“You know the first expedition had to be abandoned. I’m going to try again. No special ship is needed. We learned that last time. It’s a new crew; and new tactics.” The spotlights followed them across the carpet.
“But Lorq—“
“Before, there was meticulous planning, movements oiled, meshed, propelled by confidence in our own precision. Now we’re a desperate bunch of dock-rats, with a Mouse among us; and the only thing that propels us is my outrage. But that’s a terrible thing to flee, Cyana.”
“Lorq, you just can’t go off and repeat—“
“The captain is different too, Cyana. Before, the Roc flew under half a man, a man who’d only known victory. Now I’m a whole man. I know defeat as well.”
“But what do you want me—“
“There was another star under study by the Alkane that was near the point of nova. I want the name and when it’s likely to go off.”
“You’re just going to go like that? And what about Prince? Does he know why you’re going to the nova?”
“I couldn’t care less. Name my star, Cyana.”
Uncertainly troubled her gauntness. She touched something on her silver bracelet.
New light:
Rising from the floor was a bank of instruments. She sat on the bench that rose too and looked over the indicator lights. “I don’t know if I’m doing right, Lorq. Outrage? If the decision did not so much affect my life as well as yours, it would be easier for me to give it in the spirit you demand. Aaron was responsible for my curatorship.”
She touched the board, and above them appeared—“Till now I have always been as welcome in Aaron Red’s home as I was in my own brother’s. But the machine has worked round to a point where this may no longer be. You have placed me in this position: of having to make a decision that ends a time of great comfort for me.”
– appeared the stars.
Katin suddenly realized the chamber’s size. Some fifty feet across, massed from points of light, hung a hologramic projection of the galaxy, turning.
“We have several study expeditions out now. The nova that you missed was there.” She touched a button and one star among the billions flared—so brightly Katin’s eyes narrowed. It faded, and again the whole domed astrarium was ghosted with starlight. “At present we have an expedition attending a build-up—“
She stopped.
She reached out; and opened a small drawer.
“Lorq, I really am troubled by this whole business—“
“Go on, Cyana. I want the star’s name. I want a tape of its galactic co-ordinates. I want my sun.”
“And I’ll do all I can to give it to you. But you must indulge the old woman first.” From the drawer she took—Katin formed a small surprise-sound in the back of his mouth, then swallowed it—a deck of cards. “I want to see what guidance the Tarot gives.”
“I’ve already had my cards read for this undertaking. If they can tell me a set of galactic co-ordinates, fine, Otherwise, I have no time for them.”
“Your mother was from Earth and always harbored the Earthman’s vague distrust of mysticism, even though she admitted its efficacy intellectually. I hope you take after your father.”
“Cyana, I’ve already had one complete reading. There’s nothing that a second one can tell me.”
She fanned the cards face down. “Perhaps there’s something it can tell me. Besides, I don’t want to do a complete reading. Just pick one.”
Katin watched the captain draw, and wondered if the cards had prepared her for that bloody noon on Chronaiki Plaza a quarter of a century ago,
The deck was not the common three-D dioramic type that Tyy owned. The figures were drawn. The cards were yellow, It could easily have dated from the seventeenth century or before.
On Lorq’s card a nude corpse hung from a tree by a rope tied to the ankle.
“The Hanged-man.” She closed the deck. “Reversed, Well, I can’t say I’m surprised.”
“Doesn’t the Hanged-man imply a great spiritual wisdom is coming, Cyana?”
“Reversed,” she reminded him, “It will be achieved at great price.” She took the card and put it, with the rest of the deck, back in the drawer. “These are the co-ordinates of the star you want.” She pressed another button.
A ribbon of paper fed into her palm. Tiny metal teeth chomped it. She held it up to read. “The co-ordinates are all there. We’ve had it under observation two years. You’re in luck. The blowup date has been predicted at between ten and fifteen days off.”
“Fine,” Lorq took the tape. “Come on, Katin.”
“What about Prince, Captain?”
Cyana rose from the bench. “Don’t you want to see your message?”
Lorq paused. “Go on. Play it.” And. Katin saw something come alive in Lorq’s face. He walked over to the console as Cyana Morgan searched the message index.
“Here it is.” She pressed a button.
Across the room Prince turned to face them. “Just what the hell”—His black-gloved hand struck a crystal beaker, as well as its embossed dish, from the table—“do you think you’re doing, Lorq?” The hand came back; the dagger and the carved wooden stick clattered to the floor from the other side. “Cyana, you’re helping too, aren’t you? You are a traitorous bitch. I am angry. I am furious! I am Prince Red—I am Draco! I am a crippled Serpent; but I’ll strangle you!” The damask table cloth crumpled in black fingers; and the sound of the wood beneath, splintering.
Katin swallowed his shock a second time.
The message was a 3-D projection. An out-of-focus window behind Prince threw light from some sun’s morning—probably Sol’s—across a smashed breakfast.
“I can do anything, anything I want. You’re trying to stop that.” He leaned across the table.
Katin booked at Lorq, at Cyana Morgan.
Her hand, pale and veined, clamped brocade.
Lorq’s, ridged and knot-knuckled, lay on the instrument bank; two fingers held a toggle.
“You’ve insulted me; I can be very vicious, simply out of caprice. Do you remember that party where I was forced to break your head to teach you manners? Your existence is an insult to me, Lorq Von Ray. I am going to devote myself to gaining reparation for that insult.”
Cyana Morgan suddenly looked at her nephew, saw his hand on the toggle. “Lorq! What are you doing – ?” She seized his wrist; but he seized hers and pushed her hand from his.
“I know a lot more about you than I did the last time I sent a message to you,” Prince said from the table.
“Lorq, take your hand off that switch!” Cyana insisted. “Lorq … “ Frustration cracked her voice.
“The last time I spoke to you, I told you I was going to stop you. Now, I tell you that if I have to kill you to stop you, I will. The next time I speak to you … “ His gloved hand pointed. His forefinger quivered …
As Prince flickered out, Cyana struck Lorq’s hand away. The toggle clicked ‘off.’ “Just what do you call yourself doing?”
“Captain …?”
Under wheeling stars Lorq’s laughter answered.
Cyana spoke angrily: “You sent Prince’s message through the public announcement system! That blasphemous madman was just seen on every screen throughout the institute!” In anger she struck the response plate.
Indicator lights dimmed.
Bank and bench fell into the floor.
“Thank you, Cyana. I’ve got what I came for.”
A museum guard burst into the office. A shaft of light lit him as he came through the door. “Excuse me, I’m terribly sorry, but there was—oh, just a moment.” He punched his wrist com-kit. “Cyana, have you gone and flipped your silver wig?”
“Oh, for heaven’s sake, Bunny. It was an accident!”
“An accident! That was Prince Red, wasn’t it?”