Ceremony

Brodyphe. Are you coming out? Must I come after you? You have no chance against me.

She nudged her darkship toward the alien. No beams or rockets greeted her. After ten minutes two darkships left the derelict.

There should be another. Hurry. I am impatient. Come to me here.

Another darkship left the alien. Marika eased closer. She sent a lesser ghost into the starship and detected no Groshega silth.

The Groshega voidships floated toward her, into visual range. She sent, Who were your allies in this venture?

They did not respond.

She touched the great black.

Aboard Brodyphe's darkship silth screamed into the otherworld. Their bodies twisted, tore apart. The golden glow faded around them. Blood crystals and flesh fragments scattered.

Marika touched the Mistresses of the remaining ships. Who were your allies in this venture?

They confirmed her worst suspicion.

She touched the great black again, then turned away before it was over. Down to the alien starship she went, sending before her small ghosts to locate and disarm booby traps. Then she went aboard.

The moment they could talk, Grauel demanded, "Did you have to kill them?"

"Are you getting soft, Grauel? They intended to kill us." Huntresses were not wont to mourn enemies, nor to give them a second chance.

"No. It just did not seem necessary."

"It was, Grauel. I struck a blow at an idea when I eliminated them."

"What idea?"

"The idea that one sisterhood or a cabal of Communities can seize this ship for the purpose of limiting its benefits."

Grauel nodded, but was not entirely mollified. Marika reminded herself that in some ways the Wise were more tolerant than were younger females, who had to face danger more directly.

Barlog asked, "Are you sure you were not more interested in crushing any doubts about your own invincibility?"

Marika scowled at her and turned away. She stalked through the alien ship to the control area. She did not relax her hold upon the great black, which she moved far enough away that its presence would not be immediately obvious. She replayed the final message from the alien crew, again studying their smooth-faced strangeness, their methlike yet alien forms. How well had the brethren unraveled their language with the times and clues they had had available?

She settled into an alien chair and wondered what the rogues really had hoped to accomplish, wondered what had become of the few Serke who remained unaccounted for. Starstalker and one or two darkships. Where had they gone?

She sensed the return of High Night Rider and its escort and sighed. She did not look forward to the next few hours.

Balbrach. Come to the alien. I must speak with you. III High Night Rider departed the system unaccompanied, without Balbrach aboard. It carried Marika's message to the most seniors of all the dark-faring silth. It had left behind the brethren scientists and the darkship crews who had accompanied it out. Marika touched the great black, told it to let the voidship pass.

She had made that monster her creature entirely, a deadly sentinel guarding her system.

She told the Redoriad crews that they could not leave the system, that the great black would devour them if they tried to go. They would be released in time if they behaved. In the interim they must do ferry duty between the starship and the planet, where former Serke bonds continued farming and manufacturing, their lives little touched by changes in ruling Communities.

Marika made her home in the starship's control section. The brethren she assigned to the quarters that had been occupied by their rogue predecessors.

The very typical bit of silth treachery that had brought her back to the alien ship sent her into a depression that lasted for weeks. Her homeworld, and her deadly littermate with his bloodthirsty movement filled with hatred, slipped from her thoughts entirely. When she recovered she found she had very little interest in her roots.

She did not leave the starship for a year, not until she was convinced that her control would not be disputed by any element of the meth race.

During that year she mourned Balbrach often, for theirs had been a good partnership while it had lasted. At times it had approached the friendship she had had with Kiljar. But Balbrach had not had Kiljar's mental scope or character and had not been able, in the end, to resist typical silth greed. She had made her move. She had lost. Though it hurt still, Marika had had to demand that she pay the price of failure.

Darkships came and went, their movements carefully monitored by Marika's tame great black. The dark-faring sisterhoods were keeping a sharp watch upon her. After that year, though, even the most suspicious and paranoid of Communities had become convinced that she did indeed mean the starship to benefit all meth. The watchers came less frequently, but their visits lasted longer, and they joined in the unraveling of alien secrets. Each departing darkship carried a full report of everything that had been learned about the starship and the aliens who had built it. Which was not that much, considering the time and effort that had gone into opening it up.

One day Marika went looking for Bagnel, whom she seemed to see no more than when they had not been living on the same ship. "Hello, stranger."

"Me? I am not the one whose thoughts ca

"Somewhere else? I have not been out of this ship ... "

"Your heart has been."

"Have you reached any major conclusions yet?"

"Not really. Unless you do not know that this vessel was built by creatures who do not think like meth."

"You've had more than a year."

"Most of which we have spent relearning what the rogues learned."

"And?"

"They did find out more than anyone suspected, Marika. If the Communities did not follow through on the hunt you initiated at home last year they are going to be in for some very nasty surprises."

"I am sure they did not. Oh, Dhervhil will have tried. Is still trying, no doubt. They accused her of being as rogue-obsessed as Marika. But the Communities refuse to learn. Without some overpowering personality there to drive them, they will just go on being the same petty backstabbers trying to steal a moment's advantage. How soon can you start some really original research work? And how has the repair work been going?" Most of the planetary industrial base developed by the Serke had been created for the purpose of refurbishing the starship.

"Sometime within the next few months I expect to okay a couple of projects my meth have proposed. Mostly attempts at getting to information stored in the ship's systems. The repairs go forward, but they are all gross things like sealing broken hull plates. The more subtle things are waiting for us to get into the information banks. The drive system, for example, is something I am not going to let anyone near until we have drawn out, examined, and come to understand every morsel of information available. By tinkering with it we might smash it beyond hope."

Marika thought a moment. "Bagnel, you were right. My heart is not here. Its feet have been wandering for a long time. I've decided to surrender to it. I'm going to sneak away and do something I have been promising myself to do for a long time. I don't think you'll have any trouble while I'm away."

"Yes?"

"Yes, what?"

"Where are you going? Or is that a secret?"

"To look at the far side of the cloud."

"That is a long passage. Are you sure ... You're convinced we won't be troubled?" He was afraid. He had become important among meth, but he would remain important only so long as he enjoyed her protection.

"It'll be all right. Don't let on that I've gone. If somebody wants me, tell them I'm being moody again and won't see anyone. They're used to me. And I don't intend to be away long."