Tand stood still a moment. Moth gave him time to consider the matter. Then she waved her hand a second time, dismissing him. His departure was as deliberate and graceful as usual, although she reckoned what disturbance she had created in him.

And, alone, Moth bowed her head against her hands, trembling. The trembling became a laugh, and she leaned back in her chair in a sprawl, hands clasped across her middle.

Not many rulers had been privileged to be entertained by the wars of their own successions, she reckoned; and the humour of seeing the Hald and their minions blinking in the light with their cover ripped away, publicly invitedto contend for power, while she still lived… That was worth laughter.

Her assassination had been prepared, imminent. Tand’s action was puzzling…some strange affliction of sentiment, perhaps, or even an offer relayed from the others; and with straight-faced humour she had returned the offer doubled. Of course they would kill her as soon as their choice was well-entrenched in power…but time… timewas the important thing.

She grinned to herself, and the grin faded as she gathered up the falsified Istran reports, stacked them with the others.

The Meth-maren would have need of time.

To leave this place, Cerdin and Council and all of them, and have such a place as the old Houses had been, old friends, dead friends—that was the only retirement for which Moth yearned, to find again what had died long ago, those who had built—instead of those who used.

But one of the folders was the Meth-maren’s, and Moth opened the record, stared morosely at the woman the child had become.

The data was random and the cross-connections inexplicable, and her old age grew toward mysticism, the only sanity…too much knowledge, too wide a pattern.

Lian also must have seen. He had complained of visions, toward the last, weakness which had encouraged assassins, and hastened his death.

He had died riveted in one of those visions, trembling and frothing, a horror that left no laughter at all in Moth.

She had had to do it.

“Eggs,” Lian had cried in his dying, “eggs…eggs…eggs…eggs,” as if recalling the beta children, the poor orphaned creatures, the parentless generation—the thousands growing up too soon, cared for en masse, assembly lined into adulthood, men and women at ten, to care for others, and others…to bear natural children at permission, as they slid all things at permission, forever. Give them luxury, Lian had said once. Corrupt them, and we shall always control them. Teach them about work and rewards, and reward them with idleness and ambition. So we will always manage them.

So betas, seeking idleness, created azi.

Eggs…eggs…eggs…eggs.

Eggs of eggs.

Moth shuddered, reliving the fissioning generations who had spawned all reality in the Reach.

Seven hundred years. From one world to many worlds, a rate of growth no longer controlled.

Eggs.

Potential.

I am the last, Moth thought, who was once human. The last with humanity as it once was. Even the Meth-maren is not that.

Least of all…that.

Eggs making eggs.

Family, she thought, and thought of an old saying about absolute power, and absolute corruption.

Only the azi, she thought, lack power.

The azi are the only innocents.

ii

Pol Hald sat down, propped his slim legs on a table, folded his hands and looked about him with a shrug of amusement.

Raen took the drink that Jim served her and leaned back, stared balefully as Pol accepted his and looked Jim up and down, drawing the obvious conclusions. Jim glanced down, an azi-reaction to such attention.

“Thank you, Jim,” Raen said softly. For a very little she would have asked Jim to sit down and stay, but Pol was another matter than the ITAK board…cruel when he wished to be; and he often wished to be.

Jim vanished silently into the next room. Warrior did not. The majat sat in the corner next to the curio table, rigidly motionless as a piece of furniture.

“Beta-ish,” Pol observed of the decor, of the whole house in general, a flourish of his hand. “You’ve a bizarre taste, Meth-maren. But the azi shows some discrimination.”

“What are you doing here?”

Pol laughed, a deep and appealing chuckle. “It’s been eighteen years since we shared a supper, Meth-maren. I had a mad impulse for another invitation.”

“A far trip for little reward. Does Ros Hald’s table not suffice?”

He had pricked at her. She flicked it back doubled, won a slight annoyance of him. That gaunt face had not changed with the years; he had reached that long stage where he would not. She added up numbers and reckoned at least over seventy. Experience. The gap was narrowed, but not by much.

“I’ve followed you for years,” he said. “You’re the only Meth-maren who ever amused me”

“You’ve done so very quietly, then. Did the Hald send you?”

“I came.” He grinned. “You have a marvellous sense of humour. But your style of travel gave me ample time to catch up with you.” He drank deeply and looked up again, set the glass down. “You know you’ve set things astir.”

She shrugged.

“They’ll kill you,” Pol said.

“They?”

“Not I, Meth-maren.”

“So why are you here?” she asked, mouth twisted in sarcasm. “To stand in the way?”

He made a loose gesture, looked at her from half-lidded eyes. “Meth-maren, I am jealous. You outdid me.” He laughed outright. “I’ve studied to annoy Council for years, but I’ll swear you’ve surpassed me, and so young, too. You know what you’re doing here?”

She said nothing.

“I think you do,” he said. “But it’s time to call it off.”

“Take yourself back to Cerdin, Pol Hald.”

“I didn’t come from Cerdin. I heard. I was willing to come out here. You’re my personal superstition, you see. I don’t want to see you go under. Get out of here. Now. To the other side of the Reach. They’ll understand the gesture.”

She rose. “Warrior,” she said.

Warrior came to life, mandibles clashing, and reared up to its full height. Pol froze, looking at it.

“Warrior, tell me, of what hive is this Kontrin?”

“Green-hive,” Warrior said, and boomed a note of majat language. “Green-hive Kontrin.”

Pol moved his chitined right hand, a flippant gesture that was a satire of himself. “Am I to blame for the choice of hive? It’s Meth-maren labs that set the patterns, that reserved blue for chosen friends…of which we were not.”

“Indeed you were not.”

Pol rose, walked to the window, walked back again, within reach of Warrior, deliberate bravado. “You’re far beyond the limits. Do you know…do you understand what deep water you’re into?”

“That my House died for others’ ambitions? That something was set up two decades ago and no one has stopped it? How are they keeping it from Moth? Or are they?”

Pol’s dark eyes flicked aside to Warrior, back to her. “I grow nervous when you become specific. I hope you’ll consider carefully before you make any irrevocable moves.”

“I learned, Hald. You taught me a lesson once. I’ve always held a remote affection for you on that account. No rancour. We said once we amused each other. Will you answer me now?”

He made a shrug of both hands. “I’m not in good favour among Halds. How could I know the answers you want?”

“But what you know you won’t tell me.”

“Moth has not long to live. That I know. For the rest of what I know: the Halds are your enemies…nothing personal, understand. The Halds want what Thel reached for.”

“And no one has undone what Eron Thel did.”

Pol made a gesture of helplessness. “I don’t know; I don’t know. I protest: I am not in their confidence.”

It was possibly true. Raen kept watching the hands and the eyes, lest a weapon materialise. “I appreciate your concern, Pol.”