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WatchMaster.
    Intuition had done him right.
    Others looked at him like he was a treacherous shill for WarCrew.
    Strate asked, "What disturbs you, Commander? The aliens?"
    "Yes, sir."
    "Isn't their documentation in order?"
    "It's impeccable, what there is of it. But it's awfully thin."
    "Exactly! Thank you, Commander." WarAvocat continued, but Third WatchMaster could not hear him. A pillow of silence had fallen upon the witness dock.
    Timmerbach continued grumbling against fate in general and no one in particular.
    WarAvocat appeared to be making an impassioned statement against resistance from the Deified. That made no sense. Arguments could be battled out in the electronic realm in picoseconds.
    The truth struck him as a pair of shipboard security types entered the silence to fetter the krekelen. WarAvocat and Deified, krekelen and witnesses, all were part of a dramatization for slower biological minds. If any crew were watching.
    "Sir?"
    "Yes?" A sinking feeling. More security types had appeared.
    "WarAvocat would like you to join him in his quarters. Will you accompany us, please?"
    Third WatchMaster turned, marched, mind numb.

— 10 —
    Simon Tregesser kicked his closed personal grav sled across Central Staff's vast Information Center, came to a hover behind Lupo Provik. He turned up the gain on his prosthetic eyes, still could not make out what interested his strategist. "Fresh data, Lupo?"
    A hint of exasperation faded from Provik's features as he turned. His plain face, shelled by ginger hair, assumed its habitual cool blandness. Only blue-grey eyes hard as diamond drillheads betrayed the man within. "The new gun platform just broke away. We've started siphoning the intelligence packet."
    No honorific. Never an honorific from Lupo. Simon would tolerate that from no one else. But Lupo's loyalty did not need to be compelled or paid for in the coin of terror. Provik had been with him all his life. Provik had masterminded the gambit by which he had rid himself of a tyrannical and sadistic father. Provik found those subtle traps in Valerena's schemes his own genius overlooked. As bodyguard Provik had lapsed only once. And for that, unforgiving Simon Tregesser had forgiven him.
    Simon did not understand Lupo Provik but willingly used and even liked the man, in his odd way. Lupo was as courageous, merciless, remorseless, and brilliant as Simon Tregesser imagined himself to be. And he was no threat. He had suffered one defensive lapse. Offensively he had been invincible.
    Simon most appreciated the fact that Lupo was not intimidated by Guardships. Few were they of whom that could be said.
    "Anything exciting?"
    "Standard fare. Antiquated Guardship sightings. Nothing tagged for special attention." Provik was trying to create a model of Guardship movements. After years of work he could guess the whereabouts of six with a fifty-fifty chance of being right.
    Easily disappointed, Tregesser drifted away. He spat curses at a pod of Chtrai'el-i computer technicians.
    Aliens! Outsiders everywhere! Central Staff was infested. But it was impossible to recruit humans with balls enough to try it with the Guardships. Guts and determination! That was the recipe for accomplishing the impossible.
    A vagrant curiosity ambled the surface of his mind. How many of these monsters were agents of what passed for Houses Outside? Most, probably. But it would not matter. Lupo would see to that.
     
    Provik watched his employer drift away. He felt no irritation anymore. He had no feeling at all. Simon Tregesser was a device, a mask, a tool, the means whereby Lupo Provik worked his will upon a universe that must be manipulated with the tongues and fingers of the lords of great Houses. Simon Tregesser had his allegiance and protection so long as he shared a passion for empire building.
    From the outside it appeared that Lupo Provik had no other passions. From the outside it seemed that Lupo Provik had no weaknesses or vulnerabilities. From the outside it