So it came to pass that, early on the night of the Day of
Three Fishes, just three days short of Dog Day, Asodo Hatch was
woken from sleep to find Dalar ken Halvar in disorder and Scorpio
Fax sprawled full-length on the floor of House Takabaga.
        After formally taking Fax a prisoner, Asodo Hatch then with
equal formality invited Polk the Cash to enjoy the hospitality of
House Takabaga during these times of uncertainty.
        "I have it on good information," said Hatch, improvising a
lie of some cunning, "that the revolutionaries now on the loose in
the city have a death-list, and that your name is near the top of
that list."
        Of course, the noseless one did not need the encouragement of
such lies, but Hatch wanted to make sure. For Hatch hoped that by
sheltering Polk in this time of trouble he would thereafter obtain
some amelioration of his financial burdens. Polk, for his part,
readily accepted Hatch's invitation, and had grace enough to
conceal the fact that just such an invitation had already been
extended to him by Talanta and Onica.
        With the affairs of the moment thus arranged, Hatch confirmed
to one and all that he intended to take Scorpio Fax to Na
Sashimoko, the ruling palace of the City of Sun. Having made that
announcement, Hatch hauled Fax away into the night.
        "All right," said Fax, once they were out of earshot of House
Takabaga. "You can let me go now."
        "Let you go!" said Hatch. "What makes you think I'm going to
let you go!"
        "I was trying to kill Polk! He - he - "
        "You were trying to kill him in front of my daughter Onica!
You witless idiot! You'd have made her witness to murder, and
then, then, well, either we turn you in or else she becomes a part
of a conspiracy to conceal murder. Didn't you think of that?"
        "Of course I thought of that," said Fax, who had thought no
such thing. "But - "
        "I told you!" said Hatch. "I told you to get yourself back to
the Combat College. I thought you were going there! If I'd thought
for a moment that you were - "
        "He's your enemy, Hatch! Polk's your enemy! I thought - "
        "Come on," said Hatch. "I've no time for listening to
speeches."
        Here Hatch was true to his breeding, for the Frangoni have
ever preferred making speeches rather than listening to them.
Having thus cut short Fax's excuses, Asodo Hatch took Fax down the
Backsteps which descended the western slopes of Cap Uba.
        "So what happens to me at Na Sashimoko?" said Fax, unable to
conceal his fear for his own future.
        "We dungeon you," said Hatch.
        "The emperor has no dungeons," said Fax.
        "Not at his palace. But the Grand Arena is not so terribly
distant."
        "You don't gain by threats," said Fax. Trying to play the
part of the brave revolutionary. Then, suddenly: "Hatch. Hatch. It
would be the easiest thing to let me go. A moment's work. There's
no witnesses here, not now, not in the dark."
        "You don't like this game?" said Hatch. "That's easy, then.
The Dead Mouth is but a stone's throw distant. Oh, I can let you
go, if that's what you really want."
        The Dead Mouth was as close as Hatch said it was. And it was
deep. Even in the brightest of sunlight, to look down into it was
to see darkness falling to darkness for what looked like eternity.
It was quite impossible to see the bottom. While Hatch presumed
that the Dead Mouth did actually have a bottom, legend held it to
be depthless, and in practice it was, for no rope of mortal make
could measure out more than its merest lip. It was, naturally, an
irresistible attraction to suicides.
        In the face of that threat, Scorpio Fax fell very quiet, and
Hatch led him through the stumbling dark toward the palace of Na
Sashimoko.
        But they were still far short of the palace when they met
Umka Ash, he of the uncertain breeding - his piebald skin a mass
of white and black blotches, and birthmarks in both red and in
purple.
        "Hatch!" said Ash.
        "What is it, Combat Cadet?" said Hatch.
        Then Umka Ash gave him the bad news. In the face of a
revolution by the Unreal, the Free Corps had joined with certain
officers of the imperial guard in launching a coup to "stabilize
the situation".
        "A coup!" said Hatch, in disbelief. "What do you mean by a
coup?"
        "I mean," said Ash, "that they said they were making a coup,
and killed three men who were fool enough to disagree with them."
        "Killed?" said Hatch.
        "Yes," said Ash. "Unless you believe a man can have his head
chopped off and still live, they were killed. I saw it."
        "But," said Hatch, still at a loss, "what do they hope to
achieve by this - this coup?"
        "I am going back to the Combat College to write you a formal
paper on the analysis of that very point," said Umka Ash dryly.
        "Wah!" said Hatch, trying to absorb the implications of this
news of a coup. "A real night for lunatics!"
        "So what are you going to do with me?" said Scorpio Fax.
        "We'd best be back to the Combat College," said Hatch. "Both
of us."
        "Does this mean I'm pardoned?"
        "Am I the emperor, to be giving pardons?" said Hatch. "Come
on. Let's be gone."
        So Scorpio Fax and Asodo Hatch started back to the Combat
College, in company with Umka Ash. But they had not gone far when
Fax suddenly broke away and fled into the night.
        "Fax!" roared Hatch. "Come back! I'm ordering you!"
        But it was no use.
        Fax was gone.
        "What now?" said Umka Ash.
        "We proceed to the Combat College," said Hatch. "There you
can write your paper of analysis, but I for my part intend to
rouse our fellow students out for action."
        The readiness with which Hatch said this disturbed Ash
greatly, who said:
        "Sorry," said Ash. "I've been thinking, and my family ...."
        "Go, then," said Hatch.
        Ash went, and Hatch continued to the Combat College on his
own, trying to work out what to do. Rouse students for action? it
was easily said. But who could he rouse, and exactly what could
they do to bring the city to order?
        Asodo Hatch was on his own, with no communications and no
access to any kind of data flow. His emperor was missing. A group
of over-excited soldiers and Free Corps types had declared
themselves masters of Dalar ken Halvar. A half-coordinated
revolution was in progress in the city.
        Hatch was tolerably certain that his family would be safe
enough on the Frangoni rock, at least for the moment. He decided
that he should push on to the Combat College, set up his own
command center, send out scouts to bring him information, organize
the information on a battle-map, and find volunteers who would be
prepared to act under his command and restore order in the city
once the rioting burnt itself out.
        So to the lockway went Asodo Hatch, and found it a scene of
burnt-out wreckage, for every stall on Scuffling Road had been
smashed, looted, wrecked and burnt. The kinema, the amphitheater
outside the lockway, was lit by the lurid light of the Eye of
Delusions, which was showing a cartoon in which the gross and
hideous savages of one of the Wild Tribes - savages who gibbered
in the triumph of their bloodlust - were cutting out the hearts of
hapless victims.
        Tonight, nobody was in the amphitheater watching the Eye. The
attractions of the city were greater.
        "A bad business," said Hatch.
        He strode toward the lockway itself. The lurid cartoon-light
of the Eye flickered across the red dust of the Plain of Jars,
dust which was rucked with scuffled footprints, and stained and
besplattered with darkness.
        Hatch halted.
        Something was wrong. The - the lockway! The outer door was
gone! There was no kaleidoscope, no slob, no nothing. The mob had
- no, that was impossible. No mob could encompass the breach of
such a barrier. Rather - well, the obvious alternative was worse.
The door had failed. It no longer worked. It had ceased to
function.
        Hatch entered the outer chamber of the airlock, which was
smeared with blood. The central door still stood firm, but its
kaleidoscope dissolved away to nothing as he entered. It reformed
behind him, trapping him within the airlock, which was bathed by
an unearthly green light. Green light? This was new, weirdly so.
Hatch experienced a moment of claustrophobic dread. What if the
airlock malfunctioned terminally and trapped him here?
        "Our culture is our greatest treasure," said the
platitudinous voice of the airlock, maintaining its habitual
custom of idle lecturing in complete disregard of the realities of
the moment. "Have you listened to an original musical composition
recently?"
        Blood everywhere. Blood underfoot and blood on the walls.
Smeared handprints. Bloody scrabblings. What the hell had been
going on?
        There was a hiss of air under pressure. Then the airlock
began listing compositions which Hatch should listen to, only to
have its lecture interrupted by the dissolution of the innermost
door. Hatch stepped through, entering the tunnel which led deep
into the depths of Cap Foz Para Lash.
        The customary white brightlight of the tunnel had failed.
Instead, the tunnel was lit by a dim emergency pink, by which
Hatch saw the bloody footprints which tracked their way to the
bloody bundle of - no, not a bundle. A body. But small, so, so -
        Hatch stooped to the body, shook it by the shoulder, and it
flopped, revealed its face. Lucius Elikin. Combat Cadet. Aged 11.
And dead, quite dead.
        "Lucius," said Hatch, in the loud and demanding voice used to
challenge fatigue and stupor. "Lucius, wake up!"
        But already he was quite sure the boy was far too late for
challenging. Even so, he slid two fingers down to the windpipe to
check for a carotid pulse. None. And the wound, oh - down beneath
the ribs, down by the kidneys. A deep rip. Lethal. But the boy had
tried. He had scrabbled this far, struggling inward, striving for
the safety at the heart of the Combat College, the cure-all
clinic. And had died far short of his goal.
        Hatch stood up, and hastened down the corridor. The dorgi did
not come lurching out of its lair to challenge him. He gave it a
glance in passing. It was silent, stolid. Sleeping? Sulking? Dead?
He gave it a heartbeat's thought then forgot about it as he
hurried on toward Forum Three.