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then, no demise is kind."
"Ecce! What a mess!" Dextra Haven shook her origamie'd hairdo, then pointed to
Piper. "Collect your flock and get them ready to put their hands above their
heads when I give you the word. Burning, what's going on out there? Safeties
finally find the containment stand-down override?"
Peering back at the huge foyer through the amphitheater doors, Burning shook
his head slowly. The people who had been pounding on the floor-to-ceiling
window were scattering as something glossy and fast-moving was getting larger
fast in the Empyraeum-lit night sky.
"I doubt the Safeties have anything to do with this," he judged, shifting his
weight for a sideways dive. "Everybody take cover! Incoming?'
Piper didn't understand the term but saw the dark shape come hurtling into the
durapane wall, shattering it into uncountable flecks of crystalline intaglio.
She didn't see more because Lod caught her and bore her aside headlong to the
shrilling of an aircraft engine and the high-pitched yowl of reversed
thrusters.
As suddenly as he had grabbed her, Lod released her and leapt to his feet to
join Burning and Hierarch Haven. Piper rose shakily to gaze between them out
into the foyer, where an air-limo sat with its gleaming bow accordioned,
smoking and sizzling even as fire retardant chemicals wetted it down. Pieces
of the window lay all around. Behind it people were still staggering and
lurching out of the opening it had punched in the building.
Two figures emerged from the dashed-in vehicle. One was a very shaken young
man dressed in a rumpled uniform. His companion was& what? Piper didn't know
what to think of the other's pangender Othertalk any more than she did the
aircar's means of entry. But as the Alones began calling out to each other in
relief and exuberance, Lod showed Piper a less mischievous and more
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contemplative stare, which she returned.
* * * *
To Zinsser, showing aplomb with Ghost's hand down the front of his trousers
and the clock running defined the difference between mere brashness and grace
under fire. Well before the sixty seconds had elapsed he was able to say,
"Proof on demand you wanted? Does this suffice?"
She showed him a slow smile where he had expected to see at least a little
perturbation. "Flying colors, Doctor."
She released him and retracted her hand with all the sensuality of someone
finishing a farm chore. "Which I take to mean that you enjoy extreme moments
the way I do."
More than you foresaw, he gloated. A profession that involved risk had given
him a taste for passion linked to peak experience within reason. "If you're as
good as your word," he said leadingly, "I think under the circumstances that
we're both wearing too many clothes."
Ghost narrowed her eyes a bit, men began to open the row of gold buttons that
ran down the right side of her dress uniform blouse. "Fair warning, Doctor:
You may not like what you see."
"Inconceivable," he told her as he shrugged out of the moire" jacket
Ghost had pulled her blouse out of her britches and was about to take it off
when a tremor shook the chapel. Instantly there came the trundle of the
containment door sliding aside, admitting light from the mezzanine beyond.
Ghost immediately rebuttoned her blouse and hurried into the hallway.
"Another time, perhaps?" Zinsser called after her, fumbling with his clothing
as he followed in her wake.
She turned to show him a tight smile. "Perhaps. I will, however, call us even
on one of the two lives you owe me. From here on I own you only to the sum of
one mortal debt. I'll let you know well in advance when I need to call it in."
Zinsser gaped at her. "Stop acting like some drama class prostitute. Come back
here and finish what you started!"
She didn't pause as she strode through the doorway, but she spoke loudly
enough for him to catch the amusement in her voice. "Don't linger, Doctor.
That woman with the beauty mark may still be lurking, and there's no shortage
of objects to drop on you."
That sent him scrambling as he watched her departing shadow. Mortal debt? he
told himself. No, I won't forget what I owe you.
Chapter
Thirty-Five
"Cal, how could you think I had anything to do with what went on tonight?"
Dextra Haven barked to Lightner's holo, with Tonii and the three Exts looking
on. "My support for continued funding for the Aggregate is no mystery, but
I've no direct pipeline to Byron Sarz. Even if I did, do you actually believe
I would jeopardize half the Hierarchate simply to keep the Exts in the
spotlight?"
It was just before midnight, and everyone was gathered in Dextra's study at
HauteFlash, where she and Tonii had brought Burning, Ghost, and Lod for
safekeeping. Word of Lod's part in disarming the Aggregate's scent assembler
had spread quickly, and restrictions notwithstanding, the media had descended
on the Empyraeum like a plague of beetworts.
From the start Dextra had predicted that she would hear from Lightner before
the night was out When his call was received, she had it relayed to the study
for all to see and hear.
"You put Nike in jeopardy by bringing her aboard the Sword of Damocles"
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