Revenge: she had never sought it, in all the long years, had wended her insouciant way from dissipation to withdrawal, and retaliated for only present injuries. The Family had tolerated her occasional provocations, which were mild, and seldom; and her life, which crossed none; and her style, which was palest imitation of Pol’s.

Morn read the comp records and cursed, realising the extent of what she had wrought in so few days: the azi programs disrupted, export authorisations granted, winning the allegiance of ITAK, which was therefore no longer reliable—she knew, she knew, and Outsiders, perhaps not the first to do so, were scattering for safety in their own space. News of that belonged in the hands of the Movement before it reached Council: he sent it, via Meron, under Istran-code, which would be intercepted.

So she might have launched instructions to Meron, to Andra, to whatever places an agent might have become established over two decades. They had worked to prevent it, had found no agent of the Meth-maren in all the years of their observation; and that, considering what she had done on Istra, disturbed all his confidence.

Betas hovered distressedly in the background of the command centre, as yet simply dazed by the passage of events—betas who had learned to avoid his anger. But any of them—any of them—could be hers. His own azi stood among them, armoured and armed, discouraging rashness.

To disentangle a Kontrin from a world was no easy matter. It was one which he did not, in any fashion, relish. His own style was more subtle, and quieter.

He put in a second call to Pol, waited the reasonable time for it to have relayed wherever he was lodged, and for Pol to have responded. He kept at it, sat with his chitined hand pressed against his lips, staring balefully at the flickering screen.

SALUTATIONS, the answer came back.

He punched in vocal, his own face instead of the Kontrin serpent that masked his other communications; Pol’s came through on his screen, mirror-wise, but Pol’s was smiling.

“Don’t be light with me, cousin,” Morn said “Where are you?”

“Newport.”

“She’s been here,” Morn said. “Was here to meet me, as you were not.”

Pol’s face went sober. He quirked a brow, looked offended. “I confess myself surprised. A meeting, then, not productive.”

“Where is she based?”

“Newhope. You’ve not been clear. What happened?”

“She cleared in a shuttle and station picks up nothing.”

“Careless, Morn.”

Morn gave a cold stare to the set’s eye, suffered Pol’s humour as he had suffered it patiently for years. “I’m holding station, cousin, and I’ll explain in detail later why you should have taken that precaution. It may not please you to learn. Get after her. I’d trade posts with you, but I trust you haven’t been idle in your hours here.”

He had sobered Pol somewhat “Yes,” Pol said. “I’ll find her. Enough?”

“Enough,” Morn said.

BOOK EIGHT

i

Jim went about the day’s routines, trying to find in them reason for activity. He had washed, dressed immaculately, seen to a general cleaning for what rooms of the house were free of majat. But the sound of them filled the house, and what jobs could occupy the mind were goon done, and the day was empty. One frightened domestic azi held command of the kitchen, and together they prepared the day’s meals on schedule, two useless creatures, for Jim found himself with no appetite and likely the other azi did not either, only that it was routine, and maintenance of their health was dutiful, so that they both ate.

There was supper, finally, with no cessation of the frenetic hurryings in the garden, the movements at the foundations. Night would come. He did not want to think on that.

“Meth-maren.”

A Warrior invaded the doorway, and the domestic scrambled from the table over against the wall, throwing a dish to the floor in his panic. “Be still,” Jim said harshly, rising. “Your contract is here and the majat won’t hurt you.”

And when it came farther, seeking taste and touch, he gave it. “Meth-maren azi,” it identified him. “Jimmm. This-unit seeks Meth-maren queen.”

“She’s not here,” he told it, forcing himself to steadiness for the touch of the chelae, the second brush at his lips, between the great jaws. He shuddered in spite of himself, but the conviction that it would not, after all, harm him, made it bearable—more than that, for she was gone, and the majat at least were something connected with her. He touched Warrior as he had seen her do, and calmed it.

“Need Meth-maren,” it insisted. “Need. Need. Urgent.”

“I don’t know where she is,” he said. “She left. She said she would come back soon. I don’t know.”

It rushed away, through the door to the garden, damaging the doorframe in its haste. Jim followed it past the demoralised house-azi, looked out into the ravaged back garden where a deepening pit delved into the earth, where the neighbour’s wall had been undermined. Guard-azi stood their posts faithfully, but as close to the azi quarters door as they might. He went out past the excavation, past the guards-sought Max, and having located him in the azi quarters, told him of Warrior’s request, not knowing what he ought to have answered.

“We must stay here as we were told,” Max concluded, his squarish face grimly set, and there was in his eyes a hint of disapproval for the azi who suggested a violation of those instructions. Jim caught it and bit off an answer, turned and hesitated in the door, irresolution gnawing at him with a persistence that made his belly hurt. The hive wanted: Raen would have been disturbed at an urgent message from the hive. She needed to know.

And he was charged simply to keep the house in order.

That was not, now, what she needed. The look that had been in her eyes when she left him had been one of worry, anxiousness, he thought wretchedly, because she must leave him in charge, himwho could not understand the half of what he ought.

He looked back, shivering. “Max,” he said.

The big guard-azi waited. “Orders?” Max asked, that being the way Raen had arranged things.

“I’m going upstairs. You’re in charge down here.”

“She said you were to work.”

“She said I was to take care of things. I’m going upstairs. I have something to do for her. You’re in charge down here. That’s the order I’m giving you. I’m responsible. I’ll admit to it.”

Max inclined his head, accepting, and Jim strode back the way he had come, across the devastation of the garden, past the domestic azi in the kitchen, who was mopping up the broken dish—past the comp centre, the screens of which flashed with messages which waited on Raen. The walls vibrated with song. Warriors hulked here and there in the dark places of the hall. A majat-azi scampered out of the farther doors, female, naked, bearing a blue light that glowed feebly in the shadow. She grinned and traded fingers across his shoulder as she passed, and he shuddered at the madness in that laughing face. A male followed, younger than left the pens to any other service, and the same wildness was in his eyes. A whole stream of them began to pour up from the basement with a Worker behind them, fluting orders for haste.

He fled in horror, lest he be swept up with them by accident, herded with them into the dark pit outside. He ran the stairs, hurled himself into the bedroom, saw it safely vacant and locked the doors.

It was a moment before he could unknot his clenched hands and arms and straighten. One part of him did not want to go farther…would rather seek the corner of the room and tuck up there and cease.

Like the lower azi, when they reached the limit of their functions.