The Dragon Never Sleeps

— 23 —

The Tregesser Voyager Elmore Tregesser broke away from the Web well off Tregesser Prime's Optimal. Lupo Provik signed. Two went aft to inform the passenger. Lupo nodded to Three, poised to send false ID if challenged. They had to get in unnoticed by Canon agents and Valerena's partisans.

Provik eased the Voyager toward P. Benetonica 3F, a trivial station supporting insystem mining. If there was no challenge, the Voyager would pretend to be insystem itself.

It was the usual way Simon Tregesser slipped in and out of his home system.

There was no challenge. Traffic control was inept, haphazard. Simon Tregesser preferred it that way.

Lupo sent a code to his people on station. When the Voyager nosed in, its three-bay section had been closed. Only trusted people were on hand.

No sense taking chances.

When it was time to move Simon, none of the crew looked like Lupo Provik. They looked like rough asteroid miners who maybe belonged to the same family. The kind of people who would move a dangerous cargo without asking questions. The kind Lupo Provik would hire.

Soon a battered lighter headed toward a port north of Tregesser Horata. Six hours later it touched down. An hour later still, the lighter's operators delivered Simon Tregesser to the basement of a building not far from the Tregesser Pylon, a six kilometers-tall tower that rose from Tregesser Horata DownTown through UpTown, and up and up, through the sprawling torus of Tregesser Horata High City and up a kilometer more. The Simon Tregesser Other waited in a ball that tipped the Pylon's peak.

Lupo stood at a window, stared up the immense height of the Pylon. He did not like it. Too vulnerable. Big showoff thing. A monument to Simon's ego. He could take it down a dozen ways. Did Simon think nobody was crazy enough to kill thousands to get just one? He'd do it himself.

"This's the touchy part," he said. "This's where Valerena will move if her intelligence sources are what they should be."

"They aren't," Two said. "She doesn't have what it takes. She's lazy."

"She is. I hate Tregesser Horata."

"That's because you can't control it."

"Yes."

Sheer size made Tregesser Horata remarkable. Neither the High City nor UpTown could accommodate their appropriate populations. After the heart of DownTown had been cleared for the base of the Pylon, UpTown had dribbled down and taken the near ground. Now the social gradient ran downhill from the Pylon to the Black Ring, then rose again. Thirty klicks out there were hill-straddling palaces of a new superclass a step above the hoi polloi cluttering Tregesser Horata High City.

The biggest, a fairy fortress perched precariously on a precipice overlooking the natural absurdities of Fuerogomenga Gorge, belonged to Valerena Tregesser.

Lupo's House Security department occupied ten levels of the Pylon, even with the High City. He hated the structure but lived there when he was home.

Airboats drifted across the arc of sky between the bottom of UpTown and the polished ivory face of the Pylon. Insects, Lupo thought. Deadly insects. He watched every one, half expecting a suicide assault. It had been tried. There was a permanent dark stain a kilometer up.

Two said, "If you're that worried, call T.W. See what she's got."

"Can't reach her without telling somebody who I am. I'm not supposed to be on Prime."

Four said, "We're within time parameters. It's not like you to be impatient."

True. Usually he was patient as a spider. "It's that place. It's a deathtrap."

Two observed, "Valerena may pull it down if she takes over."

"If she takes over. When I talk to Simon about the succession, he gets shifty. He has notions. And I have mine." The others eyed him. "Blessed has the real stuff."

"Valerena isn't worried about him."

"She has all the Tregesser ego. Considering her horizontal lifestyle, it's doubtful she can imagine any male as dangerous."

"What would she put up in place of the Pylon?" Four wondered.

"Something as ridiculous as that castle, a hundred times bigger." Provik glared at the Pylon. If will could bring Simon down, he was breaking the sound barrier.

Three returned. "He's coming."

"Get him moved. I want the Voyager gone before Valerena even thinks about setting a watch."

The bell in the cellar was identical to the one that had departed. All identifying marks and serials had been duplicated. The creature inside had been mutilated to become an exact duplicate of Simon Tregesser.

Lupo studied the Other as they loaded the bell. He frowned. Simon liked to be clever. Would he outfox himself by pretending to be his Other going back, leaving his true Other in place?

He might. He damned well might.

Some test was in order. He mentioned it to Three and Four, made suggestions. They would take the voyager back to the end space. He and Two were staying.

He had identities he and his family could assume. They belonged to people who arrived and departed mysteriously, with no apparent reason or rhyme.

He made a call after the lighter lifted. He and Two became a man and woman who were the scandal of Tregesser Horata. They pretended to be man and wife. Everybody knew they were brother and sister.

It gave people something to distract them from their own dark sins.

A tsunami of light hammered Tregesser Prime.

"Guardship!" Lupo cursed the fading starburst. "What the hell?"

What a time to have one break off the Web here.