Serpent's Reach (26 page)

So betas, seeking idleness, created azi.

Eggs…eggs…eggs…eggs.

Eggs of eggs.

Moth shuddered, reliving the fissioning generations who had spawned all reality in the Reach.

Seven hundred years. From one world to many worlds, a rate of growth no longer controlled.

Eggs.

Potential.

I am the last
, Moth thought,
who was once human. The last with humanity as it once was. Even the Meth-maren is not that
.

Least of all…that
.

Eggs making eggs.

Family
, she thought, and thought of an old saying about absolute power, and absolute corruption.

Only the azi
, she thought,
lack power
.

The azi are the only innocents
.

Pol Hald sat down, propped his slim legs on a table, folded his hands and looked about him with a shrug of amusement.

Raen took the drink that Jim served her and leaned back, stared balefully as Pol accepted his and looked Jim up and down, drawing the obvious conclusions. Jim glanced down, an azi-reaction to such attention.

“Thank you, Jim,” Raen said softly. For a very little she would have asked Jim to sit down and stay, but Pol was another matter than the ITAK board…cruel when he wished to be; and he often wished to be.

Jim vanished silently into the next room. Warrior did not. The majat sat in the corner next to the curio table, rigidly motionless as a piece of furniture.

“Beta-ish,” Pol observed of the decor, of the whole house in general, a flourish of his hand. “You’ve a bizarre taste, Meth-maren. But the azi shows some discrimination.”

“What are you doing here?”

Pol laughed, a deep and appealing chuckle. “It’s been eighteen years since we shared a supper, Meth-maren. I had a mad impulse for another invitation.”

“A far trip for little reward. Does Ros Hald’s table not suffice?”

He had pricked at her. She flicked it back doubled, won a slight annoyance of him. That gaunt face had not changed with the years; he had reached that long stage where he would not. She added up numbers and reckoned at least over seventy. Experience. The gap was narrowed, but not by much.

“I’ve followed you for years,” he said. “You’re the only Meth-maren who ever amused me”

“You’ve done so very quietly, then. Did the Hald send you?”

“I came.” He grinned. “You have a marvellous sense of humour. But your style of travel gave me ample time to catch up with you.” He drank deeply and looked up again, set the glass down. “You know you’ve set things astir.”

She shrugged.

“They’ll kill you,” Pol said.

“They?”

“Not I, Meth-maren.”

“So why are you here?” she asked, mouth twisted in sarcasm. “To stand in the way?”

He made a loose gesture, looked at her from half-lidded eyes. “Meth-maren, I am jealous. You outdid me.” He laughed outright. “I’ve studied to annoy Council for years, but I’ll swear you’ve surpassed me, and so young, too. You know what you’re doing here?”

She said nothing.

“I think you do,” he said. “But it’s time to call it off.”

“Take yourself back to Cerdin, Pol Hald.”

“I didn’t come from Cerdin. I heard. I was willing to come out here. You’re my personal superstition, you see. I don’t want to see you go under. Get out of here. Now. To the other side of the Reach. They’ll understand the gesture.”

She rose. “Warrior,” she said.

Warrior came to life, mandibles clashing, and reared up to its full height. Pol froze, looking at it.

“Warrior, tell me, of what hive is this Kontrin?”

“Green-hive,” Warrior said, and boomed a note of majat language. “Green-hive Kontrin.”

Pol moved his chitined right hand, a flippant gesture that was a satire of himself. “Am I to blame for the choice of hive? It’s Meth-maren labs that set the patterns, that reserved blue for chosen friends…of which we were not.”

“Indeed you were not.”

Pol rose, walked to the window, walked back again, within reach of Warrior, deliberate bravado. “You’re far beyond the limits. Do you know…do you understand what deep water you’re into?”

“That my House died for others’ ambitions? That something was set up two decades ago and no one has stopped it? How are they keeping it from Moth? Or are they?”

Pol’s dark eyes flicked aside to Warrior, back to her. “I grow nervous when you become specific. I hope you’ll consider carefully before you make any irrevocable moves.”

“I learned, Hald. You taught me a lesson once. I’ve always held a remote affection for you on that account. No rancour. We said once we amused each other. Will you answer me now?”

He made a shrug of both hands. “I’m not in good favour among Halds. How could I know the answers you want?”

“But what you know you won’t tell me.”

“Moth has not long to live. That I know. For the rest of what I know: the Halds are your enemies…nothing personal, understand. The Halds want what Thel reached for.”

“And no one has undone what Eron Thel did.”

Pol made a gesture of helplessness. “I don’t know; I don’t know. I protest: I am not in their confidence.”

It was possibly true. Raen kept watching the hands and the eyes, lest a weapon materialise. “I appreciate your concern, Pol.”

“If you’d take my advice, get out of here…clear over to the far side, they would understand, Raen a Sul. They’d read that as a clear signal. Capitulation. Who cares? You’ll outlive them if you guard your life. Running now is your only protection. My ship is onworld. I’d take you there. The Family wouldn’t harm you. The Halds may not take me into their intimate confidence, but neither will they come at me.”

She started to laugh, and saw Pol’s face different from how she had ever known it, drawn and tense…no laughter, for one of a few times in his irreverent life.

“Go away,” she said very softly. “Get yourself to that safety, Pol Hald. You’ll survive.”

He said nothing for a moment, looked doubtful. “What is it you have in mind?”

She did laugh. “I wonder, Pol Hald, if you don’t surpass me after all. Maybe they did send you.”

“I think you’ll hear from the Family soon enough.”

“Will I? Where’s Morn, Pol?”

He shrugged. “I don’t know. Cerdin, maybe. Or near these regions. It could be Morn. Or Tand. Or one of the Ren-barants. Or maybe none of them. When Moth falls, they’ll pull your privileges, and then you’ll be deaf, dumb and blind, grounded on Istra.”

“Moth’s on my side, is she?”

“She has been. I don’t know who it will be. Truth. I started from innerworlds when I was sure where you’d gone…when I knew for certain it wasn’t a cover. Morn headed the other way. Tand moved inworlds, even earlier than that. He’s likely with Moth. I’m handing you things that would break the Reach wide open if you called Moth.”

“You’re challenging me to do that?”

Again a shrug, a hint of mockery. “I’m betting the old woman knows a good part of it already.”

“Or that it’s already too late? It would take eight days for the shockwave to reach us.”

“Possible,” he said. “But not my reason.”

“Men you believe I don’t want the break right now. You could be mistaken.”

Pol said nothing.

“You don’t plan,” Raen said in a bard voice, “to be setting up on Istra”

“I’ve a problem,” Pol said. “If I go back, I’ll be called in; and if I run alone…they’ll know I heard something here that made it advisable. I’ve put myself in difficulty on your account, Meth-maren.”

“If I believed any of it”

Pol made another of his elaborate gestures of offence. “I protest. I shall go back to my ship and wait until you think things over in a clearer mind. Someone else will come, mark me.”

“Ah, I don’t doubt that much. And help would be convenient. But likewise I remember the front porch at Kethiuy. You knew. You knew when you were talking to me. Didn’t you?”

A profound sobriety came on Pol’s face. He lowered his eyes, raised them steadily. “I knew, yes. And I left, with the rest of the Halds, before the attack. Revenge, Meth-maren, involving another generation. It had nothing to do with you.”

“Now it does.”

He had no answer for that. Neither did he flinch.

“This one’s mine,” she said. “I always had profound respect for your intelligence, Pol Hald. You were in Hald councils before I was born. You were alive when the Meth-marens split, Sul from Ruil. You have contacts I don’t. You’ve access to Cerdin. You’ve been staying alive and embarrassing Council twice my whole lifespan. You knew, back in Kethiuy. You’re telling me now that you don’t figure precisely what’s in others’ minds?”

Pol drew a long breath, nodded slowly, looking down. “The plan was, you understand, to break out of the Reach. That was Thel’s idea. To build. To breed. And it’s all here on Istra, isn’t it? You’ve put it together for yourself.”

“Enough to take it apart.”

“They’ll kill you for sure. They’ll drag Moth down and kill you before they let you expose their operation.”

“Their.”

“Their. I’m not in favour. I go my own way. As you do. I’ll run when the time comes. I’ll stay, while the mood takes me. Only you won’t have that luxury. Is it worth this much, your vendetta?”

“It’s beyond argument.”

He looked at Warrior, stared into the faceted eyes, glanced back with a faint touch of revulsion. “Hive-masters. It’s that, isn’t it? Ruil Meth-maren tried to use the hives. And Thel wanted to use them. Look where that took us.”

“No one,” she said, “
uses
the hives. Hive-master was a Ruil word. Sul never used it And Thon’s still playing that dangerous game. Are red-hivers out again on Cerdin?”

“They make gifts to all the old contacts.”

Warrior’s palps flicked nervously. “Pact,” it said.

Pol glanced that way in apprehension.

“Do you not understand the danger?” Raen asked hint “The hives don’t have anything to gain…nothing Hald could want out of the exchange.”

“Azi,” Pol said. “They ask for more azi. For more land. More grain.”

“Hives grow,” said Warrior. “Hives here—grow.”

Raen looked on Warrior. Truth. It was clear truth. It fit with all the knowledge elsewhere gathered.

“Don’t you understand?” she appealed to Pol. “Doesn’t Council? Who talked first of this expansion? Thel, Ruil…or red-hive?”

“Thel claimed unique partnership, claimed that even Drones could be brought into partnership with humans.”

Her heart beat very fast. She laid her hand on one of Warrior’s auditory palps, stroked it gently, gently. “O Pol. Don’t they realise? Drones are the Memory. Humans can’t touch that.”

Pol shrugged, and yet his dark eyes were quick with worry. “The Meth-marens are dead. The hive-masters are dead, all but you. And Council doesn’t have access to you, does it? Moth’s kept saying that you were important”

“I’m flattered,” she said hoarsely. “Hive-masters. Ruil deluded themselves. They were never hive-masters. They listened to the hives. Get out of here. Take your ship. Tell them they’re all mad. I’ll give you reasons enough to tell them.”

He shook his head. “I wouldn’t live to get there. And they wouldn’t listen. Can’t. It’s gone too far. Moth will be dead by the time I could get there. Eight days, message-time or ship-time, at quickest. I couldn’t—couldn’t get there in time.”

“And someone’s on his way here.”

“There’s no way not.”

Pol was talking clear sense. She continued to soothe Warrior, aware it was recording, aware of the nervous tremor of the palp against her hand. She felt it calm at last. “There are extensions of ITAK on the other continent. Are there blues with the other city, Warrior?”

“Yess. All hives, red, gold, green, blue. New-port”

“Same-Mind, Warrior?”

“Same-Mind.”

“No queen.”

“Warriorss. Workerss. From this-Hill.”

She looked at Pol. “Suppose that I trusted you. Suppose that I asked you to do me a small favour. Have you your own staff?”

“Twelve azi. The ship is mine. My entire estate. I’m mobile. In these times it seems wise.”

“I haven’t an establishment on the other continent.”

“You plan to take me out of the way.”

“You can take West and be sure of the situation there in the matter of a day or two.”

“You may not have that much time. They’ll stop you. I mean that”

“Then it’s wise that I cultivate
you
, isn’t it? If they pull my authorisations you’ll still have yours, won’t you, Pol Hald?”

“You have a dazzling mutability. You’d rely on me?”

“One does what one must.”

“You’d have my neck in the jaws with no compunction, wouldn’t you?”

“I’m figuring you started from innerworlds first and farthest out. So there’s a little time yet. You can do me that small service and still have time to run. And I’d run far, Pol. I would, in your place.”

All posing fell aside. He stared at her. “I’ve told you something. I wish I understood the extent of it.”

“The Halds should have asked my help. Or Moth should have. If they’d asked, I might have come.” She gave Warrior’s auditory palp a light brush, and Warrior turned its head, reacted in slight pleasure. “It’s good to see you, Pol. I’d not say that of any of the rest of the Family, I assure you. My old acquaintances no longer interest me. The Family…no longer interests me. I’ve found here what you’ve been searching for all your life.”

“And what do you take that to be, Raen a Sul?”

“The Edge. That which limits us”

“You don’t have Ros Hald’s ambitions.”

She laughed, which was no laughter. “Mine are yours. To push until it gives. Here’s the stopping-place. Beware red-hive. You understand me?”

“You have disquieted me.”

“You never liked peace”

“What shall I look for in West?”

“Guard-azi. Buy up those you can. Ship them to East, to the Labour Registry. Arms as well.”

“You’re planning civil war.”

She smiled again. “Tell the estate-holders in West…and ITAK there…to prepare for storm.”

“How can I, when I don’t know what you have in mind?”

“It’s your choice. Go or stay”

“I know my choices, youngster.”

“You’d better get yourself clear of this house, in any case. There’ll be blue-hive thick about here in a little while, and that hand of yours is no guarantee of friendship. Get out of Newhope, in either direction you choose.”