The Dragon Never Sleeps

— 26 —

The breeze off the sea carried the murmur of spirits and sprites and a coolness that kissed Blessed Tregesser's cheeks. He stared out at the waves, watched one after another roll in and smash itself on the foot of the cliff, a hundred meters below. Darkness slithered over the water. The sun was setting behind him. As it did the evening's party came to life.

He shifted his kaleidoscope and thought that his grandfather's scheme would be just one more wave crashing against the cliff of the Guardships. The waves might demolish the cliff in time, but not in one year or ten thousand. Maybe the smart thing was to accept reality and operate within its constraints. Most of the Houses did, and prospered.

And in the genes of others, rebellion simmered on, a quiet inferno, consuming generation after generation. And nowhere was that more true than in House Tregesser. He could not shake his heritage. But he did not have to stoop to the stupidities of his forbears.

Behind him somewhere Valerena laughed. Blessed thought her laugh tight, contrived, premature for the progress of the evening. But she was the guest of Linas Maserang here, and was working hard to keep him entranced.

Maserang showed signs of becoming disenchanted.

"Blessed? Won't you come join us, son? You perching up here, staring out at Linas's bleak dark sea, is creepy."

Blessed faced the fraudulent smile and dead blue eyes of Myth Worgemuth. Behind him, Cable Shike shrugged as though to ask, "How could I stop him?" Beyond Cable servants began lighting paper lanterns. Blessed said, "Myth, I'm still young enough to be excused anything. You're too old to be forgiven anything."

A shadow moved behind those dead eyes. "What do you mean, son?"

"That you're old enough to know better. That there's no reason anyone should forgive you anything."

Worgemuth's smile remained fixed. "I think I've missed what you're trying to tell me."

"I doubt it, Myth. But I'll spell it out. A long time ago you helped my great-grandfather take the House. Then you turned on him and helped my grandfather take control. Now you're scheming with my mother to oust him."

Worgemuth's smile vanished.

"I'm not stupid, Myth. I can see what you're doing. I can even puzzle out the fact the poor senile old Commodo Hvar is being set up to take the blame if the plot unravels."

Worgemuth looked positively grim.

"And now, before you've even gotten my mother in place, you're around sucking up to me. Maybe figuring on getting a kid in there that you can control. You think my mother is too stupid or too silly to notice? Don't bet your life. She's a Tregesser."

Worgemuth's mouth tightened into a colorless prune.

"But why worry about it? There's a gala in progress. The interesting people are arriving, fashionably late." Blessed went down to greet Tina Bofoku and her brother Nyo. Worgemuth remained where he was, as though he had relieved a sentry post that kept watch on the sea.

"Trouble with the old-timer?" Tina asked. She was in a sparkling mood.

"Only for him. Your mother is over there. Later?"

"Absolutely." She made a face at Nyo.

Blessed entered the crowd without joining it. Even at the heart of the veranda he was an observer who watched from the outside. How many of these people belonged to Worgemuth? Not many. They would be innocents or, at most, potential recruits.

At first the guests seemed to be playing ocean, moving in little surges toward where his mother held court, rolling away. But soon Valerena retreated into Maserang's house. The population divided into equally spaced groups with cometary individuals between them.

Sometimes someone spoke to Blessed. Always he replied courteously but coolly, cultivating an image of distance that, tempered by warmth in private, might lead some to think they had wormed their ways into his confidence. Those would be the people he used.

As he spoke with an executive who seemed to think she could further his education and her career in private, he caught a snatch of conversation. He froze. The words did not register. They did not matter. Only the voice mattered. There was something frighteningly familiar about it. Something that raised the hair on the back of his neck. Yet he could not identify it.

He spotted the man. "Who is that?" he asked his companion.

"Nikla Ogdehvan. He and his wife do something mysterious for the House. Probably something sinister. They come and go and nobody knows where or when they'll turn up again."

Subtle stress on wife. Why? Marriage was uncommon and quaint but not socially unacceptable. "Thank you. Excuse me, please."

The woman's lips tightened but she did not protest.

It took minutes of drifting. Once he had his target fixed he listened intently, not to words but to tone and rhythm. The man spoke seldom, but when he did everyone listened. There was a hard edge beneath his gentleness. No one knew what he did. No one wanted to find out.

Half an hour later, when he received the summons from his mother, Blessed knew exactly what Nikla Ogdehvan did for the House.

Linas Maserang, Myth Worgemuth, and a third man Waited with Valerena. Valerena said, "Myth tells me you've got everything figured out. With a mind like yours, you might be useful."

Was that sarcasm? "I presume something dramatic has happened to make you bunch up with so many witnesses around."

Valerena scowled. "Word just came. Father's Voyager arrived today." Exasperation. "Those morons up there didn't figure it out till a few minutes ago. They wouldn't have noticed if that damned Guardship hadn't challenged him."

"May I see the data, Mother?"

Maserang said, "Help yourself." His sarcasm was thick. He indicated his personal Information Center.

"Just scroll the message from station."

Irked, Maserang did so.

Blessed read. "Four hours twenty-three minutes since breakaway. Not enough time to dock and make the descent."

Valerena snapped, "Of course not! He's up there lying low. It says that right there."

"What we see Grandfather doing and what he's really doing aren't the same things, Mother. I submit that he intended to be noticed."

"Nonsense," Maserang said. "Why?"

"Because this is my grandfather's Other, who has been exchanged already, coming in to make the switch again."

"Don't let your imagination carry you away. It couldn't have been managed without our agents noticing."

"Neither you nor your agents have noticed that Lupo Provik is out on your veranda, among the invited guests, masquerading as Nikla Ogdehvan. And he's been on Prime for a week."

Dead silence. Stricken silence. Death might have drawn a talon through that room.

Maserang's Info Center buzzed. Irritated, he muttered, "I told them I didn't want to be disturbed."

The silence turned toward disbelief. Valerena said, "Amuse yourself at someone else's expense, Blessed. I no longer find your humor tolerable."

Maserang said, "You'd better take this, Val."

She went and snarled at the comm. She erected a privacy screen a moment after she started, though, so that Blessed did not know why she was growling.

She was deathly calm when she came back. "That was my father's pet artifact."

Blessed moved toward the door. "I'll go irritate someone else, Mother."

She screeched something obscene. He did not listen. He went out to see how life was treating Lupo Provik.