The Dragon Never Sleeps

— 81 —

Turtle returned the comm to its cradle.

"What was it?" Midnight asked.

"I'm about to get a closeup look at Lupo Provik. He's here to see Blessed. Blessed wants both Cable and I there."

"Don't show off."

"I won't."

Shike and the Bofokus arrived before he did. Blessed asked, "You didn't come armed? Never mind. It's too late."

They were in a vast room in the rear of the second level of the High City home Blessed had taken over from his mother. Valerena had used it for large parties. Blessed settled in a chair against a wall. Tina sat at his left, Nyo at his right. Shike stood farther to his right. Turtle took his place at Tina's left.

A man and a woman stepped through a doorway fifty meters away.

They moved with polish, disposing themselves without a word or signal, the woman falling back and drifting out so Provik was exactly in Shike's line of fire when they halted.

They had read him as unarmed and Shike otherwise. The woman could shoot him and Shike both before he could reach her.

Blessed asked, "What brings you slumming, Lupo?"

"Some gunplay in the Black Ring."

Blessed frowned. "There're gunfights down there every day."

Turtle relaxed. He read Provik as having no violent intent. He tried to get a feeling for the man. It was difficult. There was nothing obviously remarkable about him. He would not stand out in a group unless he chose to.

Turtle eyed the woman. He saw the same qualities there.

Provik replied, "I was lucky enough to get this on tape. I want you to see it."

Blessed frowned again, off balance. "Tee? Would you take that? There's a player over there." He rose, started walking. He said something to Provik's companion. She just smiled.

The tape was brief. It began in the middle of the action, with a man collapsing while Provik's friend gunned down everyone in sight. There was no need but Provik let it roll through the coups de grace.

Turtle looked at the woman. There was that little smile, just for him.

Very, very dangerous.

"One of Mumsie's Others," Blessed said. "Leading your people into an ambush? Why come to me?"

"One of your mother's Others, yes, but she wasn't what brought us here."

Provik's companion was watching Shike now. Turtle stepped forward. "Excuse me, Tina." He rolled the tape back, zeroed in on the moment he wanted, froze the action. Two men in flight, one looking back. "Can we blow this up, Tina?"

She did it. Blessed said, "I see what you mean, Lupo. But Cable hasn't been out today."

"So who is that man?"

"Cable?"

"I have a half-brother."

"Is that him? Would he get into something like this?"

"It might be. He would if he was paid. If he didn't know it was House politics."

"I'd like to talk to him. Could you arrange it?"

"If it was a chance to get him out from under whatever's hanging over him."

Blessed glared. That was not the answer he wanted from his number one boy.

Provik's companion snapped into motion with the suddenness of an unexpected explosion. As she turned she produced a hairsplitter with her right hand, a House issue energy gun with her left. She never looked at Turtle but the energy gun flew straight to his hand.

Provik moved half a heartbeat behind her, drawing identical weapons, throwing his energy gun toward Tina.

Turtle snapped the weapon out of the air. The hairsplitters made thwock thwock thwock! noises at people charging into the room. He shot twice himself and moved forward, on the woman's left, while the people over there were dumbfounded by the failure of their surprise.

He glanced at the woman, saw a hunting animal totally intent on its prey.

She was not as fast as a Ku. Neither was Provik. But she had begun moving before anyone had come into the room. She and Provik had begun shooting as targets materialized. Despite the range, the woman dropped four and Provik two before he took his own first shot.

Turtle glanced back.

Shike had Blessed and the Bofokus down behind a couch, was estimating the best way to get them out.

A man with a four-tube rocket launcher leapt through the doorway. Hairsplitter pellets hit him before Turtle could shoot.

They were anticipating.

That was worth remembering.

The dead man launched his missiles by reflex. Into the floor. Two warheads exploded immediately. The other rockets ricocheted. One proved a dud. The other blew a hole in the ceiling.

Turtle stood. He shot pieces of furniture, to blow them apart or set them afire. Provik and his woman picked off the people they sheltered when they tried for new cover.

His charge pack went dead. He got down.

He glanced back, saw Shike push Blessed through a doorway, jump through after him.

Blessed was angry. "Who the hell do you think you're shoving, Cable?"

"The guy I'm going to keep alive. Even if I have to knock him in the head and drag him away."

"He's right, Blessed," Tina said. She was calm. Nyo was the rattled Bofoku.

Shike said, "Let's keep moving. There were at least twenty of them. The Ku and Provik won't beat those odds. Tina. Rearguard. Nyo, stay in front of him. I'll lead."

Blessed demanded, "How did they get past the alarm?"

"Your mother used to live here."

"She's trying to kill me?"

"Maybe. But Provik was getting at her Others. Be quiet. Analyze it after we're safe."

"I can't just be a lump while you take the chances."

"You'd better. The way I hear, your grandfather ended up in a bottle because he had that attitude."

Two men appeared ahead. They looked like household staff. Shike shot them both. He approached warily, toed a dropped hand communicator blinking for attention. "Nyo. Get their weapons."

"Where are we headed?" Blessed asked.

"Out. To Tina and Nyo's place."

The hall turned twice and ended on a balcony hanging seven meters above the lobbylike entry foyer. Shike looked down at an empty floor. He heard a voice.

"Keep after them. If even one gets out, we're dead." That voice belonged to Valerena Tregesser. It came from beneath the balcony. There was a cloakroom down there. Someone hidden there could cover the entrance, both stairs, and the freight and passenger elevators beside the stairs.

A second Valerena voice said, "I can't get Chocki. They must have gotten past him."

"Then be quiet. They'll be here soon."

Shike backed away. "Tina, go around the balcony as far as you can. When I wave, shoot at the cloakroom. Take an extra charge pack. Nyo, cover the hallway." He took a captured charge pack himself, along with his own hairsplitter and extra magazine. He ran along the crescent balcony in the direction opposite Tina, to its end, where it met a black marble wall. He waved.

Tina was no sharpshooter. She hit the cloakroom only four times.

Good enough. A cursing Valerena showed enough of herself to shoot back.

Shike hit her shoulder with his hairsplitter. She screamed and kept on screaming. She stumbled out.

Blessed cut her down.

Shike emptied an entire magazine into the cloakroom hoping to start a fire or get a hit with a ricochet. He failed.

A bolt missed Tina by a handspan.

They could not get past.

A second hallway, which led to the room where the shooting had started, opened on the balcony near the passenger elevator. Four men and a woman stumbled out, the men in pairs supporting injured comrades, the woman firing back along the hallway.

They never had a chance.

Lupo moved onto the balcony carefully, stepping over bodies. Tina Bofoku and Cable Shike relaxed as they recognized him. He moved toward Blessed, who was slicing cloth away from a burn on Nyo's leg. "That should be all of them."

Shike said, "There's another one in the cloakroom. I couldn't figure how to get her."

Lupo looked over the rail. "There were two?"

"It was their command post."

"We don't have to use the front way."

Blessed turned Nyo over to Tina, joined them. "Valerena. You're the last one left. You want to die in a closet?" He looked at the Ku, who had followed Lupo. "She doesn't come out, go get her."

"You're too ambitious for me, boy. You want her, you go dance through the gunfire."

Lupo observed with interest. The Ku did not act like a hired hand.

The Valerena walked to the center of the serpentine floor. She saw Lupo. "You're not dead."

"Not yet."

Blessed shot her five times.

Two stepped off the stair and stood beside the passenger elevator, hairsplitter held loosely at her side. Lupo said, "That's all for now, Blessed. Though I'd like to see Shike's brother sometime."

Turtle watched Provik descend the stairs and move to the front door, where he stood relaxed while the woman made the last leg of her withdrawal. "That's a dangerous man, Blessed."

"I know."

"I mean more dangerous than you think. I don't think he can be killed."

Blessed was in a foul mood. He wanted to argue. Turtle refused. "He left that tape in the machine. I want to see it again."

But there was no tape there when he checked.

The woman must have gone back while he and Provik were chasing the survivors.

Maybe they were right when they said Provik made no mistakes.