The Dragon Never Sleeps

— 35 —

Valerena pretended a calm she did not feel as she took her seat. The Directorate room was like many such in which the courts of power had convened through the ages. Quiet, large, comfortably furnished, overly warm. She, Blessed, Lupo, and his friend were last to arrive. Maserang and Worgemuth pretended she did not exist. Old Commodo Hvar looked confused.

Valerena was confused. Lupo had brought his friend into the room. They had assumed stations behind the refreshments bar. Never before had Lupo intruded here, let alone one of his people. Provik was not a Director.

Then, too, her father and his Other were both present. They occupied opposite ends of the room and were having a great time trying to out-Simon one another. There was no telling which was which.

Blessed slumped in his seat, the bored scion present only by compulsion.

Lupo made the Directors nervous. They knew he was. His presence was not reassuring.

"All right! Let's have a little order here!" one of the Simons bellowed. As though anyone was being rowdy.

"A little order! Knock off the farting around. We got desperate business."

Only Blessed continued his show of indifference.

Everyone knew a conspiracy against Simon Tregesser had been discovered. Names had gotten around. Enemies of the accused were eager for the bloodletting. Friends viewed the future with trepidation. Maserang and Worgemuth faced it in stark terror.

Neither Simon mentioned the matter.

They went off on a zany duet about insurrections on worlds belonging to the House. According to them the Tregesser fortune was being bled white. The House was being gutted. All because of a few incompetent managers.

"We are being destroyed! Devoured! We have to act now, today! We have to get those fools out of there! We have to put in managers of proven skill and decisiveness. I call for—No! I demand!—a vote removing the following near-traitors, before they do us more harm." He named six names. Valerena knew none of them. They could not be much. Eager to get to the blood feast, the Directors approved the dismissals immediately.

"In this extremity our proconsuls must be the best and most reliable." He nominated Valerena, Blessed, Maserang, Worgemuth, and two old men he had loved to hate since childhood. He demanded a vote confirming their appointments.

Blessed was not bored anymore. He sat rigidly upright. He stared at Lupo, who smiled at some private joke.

Her timing perfect, Provik's companion brought Valerena something aswirl with color in a tall, frosty glass. She said, "You owe Lupo a life."

Valerena looked at Provik. He nodded.

So. This was fetor from Lupo's brain. Clever. Cruel. Convince Simon that exile was a fate worse than death. She might have guessed.

And was it not more cruel? Was it not? To be marooned a thousand light years from home and the wellsprings of power and her own intricate systems of security? Lupo would make sure there was no way out.

Right around the table those smug, grinning bastards voted to throw her off Tregesser Prime.

What choice did they have?

Defeat had become a rout.

And the conquerer was not done exacting his revenge. "The times are desperate! There isn't a moment to waste! Voyagers await you, quivering to be on the Web and away! Hurry! Hurry now! The Voyagers await."

What a marvelous family and existence.

"I'm going," Valerena told Blessed. "But I won't let him harry me into a frazzled rush."

"Cover your home base, Mother. We won't be gone long. He won't last longer than it takes his Guardship to erase him."

The two Simons charged around, tried to drive everyone out of the room. "I thought this was supposed to be a Directorate meeting...."

"Mother! Even I know nothing gets settled here. Grandfather decides how the vote will go before he calls a meeting."

Valerena was thinking about her Others. In the tumult of a hasty move, some could get lost without being missed.

She smiled thinly. Then noted Blessed smiling his own smile.

What was that little wretch up to now?

"Will they be plotting against me again, Lupo?" Simon asked after the last Director left.

"Valerena and Worgemuth, certainly. Maserang is out of it. He was going along out of inertia."

"And Blessed?"

"Valerena dragged him along."

"I wish I could stick a knife in Worgemuth. But the old bastard has too many damned relatives."

"You going back to the end space now?"

"I don't want to miss this thing."

"It might be months."

"You're sure a Guardship will come?"

"Pure reflex. Of course."

"You have any doubts, Lupo?"

"Plenty. This's been tried a hundred times. All we've got new is those shields and a lot of crazy Outsiders to do the dying."

"We didn't send that krekelen out whimsically. You checked it right along with the eggheads. We have enough firepower. We have the Po-Ticra suicide pilots eager to die for their silly god."

"I know. It looks like a lock. But I've been thinking. We shouldn't have taken the Web-location modules out. We'll lose everything if it blows up on us. That's a lot of capital to burn."

"It's not Tregesser capital. If it goes bad, I want only two people getting out alive. You and me."

"You're the boss. But I still hate to waste ships."