Bel-Keneke did not care to comment. She just sat there toasting her boots, face composed in a mask of neutrality, waiting.
"Were I to go in alone, and challenge Bestrei alone, and were I to defeat her, still nothing would change. They would not accept the failure. They would destroy me and keep on. They put the old ways, the traditions, the laws, aside long ago, the day TelleRai died. Would the meth who cast down the fire upon TelleRai ... "
"I understand. I do not like it, but I understand. They have backed themselves into a position where they must do what they must to survive."
"Then you understand why they must be approached with all the force that can be mustered."
"I see it, but I do not think you will win much support. Many of the old starfarers have retired now. They are content working the mirror project. They may be content letting the Serke lie. Those who do venture to the starworlds now are younger. They are not motivated by the hunt. For them, come from here, the grauken is a danger more to be feared than the legendary Serke. I believe times have changed. Though I could be wrong. Certainly there are those of us who do remember, and who still hurt."
"We shall see. What I would like, if possible, is a quiet gathering of the most seniors of the dark-faring silth. Those who do remember and who have the power to order done what needs doing. If we move quickly, we can strike before the news reaches the rogues."
"You are sure they do not know you have found them?"
"Only one meth outside my crew knows. And the crew only suspect. And them I intend to keep here in the apartment till decisions are made and action begun."
"Who is that one?"
"You, mistress."
Bel-Keneke gave her a strained glance.
"The story is a simple one. For the past several years I have made my base on a world where we stumbled across evidence that the Serke had once rested a darkship crew. Just recently a Serke darkship, possibly headed here, appeared. We pursued it and it pointed the way, though I allowed the Serke Mistress to believe she had lost me. She was not as strong as I."
"They will have defenses, Marika. They know you are hunting."
"Of course. That is another reason I do not care to undertake the final move alone. If I am lost, nothing is gained for anyone else."
"I will contact the most seniors immediately. I fear I cannot promise much, but I will do my best." Bel-Keneke passed Marika a large envelope. "These are my comments upon the various most seniors. As you asked. I think, though, that you should rest before you do anything else. You do not look ready to challenge the universe."
"I do not feel ready. You are right. I have driven myself hard for a long time. I will rest before I begin studying them. Thank you."
"Good. I will return tomorrow, then. I should have a response from the most seniors. I will tell them as little as I can, and what I do tell I will bind with oaths."
"Yes. That you must. Though the news will escape soon enough."
Bel-Keneke rose and moved toward the door. A few feet short of the exit she halted, turned, looked at Marika oddly.
"Yes?" Marika asked.
"A random thought. About how you have become a huntress despite having become silth."
"I have had similar thoughts often enough. But what game I stalk. Eh?"
"Yes. Tomorrow, then."
"Tomorrow."
II Marika wakened in the night, cold but somehow more comfortable than she had been in years. She had missed being enfolded in the homeworld's unconscious background of touch. Even the base, with its population of transients, had not become comfortable.
She entered the room where Grauel and Barlog were sleeping and found them resting peacefully. She studied them in the light cast by the coals in their fireplace, wondering that they had remained with her so long, through so much. She knew they would continue till the All reclaimed them, though it was past time they moved on into the role of the Wise. Both had gone gray. Barlog had lost more spots of fur.
She considered ordering them to remain behind when she returned to the void. But she knew she would not. She could not, for they would be hurt beyond measure. They were her pack. They were her only true sisterhood. Her loyalties beyond those two attenuated very quickly. And they had none but to her and to a dream of yesterday.
She went back to the fireplace in the main room, added firewood, settled in her chair. She opened Bel-Keneke's envelope.
Few of the names had changed. Death had not been busy during her absence. She wondered what time had done to change those old silth. Attitudes were most important. Had they lost their desire to finish the question of the Serke?
Attitudes could not be gotten from pieces of paper. Those she would not know till she had faced the meth themselves ... She became restless.
She missed Bagnel.
Already? She mocked herself. It had been but hours since their parting.
For how long this time? Years again? Somehow, that seemed insupportable.
She went to the window and stared at endless vistas of white, skeletal in the moonlight. Biter grinned down like a skull, Chaser like something hungry in close pursuit. That was a change, if noticeable only to one who had been gone a long time. There was no permanent overcast.
She looked past the moons, and all the roving dots of light that had not been there before, in the direction whence she had come. She would be going out there again, soon. And this time she might not come back. Win or lose.
"How old are you, Bestrei?" she whispered. "Too old? Or still young enough?" Her restlessness increased. Finally she could stand it no more.
She went to the cabinet where she had stored her saddleship in times long gone, times that seemed to belong to another's past. Who had that been, that pup-silth who had drawn a bloody paw across the face of the world?
The saddleship was there still, ready for assembly. It had not been touched. She brushed dust from her personal witch signs.
She considered only a moment more.
The outside air was more bitter than she remembered. She ignored the chill, drifting above the rooftops of Ruhaack, between pillars of smoke, looking longingly on winter-bound streets where nothing moved.
An occasional curious touch brushed her and departed satisfied. Her presence was accepted. She was home.
She was pleased. They were alert, for all that they could not be seen.
Where was Kublin now? What was he thinking? He must have had word of her return by this time. Could he guess its significance? Would his rogues react?
She should let it be whispered that she had come home to break their backs again. They would believe it. Kublin the warlock would believe it. He was mad. He feared her. Feared her as he feared nothing else, for he knew that he had strained her mercy beyond endurance.
They all feared her. For them she was the grauken, the stalker of the night without mercy, without pity. She was the hunger that would devour them all.
The rogue problem had been of great concern to Bagnel. She ought to examine it while she was here. Ought to get back into touch with it. Perhaps she could again find a fresh approach that would give these earthbound silth a novel way to defend themselves while she hunted down the ultimate authors of the dissatisfaction that produced the rogues.
She looked to the stars.
After Bestrei, perhaps. After a probe to the far face of the dust cloud, to look for the aliens. Then a short time home, to eliminate Kublin and secure her bridgeheads behind her.
This time she must. This time the world would be watching. This time there could be no mercy even were she so inclined.
She had slain Gradwohl, her mentor, rather than be thwarted. Why not Kublin? In terms of her own wild frontier culture, let alone that of the silth, a male meant less. Even a littermate. Even a male who was the last surviving male of the Degnan pack.