Asodo Hatch slept through the afternoon of the Day of Two
Fishes, and slept solidly through the night that followed. At dawn
on the Day of the Last Fish, the day before Dog Day, Asodo Hatch
lay dreaming of Thaldonian Mathematics, of equations breeding and
mutating in a warm sea of dogfish-ducks, of seagull-sharks and
floating skulls. The skulls were purple, and, as the quills of
shellfish plucked themselves to deliquescent music, the skulls
became warthogs, and sunbloated smoothly into the brown melt of
chocolate.
        The sea smelt of opium.
        The sea caressed his breasts, which were seven in number. He
opened his mouth, his teeth ejecting themselves from his jaw as he
did so. Just before plunging into a wash of blood, each tooth
fired retro-rockets, first slowing itself, then disintegrating. A
rain of small crabs came smattering-splattering down to the blood.
        What was that bloodwash?
        The blood was the bluesky of morning, the day's dawn's
bluesky revelation. A pulsing sun of lemons and limes was heaving
itself up over the rim of the world. It was -
        Morning?
        Hatch woke himself, and found himself lying fully-dressed on
his narrow bed in the cramping enclosure of his room in the
Combat College, deep in the heartrock of Cap Foz Para Lash. Deep
in the rock. He felt the weight of rock in his head.
        "Wah!" said Hatch, lamenting the necessity to wake, to get
out of bed and face the necessities of the future.
        But he struggled out of bed and made his to the nearest
ablutions block, where he woke himself properly with a stinging
needle-shower. Then Hatch, who found himself possessed of a
ferocious hunger, hastened to the Combat College cafeteria, which
was strangely empty now that the graduating class had been exiled
from Cap Foz Para Lash.
        With the graduation ceremonies over, everyone else was
theoretically on holiday. Some few had stayed, hiding out in the
Combat College for fear of the violence which had lately been
unleashed in Dalar ken Halvar, but most had returned to the world
of the sun, compelled by either an eager excitement or a concern
for their nearest and dearest.
        At a table in the center of the canteen sat three familiar
faces: Beggar Grim, Master Zoplin and Lord X'dex Paspilion, master
of the Greater Tower of X-n'dix in the far-off land of X-zox
Kalada (which distant land, in Hatch's long-considered opinion,
was strictly imaginary).
        "Hatch!" said Beggar Grim, greeting the new lord of the
instructorship. "Our Teacher of the Way!"
        "What?" said Hatch. "Are we not rid of you yet?"
        "Your Combat College told us to go," said Grim. "But we
reminded the thing that we are your honored guests."
        "And?"
        "It said it would consult with you then kick us out
regardless."
        "The kicking out I understand," said Hatch, "but the
consultation seems needless."
        "A plague on you, then," said Beggar Grim cheerfully. "May
stones grow from your toenails and worms from your teeth."
        "May you be infested with lampreys and may blind mice gnaw
your sandals," said Master Zoplin.
        "They despise you because they are commoners, not
aristocrats," said the great Lord Paspilion. "As a ruler, I offer
you the favor of the broad strath of X-zox Kalada. In that valley
fair, all that flourishes is yours, and the welcome of the Greater
Tower likewise."
        "The welcome of breakfast is all I need for the moment," said
Hatch.
        Then the much-famished Hatch chose from the array of food
which was laid out for the common delectation. There was
everything from delicate Janjuladoola cuisine to a whale steak
some four times the length of a man - this last a specialty
prepared for the delight of the Ebrell Islanders. There were many
things from the Nexus, in particular tofu - white, soft,
tasteless, repulsive. Hatch chosen from the range of food cooked
in its given form: chose rice which had been cooked as rice and
frog cooked as frog.
        While Hatch was choosing his breakfast, his daughter Onica
entered the room, his wife Talanta with her.
        "Talanta," said Hatch.
        But neither wife nor daughter responded. They would not so
much as acknowledge his existence. As for the Lady Iro Murasaki -
there was no sign of her.
        So Hatch, feeling himself a de facto widower, went to sit
with the beggars. Lord X'dex was eating a bowl of tofu, and seemed
to be acquiring a liking for the stuff, a phenomenon which Hatch
thought truly remarkable. Every time Hatch saw tofu, he was glad
he had not been born and bred in the Nexus, for by all accounts
tofu had been one of the staple foods of that transcosmic
civilization. Tofu was fabricated from soya beans. The beans
themselves Hatch knew well - in fact, he often ate roast soya
beans by the handful. But something truly dreadful must have been
done to those beans to make that tofu stuff.
        "Why so grim, so silent?" said Beggar Grim.
        Hatch told him.
        Hatch laid out his problems, upon which Grim laughed.
        "Lupus is just a wasp," said Beggar Grim. "Trap him in a
bottle then drown him."
        Hatch, who was not prepared to sit still for any more such
nonsense, scraped down the last of his breakfast, then rose from
the table and burped his way back to his room. Hatch seated
himself and the hot weight of his over-generous breakfast in front
of his room's display screen, activated that screen, and found
Paraban Senk waiting for him.
        "Well?" said Senk. "What's your plan?"
        "I'll tell you soon," said Hatch. "But first, we need an
agreement."
        "We?" said Senk, sounding amused.
        "We both have a vested interest in stability," said Hatch,
doing his best imitation of a bureaucrat. "Therefore, it is in our
mutual interest to ensure that no further killings take place in
Dalar ken Halvar. To this end, we need to give sanctuary to those
refugees who are currently sheltering in the Combat College."
        Senk laughed.
        "It's not that easy, Asodo," said Senk. "If you can give me a
plan for bringing order to Dalar ken Halvar, then I'll give refuge
to your wife, your daughter - and even your whore."
        "The Lady Murasaki is not - "
        "A plan, Hatch!" said Senk, switching abruptly from personal
name to family name, from softness to harshness.
        Hatch was taken aback. In the whiplash of Senk's demand, in
the abruptness of the mood-shift, there was something positively
glandular.
        "A plan!" said Senk.
        Pushing.
        Demanding.
        "I don't have a plan," admitted Hatch.
        "Of course you do!" said Senk. "I know it for a fact."
        "How do you know that?" said Hatch.
        "Because you're a genius," said Senk. "You murdered Hiji
Hanojo and got away with it. It was years before I worked out that
it was you! And you - you outfought Lon Oliver when everything
said it was impossible. I know you've got a plan, Hatch. And I
want it. Now!"
        Hatch, knowing himself to be no murderer - an executioner on
occasion, yes, but he had never stooped to murder, and certainly
had never laid a finger on Hiji Hanojo - took no comfort in this
vote of confidence in his genius.
        "Have you considered the possibility that you might be going
senile?" said Hatch.
        "I am flawless," said Senk. "Perfect in an imperfect world."
        "Then tell me, oh perfect master," said Hatch, so weary that
he was reckless enough to taunt the lord of the Combat College
with sarcasm, "what vision of perfection do we wish to impose upon
this imperfect world? Tell me what you want and I will deliver
it."
        "You promised me the service of Nu-chala-nuth," said Senk.
"You promised. You promised to make the Combat College a temple, a
holy place, with the whole of the city sworn in subservience to
that temple. It's breaking down, Hatch! The things are breaking
down! The doors, the cleaners, we can't keep them up forever. We
need power, machines, a mending, a cleansing. But with Plandruk
Qinplaqus, that's impossible, any bright person - he kills them."
        "I understand," said Hatch.
        He did understand.
        Hatch was right in his earlier assumptions. The Combat
College was disintegrating, and Paraban Senk knew as much - even
though it was hard to admit.
        Hatch had tempted Senk with the prospect of a continent
united by a fanatical religion - a continent dedicated to the
service of the Combat College. Hatch had been thinking in terms of
the mission to which the Combat College was dedicated: the
training of startroopers. But Senk was concerned with something
more compelling: personal survival.
        From the few words which Senk had spoken, Hatch saw that
Paraban Senk envisioned a technical renaissance centered on Dalar
ken Halvar, a technical renaissance which would in time allow the
Combat College to be repaired, strengthened and made mighty.
In the past, Plandruk Qinplaqus, the Silver Emperor who had long
ruled Dalar ken Halvar, had organized the covert execution of any
mad scientist fool enough to attempt to organize any such thing.
But in the future -
        Hatch shook off thoughts of the future. He had to deal with
Lon Oliver first. But how?
        What did the beggar say?
        A wasp, that was it. Beggar Grim had compared Lupus Lon
Oliver to a wasp. And had suggested ... trapping him in a bottle
then drowning him.
        "I can give you the city," said the Hatch slowly. "But you
must do as I say."
        "Speak," said Senk.
        And Asodo Hatch took a deep breath, paused, hesitated,
realized he had to breathe again, did so, then said:
        "You must tell the world that the Chasm Gates have been
reopened."