down in the Black Ring." The Simon Other's bell drifted to one side. Another Valerena Other stepped from behind it. She carried a hairsplitter.

"What the hell?"

"The Others are running amuck, Valerena. They're taking over the world." More mad laughter.

The hairsplitter rose.

"Wait a minute!..."

Sodium shrapnel cooked her brain.

The Valerena Other dropped the hairsplitter, started stripping the still twitching body. "Damn! She shit herself."

"Just put on her outer clothes. Rinse them out if you have to. Hurry. Before Blessed or T.W. hear about Provik. If you don't get control of the security forces, we're dead." He started grumbling about the massacre in the Black Ring. It had claimed a quarter of his hired hands.

The Valerena Other left smiling. As far as anyone would ever know she was Valerena Tregesser.

Valerena glanced up as the door opened. "What did the silly sack want this time?"

The Other gaped. Her jaw moved but no words came out.

A chill struck Valerena. This was not the one she had sent.... It was trying to pull a gun....

Valerena dived into the knee space beneath her work center. "Blazon!" she shouted. "Enemy!"

A roaring whir, like the beating wings of ten thousand small birds. The desk thrummed. Glass broke. Things fell. The Other mouthed one gurgling scream.

"Code Sane! Code Sane!" The whir ceased.

She crawled out shaking, dragged herself upright. The needle storm had demolished the office, had shredded the Other.

She lost her lunch.

"What happened?" One of the Others from the outer office stood in the doorway.

"Get out! Get out! Get out!" Valerena flung herself at the door, slammed it, locked it, leaned against it while the heaves doubled her over. Then she stumbled to her desk to call Lupo.

The comm system had been destroyed along with everything else.

She was trapped. With a corpse. With no way to summon help.