Aleas whispered, "You're not a demigod here, Hanaver. Just a nuisance." Which amused her.

Provik awaited some response. WarAvocat declined. He had made a mistake, challenging these people on their home ground. Here all the intimidations belonged to them.

"A rest, a meal, a chance to freshen up would do us the most good, Mr. Provik."

"As you will. Six. Forget the labs. Take them to Residential." Provik turned to his screens. He was done with them.

WarAvocat noted that the man's hands still trembled.

One, Three, and Four entered as the outer door closed. One raised four fingers. Lupo nodded, watched them place the bugs in isolation boxes. "That's all?"

"We saw every twitch."

"Give them to Research."

"You put on a hell of a show."

"I almost believed it myself. Shike did better than I expected."

"You pointed them straight at us."

"If we're vulnerable we might as well find out."

"I wish we all were as confident of our ability to walk the edge without falling."

"You are." And that was the truth. He only hoped circumstances would let them step back from the brink someday.

WarAvocat said, "Stay with us, Lieutenant," as Provik's woman led them around, assigning quarters. He owed her an explanation.

The techs started sweeping the moment the woman departed. They found an ample scatter of listening devices. They would have been troubled if they had not.

"That Provik bothers me," WarAvocat said once it was safe. "I don't know why. Maybe it's potential. Sit down, Lieutenant. I'll tell you the story."

Turtle studied Provik, trying to fathom his game. "You have grown too subtle for me."

"Just baffling them with bullshit."

Turtle wondered, though.

— 110 —

WarAvocat gave the order to pull out reluctantly. He stared at the image of P. Benetonica 3, dissatisfied. "I can't shake the suspicion that I've been suckered."

"Gemina is satisfied," Aleas said.

"Gemina hasn't met Lupo Provik. That man... I don't want him loose in the universe."

"You're going to try to trace the Ku, aren't you?"

"I don't want him running loose, either."

"He has a long head start. He hasn't done anything with what he learned. If he did learn anything."

He caught her gentle warning. The Deified had their eyes on him.

"The war will be waiting when we get there." He glared at that world. Six days down there and he had not found a chink. And did not know much more about it as a world. He'd even missed the famous Fuerogomenga Gorge.

"There's something rotten down there, Aleas. Too much has happened for it to be unrelated, coincidental. The Ku. The rogue. The Outsiders."

"The Ku didn't reach M. Shrilica by choice. The rogue had been Outside for centuries. You can't connect them, Hanaver."

"Not logically. But they connect. I'm sure."

Aleas gave him a troubled look.

VII Gemina ran the Lieutenant's trail out. WarAvocat was not surprised when it turned to smoke. He did not dig deep. He was aware of the unfriendly scrutiny of the Deified.

"That damned Ku is out there scheming, Aleas. If those Outsiders get him...."

"Speaking of Outsiders?"

"I know. We're supposed to be showing them the light. My esteemed predecessors think I'm obsessed. They think I'm using the Ku as an excuse to look for the artifact." He ordered Ops to take the Guardship to M. Meddinia. He was WarAvocat. He could not be overruled. "We'll see some truths pretty soon. And the grumblers will be silenced again."

"I hope so. For your sake."

So. Even she had doubts.

M. Meddinia presented no surprises but plenty of frustrations. Even Gemina could make only limited sense of exchanges with the ground. But it did seem that Seeker of the Lost Children and Amber Soul had come home before the destruction of the station, presumably by Outsiders. But neither was down there now, near as Gemina could figure. It was possible the locals meant they were dead.

WarAvocat gave up, ordered VII Gemina back to D. Zimplica in the face of protests from the Deified. He paused there only long enough to issue a Fleet Directive offering a reward for the Ku. He did not include Amber Soul because he saw no reason to fear it. He did fear Lady Midnight but ignored her for political reasons.

He had maneuvered himself into a precarious position without quite knowing how.

And he caught his sole friend watching him worriedly when she thought he would not notice.

— 111 —

Turtle looked at Provik. Provik looked back. "This is it, isn't it, Kez Maefele? Your hour."

"Yes." He did not just have to go into that next room and sell those dour Outsiders a strategy for killing Starbase, he had to go in having sold himself. And he had not yet conquered Doubt, the devil that gave him no peace.

He had been too long among humans, or not long enough. He understood them too well. Their thinking had infected his own. But he did not yet understand them well euough to become one of them. Those grim old torturers beyond that door had more in common with Lupo Provik than Kez Maefele ever could.

"I can do it," Turtle said. "I will do it. But I could do it more easily if I believed I was doing the right thing for the right reasons. The motive is as important as the deed. Have you never done the right thing for the wrong reason?"

Some shadow of memory darkened Provik's eyes. "Sure. And the wrong thing for the right reason. But that was then and this is now. Why lose sleep over it? You want more motivation, remember they put a price on your head."

Was that a threat?

"No. Wrong choice of words. We weren't smart when we started. People on Prime know your name. Some are the type who would try to collect the reward. Be hard to avoid them all. Unless you spend your life locked up in the Pylon the way the Chairs do."

"Or I can go out there with the Outsiders and fight back?"

"You know their conditions. We go through that door and we're committed till they turn us down or turn us loose. The Valerena and Blessed can dodge it. You and I can't."

"Can't you?" Turtle eyed Provik narrowly.

Provik was startled. And understood. "How long have you known?"

"Since they tried to kill you, Blessed, and Valerena. They did kill you. It was on that tape. But it was you who brought the tape, and a female with impossible reaction times."

"And you never used that."

"I'm not human," Turtle said, which he suspected Provik would take to mean that he had not yet found a reason to draw the bolt from his quiver.

"I owe you one."

"Not necessarily."

One of the female Proviks appeared, escorting the chosen Valerena. She raised an eyebrow. "Another moral crossroads," Lupo said. "We're going to survive it, I think. Where's Blessed's Other?"

"On his way. Says he'll be a few minutes late. I think he wants to be the last to arrive."

Provik grumbled something. "Well, Kez Maefele, there's the final curtain. Can you bring yourself to save this House?"

"You go to save your House, Mr. Provik. I'll go to raze the dragon's lair."

There were few Ku left. A few thousand were scattered across Canon. A few tens of thousands lived on the old homeworld, their backs resolutely to the stars and yesterday. And beyond the Rims there were tiny, scattered guest colonies and a few nomadic ships surviving by carrying whatever cargoes they could acquire. In all, surely, fewer than a hundred thousand Ku, fading from the stage faster than their conquerers, lacking any real will to survive.

Provik had let him spend a fortune to find out how hopeless his people were.