Free The Dragon Never Sleeps by Glen Cook Page A

ambiance became semi-telepathic. Little external boosting was necessary. The update took only a moment because it had not been long since the last. Provik insisted on two a day now the Guardship game was running.
    When it was over he gave orders. "Two, Three, and Four go with me on the Voyager. One, take control here. Keep an eye on the artifact Noah."
     
    Below, Simon Tregesser was leaving his Outsider ally. Once more he had been able to get no sense from it.
    It just kept on about something called the Destroyer, blowing steam because the Destroyer was being thwarted. It acted like it was about ten percent there, with most of its minds trapped in a far abyss.
    Weird. But without it there would be no ships, no guns, no screens, no ambush, no wealth to siphon off to House Tregesser. For all that he could stand a little weirdness.

— 21 —
    Turtle felt the sound shield go down. He glanced at Amber Soul. How long could she continue the total commitment needed to hide from
VII Gemina
? Not long enough, he feared. Even he could feel the probing edges of the great slow booming pulse of the somnolent thing that was the
Gemina
within and beneath the
VII Gemina
of ceramics, plastics, and metal.
    It was the thing that was the sum of all that the Starbase builders had wrought, all the Guardship had learned, and all that had been input by Deification. It was the thing that made the Guardship so fearsome. It was the thing that, vaguely sensed, made all Canon shiver in dread and overrate a Guardship's terrible might.
    Turtle knew the Guardships were not invincible. Not yet.
    He noted movement among the silent, seated hundreds staring down at them, forgot Amber Soul.
    So.
    He did not recognize individuals, only uniform styles.
    That was enough.
    Here came people who knew that he knew about Guardships being vulnerable.
    They surrounded him. And for a long time they just stood there, staring.
    And for a long time he just stared back. Were these living creatures as old as he? Or were they
VII Gemina
's dead somehow recalled to life? "They are great necromancers, humans," old Kote had warned him before he had donned the K'tiba and had taken up the sword of honor. "They master sorceries beyond our ken."
    "The mightiest wizard falls at one blow of the sword."
    Kote had clicked his tongue in amusement. "Become a wizard, warrior child. Become the greatest wizard of the Ku. For it is
their
wizards who wield the mightiest swords."
    In short, learn to think like the enemy, then outthink the enemy—instead of going on trying to outgut him and outfight him.
    And so he had done.
    "Kez Maefele. Greetings."
    He turned to the woman. Now he knew her. She had been WarAvocat
VII Gemina
when the Surrender was signed. When he and the Dire Radiant had defied lawful orders to yield their arms and had, instead, fled into the waste reaches of the Web to continue the struggle.
    It had been she, and perhaps these others, who had stalked the killers of the Dire Radiant till no ship but his
Delicate Harmony
, tired and torn and limping on wounded legs, remained. Till he had given the order that he had despised.
    He clicked his heels and bowed slightly, after the fashion of the conquerers. "Greetings, WarAvocat. It has taken you three thousand years."
    "Close enough as makes no difference. What are a few centuries from this perspective?"
    Turtle now knew the thing he faced was nothing of flesh.
They are great necromancers
....
    "What mischief have you been up to, Kez Maefele?"
    "Staying alive in a hostile universe."
    "You've had more than your share of luck."
    "Perhaps luck had nothing to do with it, WarAvocat. Till now."
    "Luck has run out. The Ku Question has run its course. The symbol is about to receive its final blow."
    "You do nurture a grudge beyond any rational limit, WarAvocat. I, who suffered the loss, do not recall your name, but you have fed a hatred so old and so strong you want to do murder after thirty centuries."
    "Not murder. An overdue..."
    A voice