Glen Cook - The Dragon Never Sleeps

Third WatchMaster strode inside.

The Traveler's operating officers were shaky. One lean, red-faced passenger waited with them. The piping on his apparel pronounced him prominent in House Cholot.

A little man stepped forward, extended a hand that Third WatchMaster ignored. "Commander Haget? I'm Chief Operating Officer Timmerbach."

Third WatchMaster nodded. "How do you do?" He looked down the tight passageway beyond the crew, at the passengers. "Everyone turned out?"

"With the exception of two nonhumans requiring special environments."

"This farce must cease! I demand you end this absurd imprisonment immediately!"

Third WatchMaster did not glance at the civilian. He told the nearest I & I man, "That one fails the attitude test. Make certain he's the last processed out."

"Yes sir."

"You bloody... do you know who I am?"

"No. Who you are is a matter of supreme indifference."

"You bloody well better get interested. I'm Hanhl Cholot, of House Cholot Directorate."

Sweating, red, shaking, Chief Timmerbach tried to calm his owner's representative.

Turning away, Third WatchMaster said, "STASIS, after you process the Director, hold him as a material witness. If his attitude fails to improve, we'll transfer him to VII Gemina ."

Cholot's attitude improved instantly, if not sincerely. Even a first trip downside functionary ignorant of the ways of the Web knew you did not get yourself dragged aboard a Guardship if you had hopes of feeling earth beneath your feet again.

Glorious Spent was exactly like every other Traveler. The shipbuilders of House Majhellain constructed only three basic forms: the fat bulk cargo Hauler, the more common cargo/passenger Traveler, and the yachtlike Voyager for the rich. Every ship of a class was exactly like every other.

The horror Third WatchMaster found while inspecting passenger compartments was on the manifest. He had been warned by Timmerbach that Glorious Spent carried two aliens who had boarded on the Atlantean Rim. But...

It looked like a group-grope involving giant hydras and starfish atop a heap of exposed intestines. It was some sort of colonial, symbiotic intelligence. It was a methane breather, which explained why it had not turned out for the passenger muster.

It was revolting.

What the hell excuse was there for letting something that hideous run loose? What was Canon coming to?

By contrast the second alien, shimmering golden as it stared back from the corner of its cabin, seemed almost natural. Third WatchMaster did not recognize it. The manifest was vague. But its documentation was in order.

There was something calming about it. After a minute in its presence he felt relaxed and incurious. He moved on without asking a question.

I & I went over every millimeter of the Traveler. Every datum in every bank got sorted and tasted, then sifted and sniffed again. Nothing turned up. The Cholot Traveler was innocent of wrongdoing. There was only a feeble case for negligence. Any secrets there existed only in the minds of passengers or crew.

Those got sifted, too, excepting those of the aliens, for whom adequate probes were unavailable. Hanhl Cholot suffered examination three times, Third WatchMaster blandly excusing the harassment by wondering why the shape-changer had masqueraded as a child of House Cholot.

Hanhl Cholot was as stupid as the krekelen had been clever. He had believed its portrayal completely.

There was no guilty knowledge aboard. Third WatchMaster was not surprised. He had expected to learn nothing useful.

Maybe something would turn up once Gemina digested the data.

— 8 —

Turtle looked at the soldiers, shuddered, sighed. Fear dragged the cold fingers of old ghosts across his flesh. He derided himself quietly. He had nothing to fear. His documentation was genuine. Fear was for when you had to risk the other kind.

But it had been so long since he had faced the disdain and suspicion of Canon troops, so long since he had put his nerve to the test. "Getting flabby," he muttered, and stirred himself before the indecision attracted attention.

Warned he would be coming, the sentries barely glanced at his passes at the UpTown escalator. They were more troublesome at the High City lift. The garrison did not much care if terrorists reached UpTown. But the holies of the High City must be shielded by every strength at hand.

The sentries in the lift could find no excuse to deny him. After all, he had orders from Lord Askenasry.

The soldiers took no chances. One rode up with him. Two more were waiting. They bustled him into an armored carrier more jail for those inside than protection from the world outside. He saw nothing of the High City's fairy spires, half energy construction skittered by rainbows. He saw nothing of the so-perfect people on their heavenly wind-washed streets. He saw nothing but metal bulkheads and the indifferent face of a Canon trooper whose conversation ranged from sniffs to grunts.

The machine whined to a stop. Turtle's companion did not move. Turtle remained seated till the back panel dropped and a vaguely familiar old woman beckoned him. He stepped out into a sun-washed courtyard. Surrounding walls masked the rest of the High City.

"Lona, is it?" It had been many years since he had been to the High City.

"I'm Carla. Lona was my mother."

It had been a long time. And he had forgotten that the Canon lords—those who stayed ahead of their enemies—rejuvenated themselves alone, not those who served them.

This woman might not have been born when last he had visited Merod Schene High City.

Lord Askenasry was a frail old stick figure, wrinkled, so black his skin had indigo highlights. A phalanx of machines kept him breathing. He had been past his prime when last Turtle had visited, but then had been healthy and virile and in command of himself and his environment.

One other man shared the sickroom. He stood out of the way, motionless, features concealed inside a cowled black robe, arms folded, hands hidden inside his sleeves. One of the physicians of House Troqwai, the unknowns, as much priests as healers, as much a harbinger of the inevitable as a hope. Turtle was uncomfortable under the creature's impassive gaze.

He thought of it as man, but it could as well have been woman or nonhuman. There was no evidence obvious to the eye.

The stench of decay permeated the room. Time, the great assassin, rested heavily there, its presence patient and implacable. The myriad sorceries of House Troqwai could hold the killer at bay for a time that seemed unimaginable to the harried children of DownTown, but still the murmurer gnawed and clawed and insinuated its dark tentacles through cracks in the walls. There was no escape for even the rich and the powerful.

Turtle recalled Askenasry as a merry youth, rambling the sinks of DownTown with rowdy contemporaries, accumulating the debt he would have an opportunity to discharge now. All those friends had fallen already. Now he was alone of his kind, like Turtle.

His eyes were open in slits. They tracked Turtle without emotion or apparent interest.

"I have come."

Askenasry's response came from a machine, a laryngal whisper amplified. "You have taken your time." His words came in little rattle-tat bursts interspersed with soft coughing.

"I have come before."

"At my insistence. Refusing payment for a service."

The argument was ancient. Turtle refused the bait. Let the man fade into the darkness not understanding that he would have helped anyone that faraway night. The ancient did not need the strain of a clash of philosophical sabers. "I have come now."

"To collect? At last?"

"Yes."

"What is it? Passage? Credit? Documentation?"

"No. I want you to save some hotheaded young fools from the consequences of their foolishness. As I once saved other youngsters from their foolishness."