VII Gemina had turned out a parade: soldiers, gunners, Twist Masters, pilots, ridership crews, OpsCrew and ServCrew. XII Fulminata had sent a minimum of live crew, a few passionless senior officers to attend the six Immortals who ruled the Guardship.

The formalities were to be conducted over a circular table at the center of a parade hall. That table was surrounded by equipment that would allow XII Fulminata's Immortals and VII Gemina's Deified to participate. XII Fulminata's delegation had not activated their images.

They waited till WarAvocat seated himself because in their universe the living snapped to attention in the presence of Immortals.

Hanaver Strate did not. "Ready? To remain in character you'll have a list of trivial complaints to demonstrate your superiority. Let's get them out of the way so we can get on with the job."

Thalygos Mundt winced. But Kole Marmigus looked at his opposite number and chuckled. WarAvocat XII Fulminata Delka Stareicha fixed Strate with his best cold stare. "You want us to break off into this end space first." He had turned up the chill on his voice box.

"You claimed the right by seniority. I happily yield the honors to so illustrious..."

"You think we'll go in there, take a beating, and look bad."

"Whoever goes in first stands a chance of hitting a firestorm. Whoever put out the bait believed he could take a Guardship. If you don't think XII Fulminata can handle it, you can run backup."

Stareicha was caught.

"You invited yourself, WarAvocat. If you want to play games meant to validate XII Fulminata's superiority, I'd as soon VII Gemina undertook the operation alone. Since neither first in nor second pleases you, why don't you return to routine patrol?"

Kole Marmigus chuckled again.

Prune-mouthed, Stareicha observed, "It must be getting near time to elect Dictats. Very well. XII Fulminata claims first honors."

History in the making. Formalities held for no better reason than so they could be recorded for posterity.

The shimmer behind Strate's shoulder murmured. Stareicha got a thoughful look.

Another Guardship was coming in. XXVIII Fretensis. It brought news of an Outsider attack upon the Closed System M. Meddinia. The creatures responsible sounded like the methane breather aboard Glorious Spent. Curious.

Had VII Gemina stumbled into one grand skein of schemes, or two? There had been nothing to connect the krekelen to the aliens aboard that Traveler, but now there was a connection between those two.

Their races appeared to be at war.

That was not permitted in Canon space.

The brass of that attack outraged Hanaver Strate's sense of the natural order.

— 42 —

Lupo could not shake a ballooning pessimism. He tried to study intelligence abstracts but his mind refused to focus.

Simon Tregesser cruised up. He was subdued, too. "I heard you had something." He had not recovered from finding his refuge destroyed by a berserk Outsider.

"We've had sightings of two more Guardships headed in to Starbase. VII Gemina and XXVIII Fretensis."

"That's three pretty fast. Any statistical significance?"

"No."

"Why so glum, then?"

"The unpredictable variables aren't coming our way often enough to please me."

"You want to put the Web locaters back, don't you?"

"If it sours, we lose our investment."

"And I say that strategy, run to fight another day, is hopeless."

"But..."

"But you have some right to your argument, Lupo. Put the damned things back."

"They won't know they can run. I'll give them sealed orders to be opened only on receipt of an unlocking code."

"Good. Have you made plans to get us out, too? With your usual devotion to detail?"

"Yes."

"It's the waiting. Relax. Go play with a woman."

"Yes."

"Can you say anything else?"

"Yes. But it'd be on a subject you don't want to talk about. You have to consider bypassing Valerena."

"It isn't done, Lupo."

"The House will suffer."

Tregesser made burbling, grumbling, contrary noises.

"She is a Tregesser. But she comes up short on perspective, Simon. She has no sense of timing. She's lacking in the intangibles. She can't hang on to loyalties."

"If she's feeble, she won't last. That's the way it's done."

"Blessed will take it away from her. But at what cost? Suppose we catch a Guardship. You want to imagine Valerena having her own Guardship?"

"We grab a Guardship, Valerena won't get her hands on it. Get me one. You'll have no worries."

"You'll give it to Blessed?"

"The hell I will. I'll give it to me. I'll succeed myself. You can make me a new damned Other, a healthy one, and I'll move into it when you do the personality impression."

"That's an interesting idea. If you can get away with it."

"Why shouldn't I?" Tregesser did not notice Provik saying "you" instead of "we," though he replied with "I" instead of "we."

"No clone has ever been anything but an artifact, except Valerena. But officially only you and I know about Valerena."

"Be the same thing, Lupo."

"Hardly. How the hell would you hide Simon Tregesser suddenly turning up with a healthy body? The Directors would claim it wasn't you. They'd say it was some scheme of mine to take over the House. Hell, it's been tried before. Somebody works a deal with Banat-Marath and Troqwai and gives it a shot, and everybody cheers him for giving Death the slip, then they show him the door to the nearest DownTown. There's too much wealth and power at stake."

"Crap."

"Human nature, Simon. It don't work. It's the iron law. They'll let you cheat death once if you're at the top but the price is you have to start over at the bottom. As an artifact."

"Bah! Crap, I say! Watch me! You're my man, aren't you? If we can flout the law and human nature and historical inertia to put together that mass of firepower out there, we can get around the Directors. Can't we?"

"No doubt." Lupo Provik maintained the neutrality of billet steel. He was Simon Tregesser's man, worthy of the trust he had been given, but his loyalty had been subscribed in the certainty that Simon Tregesser was not immortal.

"Hey! The more I think about it, the more I like it." Big mad peal of the old Simon Tregesser hilarity. "I'm going to get on it. Something to while away the hours. Ha-ha! Ha-ha! Immortality. Wouldn't that be a bitch!"

A screaming bitch, Lupo thought as Simon zipped away, roaring and treating his aides and allies with complete disregard. A bitch so big he would have to reexamine his commitments and undertakings if Simon pursued it.

Not that he objected to immortality per se. It was good enough for Lupo Provik.