— 102 —

Jo and AnyKaat made themselves Immunes, of sorts, by virtue of their weapons and willingness to use them. But even after two years they dared not let one another out of sight.

Jo felt tired, beaten down. In the beginning they had wanted to acquire wealth enough to get off and buy passage to P. Jaksonica, where AnyKaat could lever them back into the real universe. That had cracked up on the realities of Merod Schene. They had lowered their aim again and again. Now when the rare shuttle landed, they went out to see if they could get a message to AnyKaat's mother.

Jo's spirits were at low ebb. And for months she had been having nightmares about Seeker—or something alien—invading her mind whenever she slept.

She was afraid she was cracking.

— 103 —

It took Seeker a long time with Amber Soul to grasp the meaning of his experiences among the humans. And even she, who had been so long among them that she could not now fit among her own, did not comprehend them well.

They rewrote the faces of worlds.

They were an abomination in the eye of the universe, yet they had brought to this sand grain something unknown before their advent, the unyielding rule of law.

Their law did not always make sense. It was skewed to the advantage of the few. But it was as inflexible and predictable as any natural law and could no more be bent or twisted.

In their way, the humans were into the afternoon of their time, waiting for the twilight, but they had created this one great thing, this bubble of order and peace that hung like a jewel upon the tumultuous Web. With Chaos's own sword they chastised it, striking off its heads one by one, each time wresting from Chaos another shadow-thin slice of its dreadful empire.

There was a darkness upon the Web. It was a shadow of horror that left the strands thrumming with pain. It was an evil risen from the heart of Chaos to challenge the march of law. There was grave concern among the elders. They petitioned Seeker to burden himself with separation again.

Strange, strange Amber Soul begged to share his quest.

The Lieutenant Klass had become like one of the Lost Children, abandoned somewhere on the vastness of the Web, without lightmarks to sign the way to her. Could he find her while it mattered? The thread they had spun between them had been slender.

His people activated the signal that would alert a visitor to the system that there were passengers to collect.

— 104 —

Turtle came and went as he pleased. He was a trusted agent of the House creating a planetary defense.

Like it or not, he was a public figure and object of debate. He headed a band of aliens and artifacts numbering a hundred. Their presence in positions of trust caused grumbling.

The Directors had a grudge. The Chair no longer consulted them in any but the most mundane business. They knew nothing of its secret agendas. But they did know snakes were stirring. The Ku's gang and Provik's security forces were everywhere. Provik's monetary demands gnawed the belly out of the House's profitability.

Turtle was more content than he had been since leading the Dire Radiant. His moral cavils bent easily in the wind of a need to do what he had been fashioned to do.

The legacies of Valerena Tregesser included the Isle of Ise, for which Blessed had no time or love. That had become Turtle's place. There he heard a thousand echoes of childhood. He went there with Midnight, his frequent companion lately. Blessed was trying to fulfill an obligation by providing himself with an heir.

"I spent my first dozen years in a place like this," Turtle told Midnight. They had climbed to the pinnacle of a basaltic eminence hanging a hundred meters above a lapis lazuli sea. Below, a band of ivory sand sketched the limits of the sea. The sand had been imported for Valerena.

Midnight was in a bleak mood. Talking about his past usually distracted her. This time it did not.

This was not the Lady Midnight, righteous and frightened, who had come to Tregesser Prime. This was a Midnight without reservations, a Midnight who had been with one man too long. Blessed could do no wrong. Separation became wrenching agony.

Most men found such devotion suffocating. Midnight carried the scars to prove it. But Blessed came close to reciprocating. Flighty and flutter-brained as she was, she was his rock.

"She's going to take him away, Turtle. I know it." The ultimate fester, never to be healed: She could not compete with a true woman anywhere but in bed. So long as that was true, she could not be secure.

"Tina? No. They're just friends doing something that will benefit them both. Blessed will make his heir and gain the backing of a strong faction in the Directorate. Tina gains an alliance with the Chair and becomes the mother of the Chair. Her heart isn't set on Blessed. She wants Cable Shike."

"Being mother to the heir could get her killed."

"The succession will be more orderly with Lupo to supervise."

"Lupo could get killed."

"There is more to him than meets the eye. He would be hard to kill."

Midnight stared out to sea, perhaps tempted to dive into the salt breeze and spread her wings against that turquoise plain. But she dared not. The gravity of Prime was too great. When she must fly, Blessed sent her to 3G, a resort station. When he especially wanted to please her, he joined her.

"I'm doing it again. Bothering you with trivia when you have an empire on your mind."

"Pain is not trivial, Midnight. It has the power to define us. Your fear of losing Blessed is as potent as mine that I have pledged myself to the wrong standard."

The Wizard could not unravel the schemes of Lupo Provik. Maybe because Provik was weaving something whose ends he could not see. His one certain goal was to slide the House out of the closing jaws of Guardships and Outside.

"Is something happening?"

"Soon. Provik has heard of a big battle."

"The Guardships won?"

"They always win. The Outsiders will be desperate. We won't be able to evade much longer."

"What will you do?"

"That depends on Provik."

"Why is it always Lupo, never Blessed or his mother?" She did not understand Others. When she saw more than one Valerena or Blessed, she became bewildered. She could not get it through her head that the Valerena who mattered had died.

"Blessed defers to Provik's experience and talent. Provik is the only one who can pull the House out of this crack."

"Could you capture Starbase? If that's the price?" Her voice trembled.

"Maybe. It would have been easier with VI Adjutrix. I'm not anxious to try."

"I don't want you to. Any of you. There's a boat coming." An arrow of white wake reached toward the island.

"Yes." He had known for some time. His vision was more acute.

"Maybe Blessed got a chance to get away." She unfolded her wings. They were brilliant. She was happy.

"Maybe." But he doubted it.