He lies ever upon his hoard, his heart jealous and mean. Never believe he has nodded because his eyes have closed. The dragon never sleeps.

— Kez Maefele, speaking to the Dire Radiant

— 1 —

Guardship: VII Gemina

On rest station in trojan L5 off P. Jaksonica 3

11/23 shipsyear 3681; year 43 of the

Deified Kole Marmigus

Dictats: The Deified Ansehl Ronygos, dct 12

WarAvocat Hanaver Strate, dct. 1

Alert status: Green Three

WarCrew sleeping [.03 duty section]

Surveillance Mode: Passive

All was quiet in Hall of the Watchers. The whisper of electronics was soporific. Watchers struggled to stay awake. Third WatchMaster roamed silently, tapping shoulders with an ivory baton.

His admonitions were not vigorous. WarAvocat had not yet left his quarters. He might not. He was preoccupied with a new dalliance.

None of the Deified observed from their screens.

It had been this quiet for a shipsyear.

A ping! wakened everyone. Third WatchMaster tried to stroll toward the sound's source. His legs betrayed him.

It was that kind of time. Any trivial break in routine caused quickened breathing.

The Deified Thalygos Mundt came onscreen, his expression malign as always. Third WatchMaster asked, "What do we have, Break Detect?"

"Traveler breaking off the Web, WatchMaster."

Third WatchMaster looked to the head of the Hall. The appropriate displays were up. The routine challenge had pulsed out. He glanced up. The Deified Thalygos Mundt had gone.

What was it like, being a living part of the ship? It was a vagrant curiosity. He was young yet. Only the old entertained ambitions toward immortality.

The backfeed from the breakaway appeared on the wall, downsped pulse content running from right to left: Glorious Spent, House Cholot, bound from V. Rothica to D. Vawnii via P. Jaksonica: general cargo and passengers. Cargo and passenger transhipments scheduled at P. Jaksonica 3B, data follows.

Routine. A passenger list, in case one was wanted and stupid enough to travel without changing identity.

"WatchMaster! I have an emergency signal!"

"Bring it up audial. Alert, Yellow Three." All over the Guardship green lights went yellow, blinking.

The message: "... Gemina, we've had an unauthorized discharge of an emergency escape pod...."

Third WatchMaster snapped, "Alert, Yellow One! Page WarAvocat. Relay the incoming to appropriate divisions."

"... not yet know if anyone was aboard...."

"Search. Find that pod."

"We have it, WatchMaster."

"Lock on. Track and Probe." Conscious of the screens overhead, he barked, "Get the data on the wall. I want everything up when WarAvocat arrives."

Throughout VII Gemina the shift prepared for whatever demands might be placed on the Guardship.

"WatchMaster. We have Lock and Track. That pod is under control. Trajectory indicates a surface destination near Cholot Varagona."

Was there another city on P. Jaksonica 3? "Probe data?"

"None yet, WatchMaster."

"Feed the target data to WarCentral. Pulse Canon Garrison Varagona. Prepare to intercept illegal downbound."

Half the overhead screens were live now but the Deified remained silent. Still, he felt compelled to demonstrate his grip. "Probe? How long is it going to take?"

"First approximation is due up, WatchMaster.... Here it comes. One biological lifeform. Artifact or nonhuman."

Third WatchMaster hesitated. He did not want the disapprobation that would follow an order to waken the whole Guardship. "Alert, Red Three." He slapped his baton into his palm, repeated it more forcefully.

Alarms snarled. Decks and bulkheads shivered. The air whispered and murmured and became cooler as inertial sectors locking-in distressed peacetime flow patterns. Already dim lighting faded as power shunted to battle screen generators. Sound levels rose as normally silent Watchers ran verbal checks with their neighbors.

Then came a bone-vibrating grumble as starspace drives went on line and Web tractor wells lit off.

Third WatchMaster sighed, ran a hand through brown hair, adjusted his khaki OpsCrew uniform. He had reached the limit of his authority.

The wall began running information from the Cholot Traveler's report of conditions on the Web. The data proclaimed a routine passage.

WarAvocat Hanaver Strate, Dictat, immaculate in WarCrew black and silver, entered Hall of the Watchers.

— 2 —

Lady Midnight drifted through the perpetual twilight of Merod Schene DownTown, tall, brittle as leaf gold beaten translucent. Her lavender eyes darted from one nest of gloom to the next. Her slim, pale, fragile face was dewed with sweat. Her thin white hands fluttered like panicky hummingbirds. She started at a rustle from a shadow's heart, clutched her hands to her breast, wrapped her shivering wings more tightly around her. The last hints of their usual silken glimmer faded to shades of lead.

It was hot and damp and musty down there, decayed and slimy, dark and deadly, with sudden patches of fetid air, like an old jungle battleground. Small things scuttled away.

Midnight was afraid.

Fear was a new feeling. Fear was not part of her design. She had been made for the salons and bedrooms of high society. Fear had had to be learned.

Lady Midnight savored new things. But this fear she did not like. It stole the color from her wings. It gnawed her innards like cancer. It took away sleep and robbed her of appetite. It was an assassin that butchered the rhythm of her dance-in-flight. It knotted her muscles till they ached.

"Fool," she murmured in an angel's voice. "You're Immune." She swished clothing of pastel panels as thin as imagination. "You can't be touched." The fear did not subside.

Merod Schene DownTown reeked of insanity. The madness was spreading. Immunity could lose its value any minute.

Scraping, clicking sounds came from the deeper darknesses. Things were following her. Crazy things, evil things, the worst discards and mistakes, that till recently had confined their predations to the deepest hours of the night. She felt their mad eyes measuring her.

They grew bolder all the time.

She paused outside the breezeway leading to her destination. The silence in there was more intimidating than the clicks and slithers growing louder behind her. She did not want to go ahead. But they were working themselves up back there.

Something moved in the breezeway.

Terror yanked a melodic whimper from Midnight's throat.

Dark dread rolled over her, filled her hollow bones with liquid nitrogen. Then warmth swamped her as she recognized the shadow. "Amber Soul!"

The shadow shifted shape, becoming something out of nightmare, rushed past. Clicks, squeaks, scrabblings, whines, the hiss of scales on decomposed pavement moved away hurriedly. Lady Midnight rushed along the dank passage, through a doorway, into a brightly lighted room, where she fell trembling into Turtle's arms.

Only after her heartbeat slackened and her shaking stopped was she smitten by the incongruity of being held and comforted by a creature so much shorter.

Strange as she was, Midnight was human. Turtle was not.

Turtle stood 1.75 meters tall and 1 meter wide. He massed 125 kilos, not a gram of it fat. He had skin the color and texture of a snake's belly. His features vaguely resembled a turtle's. But there was nothing slow or lumbering about him. He moved like a cat.