THE arrival of the ’digger had shaken my belief in myself and my ability to cope with the situation. I’d almost left the Gallery and headed for the nearest com link to contact Paul.
Almost. Just in time. I gathered the tatters of my pride. I was the Eldest of the Web of Esen. What kind of Eldest ran to an ephemeral for advice?
A scared one, I admitted, watching the Ganthor. The Herd was now larger than the original thirteen I’d managed to avoid. Those must have come ahead to scout safe passage for their armored transport through the deadly maze of modern and postmodern sculpture, and the occasional bench.
Now that it was here, those in the ’digger lost no time making contact with the others. Literally. The side doors dropped down, allowing the five mercs who’d been operating the machine to rush out. I winced at the considerable amount of body contact which ensued as the Herd reestablished the comfort of who was allowed to knock whom to the floor. In a bunch of young Humans, it would have been sport. In an edgy bunch of hair-trigger mercenaries, this habit of urgent violence was another reason why Ganthor often won battles for their clients by simply showing up.
They were quick about it; the Matriarch, through her Seconds, stamped orders and the entire group squeezed back inside the ’digger. The doors thudded shut.
What were they up to now? I leaned forward.
A hammer’s blow threw me backward along with a whirl of dust and debris, to land flat against the nearest wall. Undamaged, if startled, I rocked back to where my former protective statue had stood.
The statue was gone. More significantly, so was the ’digger. In its place gaped a huge, glowing hole in the floor. I rocked cautiously to its edge and looked down.
I could see the top of the ’digger below, quite intact. They were cutting their way down through the subbasements. There was another blast as the next floor gave way and the ’digger dropped with it. I had to admit, it was a novel way around the problem of fitting their oversized transport into a lift.
The Ganthor were searching for something. What?
If Logan had believed Paul about the Kraal superweapon now belonging to the Iftsen, this literally mythical Nightstalker, he could have sent the Ganthor to retrieve it. In an Art Gallery?
I rocked as quickly as I could to the lifts, then into the first one that opened, cuing it to descend. The only thing Ganthor were good at finding on their own were living things—being scent-driven, much of their technology dealt with enhancing their ability to trail and interpret biochemical traces.
Which living things were of this much interest to Logan?
They’d gone right past me, an Iftsen.
Who else was in the Gallery tonight? I asked myself. And also making nuisances of themselves? The Feneden.
It made some sort of logic, especially in Human terms. They were prone to seek alliances to gain numbers and strength. If Logan was on his own, with one ship, he might well seek such allies to help him find this weapon and take it once found. The Feneden, being the supposed target, seemed the obvious choice. To those who didn’t know them better, I said to myself. And if those allies were impossible to contact discreetly, he might well choose this somewhat forthright approach to arrange a meeting.
It was the type of devious scheming Skalet always loved. She probably would have preferred the giant, twisted Human as a student, I grumbled to myself, keeping my right appendages pressed against the door of the moving lift. When the door shook violently, indicating the floor presently receiving its visit from the ’digger, I went to the next one down and stopped the lift to look out. Everything looked normal: no cowering Feneden or signs of theft.
I repeated, checking three more floors before I found what I expected.
The Feneden, Sidorae, had tried to sell me Iftsen pretech art. This floor and the ones below were jammed to the ceiling with the stuff, along with an assortment of bags, crates, and other thieves’ paraphernalia. My Iftsen-self paused to admire a nearby bench, clearly made by some more recent talent by welding together several pieces—definitely the kind of thing that had troubled Lesy.
There they were. The Feneden were huddled in a far corner, staring up at the ceiling. I felt sorry for them until one caught sight of me and they all started screaming and running again. This was decidedly counterproductive with Ganthor literally overhead.
“I mean you no harm!” I shouted, trying to be heard over their combined bedlam. An Iftsen’s bladder has properties in common with a Human instrument known as a bagpipe, so there was no doubt I’d succeed.
I succeeded a little too well. They bolted through the nearest open doorway just as the ceiling began raining down little bits of itself in preparation for dropping great, jagged hunks.
Then I spied something I thought could potentially solve almost every problem at once, a conclusion I later came to thoroughly regret.
It was a spare Feneden e-rig.