They had gone through. They had taken almost nothing in baggage, in their haste. There was disaster at their backs. It was palpable, throughout the city, through the subways, where armoured police patrolled, with rifles levelled, in shops closed, in newslines censored, broadcasts cancelled.

They had made it through. Station let them dock. The procedure completed itself and the crew unsealed the hatches.

“Come on,” he said, feeling his pocket for the authorisations. There was a freighter…the tickets advised so…it was the best place to go now, no lingering on station. They carried their own baggage off, jostling the Upcoast family in their haste.

Police.

And not police. Armoured men with a serpent for an emblem, levelling rifles at them.

“Papers,” one said.

Itavvy produced them. For a brief, agonising moment he thought that they would then be waved on; but the man kept them, checked those likewise of the Upcoast group.

“Both for the Phoenix,” he said into his com-unit.

“Faces check?” a voice came back.

“No likeness.”

Itavvy reached, to have the papers. The faceless man held them, and the others, motioned at them with the rifle. “Waiting room,” he said.

“We’ll miss our boarding,” a youth from Upcoast protested.

“Nothing’s leaving,” the armoured man said.

Azi, Itavvy realised in indignation. No Kontrin, but an azi force was holding them. He opened his mouth to protest: the rifles gestured, and he closed it. Meris started to cry; his wife gathered her up, and he took the burden from her, went after the Upcoasters into the designated waiting area.

DOCK 6, BERTH 9, he could see on the signs outside the clear doors as they were ushered through. Berth 11 was their ship, safety.

From here, past azi guns, there was no reaching it. He looked at the Upcoasters, at his wife, hugged Meris to him. A guard deposited their baggage inside the door and unmasked to search through it, disarranging one and proceeding to the next, putting nothing back.

vi

“Nothing,” the azi reported, and Morn scowled, folded his arms.

“No more flights,” he said, looking at the ISPAK president. “Nothing moves out, no more come up.”

“Kont’ Morn,” the beta breathed, appalled.

He cared little for that. He had no trust at all for ITAK, and believed in ISPAK’s loyalty only while guns were on them and in the command centre.

And from Pol there was yet no word. Pol was down in Newhope; that much was certain; his ship pulsed out a steady flow of status information, but there were only azi aboard.

The Meth-maren had weapons enough at her disposal if she had linked into ITAK. She had still the resources of the Family with which to buy beta loyalties. And to take those privileges needed Council.

Except by one procedure.

“She’s dead,” Morn said suddenly, bewildering the beta. “I’ll enter in the banks that the Meth-maren’s dead. And ISPAK will witness it. Then it’ll be true, by the law—do you agree, ser?”

“Yes, Kont’ Morn,” the man said; as it had been yes, Kont’ Pol, and Kont’ Raen before that.

“All Kontrin and a world’s corporations are sufficient witness.” He glared at the beta to see the reaction to this, and the beta simply looked frightened. He motioned to the console. “Get ITAK in link. Use your persuasion.”

The man sat down and keyed a message through, the while Morn leaned above him, one hand on his chair, one on the panel’s rim; and often the man’s hands trembled over a letter, but he made no errors. ITAK protested; NO CHOICE, the ISPAK beta returned. It was untidy; it fed into intercomp, to be examined and made permanent record. Morn scowled and let it. The records were only as dangerous as Council chose to regard them, and Council—was as Council went. Risks had to be taken.

ITAK complied, under threat, registering protest. Brave little betas, Morn thought, with respect for the Meth-maren’s hold on them. It amused him. He watched the ISPAK beta trembling with psych-set guilt and that amused him the more. “Move over,” he said, thrust the man out of the way, glared until the man moved far away, by the door. Then he set his own fingers to the keys, with both ITAK and ISPAK signatories, coded in his own number…and Pol’s: for that he had gained long ago, committed it to memory: he had taken that precaution, as he tolerated nothing near him he could not control—save Pol. All a world’s Kontrin and the corporations: the latter, K-codes could forge; but only on Istra did it come down to so small a body of the Family.

Worldcomp accepted it; it leaped to intercomp. Morn smiled, which he did rarely.

Officially dead, so far as Istra was concerned; universally dead in the eight to sixteen days it would take for the message to reach homeworld and fan out again in intercomp. She could not use her codes or her credit: they were wiped.

He pushed back from the console, rose, turned to the azi who waited. “Get the shuttle ready,” he said. “My own.”

One left. He turned to the ISPAK beta.

And suddenly the comp screens began to flash with alarm.

He was at the panel in an instant, keyed through a query.

No answer returned to him. He sat down and plied the keys, obtained only idiocy. Panic flashed into him. With all the speed he could manage he K-coded intercomp out-of link, separating it from the deadness that was Istra.

The cold reached his stomach. Worldbank was wiped. All records, all finance, null.

The Meth-maren’s death notice.

It was keyed to that, and he had done it.

“Kill the power!” he shouted, rounding on the ISPAK beta. “Kill all the power on Istra. Dead, you understand me?”

There was silence. Nothing of the sort had ever been done before, the threat never carried out, the withdrawal of station power from a world.

“Yes, Kontrin,” the beta stammered hoarsely. “But how long, how long are we talking about?”

“Until you hear from me to restore it. Shut it down.” He turned to the board, keyed a message to his ship, ordering more azi to the command centre. “I’m going down,” he said to the azi present, to Leo, who was chief of them. The azi looked troubled at that, no more. “There’s no more time to spend with this. You know procedures.”

Leo nodded. Twenty years Leo had been in his service, the last five as senior. Efficiency and intelligence. There was no beta would get past him, no one who would get near controls. Azi lined the room, thirty of them, armed and armoured, impersonal as the majat, and that resemblance was no chance. Beta psych-set was terrified by it. There was no one of them about to make a move under those guns.

He looked about him, saw the screens which monitored the collectors, saw the incredible sight of vanes turning, all at the same time, averting into shadow.

“ Wemust have power,” the ISPAK beta objected.

“Without dispute,” he said. The beta looked abjectly grateful.

Morn ignored him and, gathering two of the azi to accompany him, left the centre.

There was a Kontrin ship onworld, Pol’s; and Pol remained silent, leaving only azi to report.

It was the first law, in the Family, to trust no one.

vii

Figures rippled across the comp screen. Raen saw the sudden dissolution of information and sprang back from it with a curse.

Dead. They had gotten to that, then, to pull her privileges.

And all Kontrin onworld had to agree to it.

Pol, she thought. You bastard!

She swore volubly and kept working, fed in the Newhope call number. “Jim,” she said. “Jim. Any staff, punch five and answer.”

There was no answer.

JIM, she sent, BEWARE POL HALD.

She suddenly found chaos in the machine, nonsense, and finally only house-functions.