Glen Cook - The Dragon Never Sleeps

— 145 —

Jo caught AnyKaat's signal, cocked the hairsplitter she had kept as a souvenir. Two furtive OpsCrew types came along an aisle between vats, supporting a limber-limbed replica of Makarska Vis.

WarAvocat had anticipated his enemies correctly.

The OpsCrew conspirators were headed for Personnel Recording. While the replica was in the vat, and in transit to Recording afterward, it was the only record of the Deified.

Jo stepped into their path, aimed at Vis's forehead, blew her brains out. After the woman fell, Jo shot her through the head twice more, walked away.

The Deified Makarska Vis was dead forever. There was no way she could be restored.

Jo figured the Deified would get WarAvocat's message.

— 146 —

Seeker and Amber Soul were beside Strate when he took VII Gemina into the waste space. Colonel Klass and AnyKaat were there to help communicate. WarAvocat was awed by the stellar display, which had been invisible from Webspace. "I wasn't convinced," he said. "Until now. You could hide anything in that."

The Godspeakers had plenty of warning, though WarAvocat used Helispinners liberally to burrow a channel so he could reach his objective more quickly. He sent a rider force ahead to strike at two incomplete habitats Seeker feared would flee before they could be destroyed.

Strate told Klass, "Tell him to concentrate on tracking those things." Minutes after VII Gemina 's breakaway Seeker had announced that each habitat contained a "brood mass," a mindless superGodspeaker colony serving a reproductive function resembling that of a queen ant and the data storage function of a Starbase Core—though the brood mass could not manipulate that data itself.

"It's a repository for genes and knowledge," Klass said. "Without one there could be no more Godspeakers."

"Why hasn't he mentioned it before? He's been holding out."

"We destroyed the original when we hit their homeworld. He says he didn't think they could put another one together. They've never had two at once, ever."

WarAvocat knew little about the biology of the methane breathers. He did not care. They were the enemy. Their biology signified only when it could be used against them.

He did not accept Seeker's claim. He had known. Brood masses had to be the reason he'd been so keen to get a Guardship out here....

Dammit! He'd turned the Ku loose for nothing. Seeker could have gotten them here if only they had had sense enough to ask the right questions.

The Meddinians had high moral pretensions. No matter the pragmatic necessity they'd never admit a desire for genocide. They would not want to take the guilt back home.

His rider force was too weak. The Outsiders forced it back, launched a counterattack VII Gemina repelled with difficulty.

WarAvocat feared he had been too optimistic. Or maybe he had been suckered again, if Kez Maefele had sent the Guardship to its destruction.

That would be the perfect solution from his point of view, wouldn't it? Let VII Gemina be destroyed finishing the Godspeaker threat so he would have no enemies left over.

Klass reported Seeker sensing one of the habitats beginning to move deeper into the waste space.

A second attack came in. He rode this one out behind his screen, using Helispinners sparingly. Let them spend themselves now and be in for rearming when he reached their base.

He noticed an interesting phenomenon: Every ship capable of climbing onto the Web, which had neither methane breather nor human aboard, expended its munitions and ran for the tag end.

The glue of loyalty had come unstuck. They would make no last stand for masters who would abandon them.

Klass reported the second habitat moving, but slowly. Seeker said it was less finished than the first.

The fight at the station was no epic to be recalled for a thousand years. WarAvocat took VII Gemina into the cleared space, screen maxed, ignored the two methane-breather heavies and a dozen human warships, picked an angle from which the station could not defend itself, ran out the funnel, poured in fire till Probe said there was nothing left alive. Then he went after the slower habitat. It had only a four-hour start.

The Outsiders attacked continuously, desperately. WarAvocat heard grumbling because he would not fight back. He ignored it.

The habitat scurried into a swarm of cold matter. That suited WarAvocat fine. There was so much garbage flying around, the Outsiders could not bring but a fraction of their strength to bear. He went to prophylactic screening and began picking them off—never slowing in his pursuit of the habitat.

Catching up took more than a day.

The moment the inevitable became obvious, the Outsiders gave up trying to prevent it.

WarAvocat shouted, "Colonel Klass! Ask Seeker if they can form another brood mass if we destroy both habitats."

She did so. "Negative, sir."

"They've decided to concentrate on saving the other one, then. Do we have contact still?"

"Yes, sir."

"If he loses it, I'll slice off his ears. Understood?"

"Yes, sir."

The habitat, once caught, was easy. It had no defenses and could not maneuver.

WarAvocat was in his element now, dealing with an enemy of known strength and capability who was locked into a mission with absolute parameters.

The Outsiders left one watcher—which he deluded with the guile of a Ku and waylaid before he finished the habitat.

Then the real chase was on. It was apparent quickly that it would not be over soon. They knew the waste space. He did not. But he knew where they were and, for the moment, he was invisible to them.

— 147 —

The Valerena tracked events through Tawn. That relationship was nearing its peak heat, where Tawn would be at her most pliable. The Valerena was concerned that WarAvocat would stretch it out so long her influence would wane.

She experimented.

Tawn was invisible to Gemina . Gemina refused to believe she existed. Invisibility would be handy as hell for an interloper with ambitions. She asked Tawn to try to fix it.

Tawn tried. It worked. As long as the Valerena was not in the presence of someone Gemina did accept and recognize.

Perfect.

The Valerena went to work nagging about getting a replica of herself made. Better than being invisible would be being invisible and being able to be two places at once.

— 148 —

Eighteen days since the destruction of the first habitat. The Outsiders had not regained contact with the Guardship, grace of Seeker and Amber Soul. WarAvocat had gotten ahead of the habitat and its convoy. He placed a decoy inside a swarm of cold matter, moved on to another swarm within a stream of very active gas.

He launched secondaries, had them pair with rocks, vanishing in their shadows. "One from your book, Kez Maefele," he muttered.

VII Gemina waited.

The Outsider scouts spotted the decoy, darted back. The convoy stole into the hyperactive gas stream. It would be harder to detect there.

It was not the perfect ambush. The Outsiders' leading vessels tripped it too soon.

For those it was thorough and final.

The Outsiders did what they had to do.

When the shooting stopped, one of their heavies was out and the other was crippled. Their secondaries had spent themselves in suicide attacks so effective WarAvocat elected to slough the Guardship's two outermost layers. The smaller Outsider ships all suffered. Three more perished. But the habitat made its getaway, sustaining minimal damage.

It hurried toward the neutron star whose gravity had helped create the river of hyperactive gas.

Plodding and implacable, Hanaver Strate went after it.

The habitat was down close to the neutron star. VII Gemina could not get into decent range. Neither Guardship nor personnel could withstand the tidal forces that seemed no inconvenience to the methane breathers. Their habitat was nimble enough and shielded well enough to survive everything WarAvocat threw down there.