"What do you think?" said Oboro Bakendra.
        "It's a bluff," said Hatch. "Of course it's a bluff. It would
be too much of a coincidence for any such thing to happen now."
        The two brothers were in the kinema, the natural amphitheater
outside the lockway. The Eye of Delusions, the big entertainment
screen set above the lockway, was screening the image of a
strangely mutated human with insectile mandibles. This thing was -
or so it alleged - the current ruler of the Nexus. It claimed that
the Chasm Gates had opened, and that the Tulip Continuum which
contained the city of Dalar ken Halvar and its Combat College was
again reunited with humanity's grandest transcosmic civilization.
        "You will surrender your authority to that of the Combat
College," said the human-insect thing.
        Not for the first time.
        It had said as much a full three dozen times already, without
moving either Asodo Hatch or his brother Oboro Bakendra in the
slightest.
        "You have to admit," said Oboro Bakendra, "the thing looks
almost authentic."
        "Admit?" said Hatch. "Brother mine, you forget my imperial
status! I have made myself emperor, and an emperor admits
nothing."
        Nevertheless ....
        The accents of the presumptuous mandible-equipped human which
dominated the Eye of Delusions did suggest some of the distortions
which might reasonably have been expected to befall the Nexus
Ninetongue in the course of twenty millennia. Though of course the
Ninetongue had been designed to be impervious to linguistic drift
- divided up into nine separate task-specific dialects and
supported by the standardizing resources of an affluent machine
culture.
        To that degree the thing was authentic.
        But Hatch was not prepared to publicly admit even that much.
        "Senk's improvising," said Hatch, "but the improvisation is
fairly desperate."
        Hatch was right. The insect-human which was trying to menace
Dalar ken Halvar, and to bring that city to order by exercise of
terror, was a tenth-rate derivation of one of the standard
monsters of the Nexus entertainments so commonly screened by the
Eye of Delusions. Paraban Senk lacked the imagination required to
think up something new. A human in authority who was characterized
by tact, sensitivity and flexibility, for example - that would
have been something new. Hatch might even have been impressed by
it.
        "So what will you do?" said Oboro Bakendra, elder brother
conceding initiative and authority to the younger.
        "Do?" said Hatch.
        "About Senk," said Oboro Bakendra. "About the Combat College.
Do we ignore it? Or what?"
        "I'll go in there soon," said Hatch. "I have to. Senk still
has my wife, my daughter ...."
        "And your whore," said Oboro Bakendra, unable to restrain
himself from making this unfavorable observation.
        "The Lady Iro Murasaki still enjoys the protection of the
Combat College," said Hatch agreeably.
        Asodo Hatch had lately been through far too much to get upset
simply because someone chose to impugn the honor of the Lady
Murasaki.
        "And what about our sister?" said Oboro Bakendra.
        "Our sister?" said Hatch absently.
        "Yes, yes, our sister, our sister Joma, otherwise known to
the world as Penelope. Penelope Flute. Remember her? A girl,
Hatch, a big girl, a girl as tall as a man, purple in her skin and
turbulent in her temper. What have you done with her, Hatch?"
        "I don't know that I've done anything with her!" said Hatch.
        "Well, she certainly went into the Combat College," said
Oboro Bakendra. "There's plenty of proof of that. You must have
seen her yourself."
        "I - I have some recollection of that," said Hatch.
        Yes. Hatch dimly remembered seeing Penelope at some time
during the turbulent period when refugees of all descriptions were
boiling into Forum Three.
        In the lead-up to Hatch's series of duels with Lupus Lon
Oliver, Paraban Senk had asked Hatch to name those guests whom he
chose to invite into the Combat College to watch him fight. Hatch
had been in no mood to trifle with such trivia; and so, rather
than drawing up a guest list, Hatch had simply told Senk to admit
anyone who asked for admission in his name.
        Consequently, when riots had broken out in Dalar ken Halvar,
numerous refugees had been able to find sanctuary inside the minor
mountain of Cap Foz Para Lash by quoting Hatch's name. Hatch's
wife, daughter and mistress had won admission to the mountain,
and, yes, Penelope too.
        But.
        "But," said Oboro Bakendra, driving home the point
remorselessly, "that's the last that anyone knows of her. You
appear to have lost her."
        And in the end Hatch had no option but to confess that he had
indeed mislaid his sister, which was doubtlessly very remiss of
him. He had excuses, of course, for the recent past had been
turbulent - and, while dueling his enemy and commandeering a
religious revolution, Hatch had not found it possible to keep
track of the delinquent Penelope. But Oboro Bakendra made it clear
that he thought this no excuse.
        "You don't seem concerned," said Oboro Bakendra.
        "Frankly," said Hatch, "I'm more concerned with the absence
of Lupus Lon Oliver than with Penelope. We've made a great heap of
corpses, but Lupus is not to be found on that heap."
        "His face may have been disfigured," said Oboro Bakendra.
"Perhaps he lies incognito beneath the sun."
        "There is the matter of stature," said Hatch. "Lupus was
built quite close to the ground, as you remember. Had the rat's
flesh been in amongst its companions, I'm sure I would have
recognized it by the length of its legs and the modest bulk of its
torso. I've had occasion to watch it closely of late."
        "It may well be that Lupus and Joma have fled the city
together," said Oboro Bakendra. "In which case they are of no
account. Lupus is no danger once detached from his warforce, and
thus detached he is - for I warrant that very few Ebrell Islanders
of military age are left alive in Dalar ken Halvar."
        With this said, the two brothers left the kinema, where the
Eye of Delusions was still making dire threats about the wrath of
the Nexus.
        Under a hot and dusty sky, the two brothers made their way
down Scuffling Road through a day which was possessed of something
of the traditional clamour of Dog Day. Naturally the festivities
were muted somewhat by the events of the recent past, for it was
hard to be truly festive in a city which had recently suffered
many bereavements and a great deal of burning. Still, a fair few
people were giving it their best shot.
        The traditional Dog Day drums were pounding; the traditional
scuffles were taking place as various teams tried to make their
chosen dog the dog-king for the day; and a fair few unfortunate
dogs were being barbecued and eaten.
        Actually, on Dog Day it was against both law and tradition to
slaughter and eat any dog until evening, which was traditionally
the time for the start of an enormous blood-glutting feast; but
both law and tradition had broken down under the pressure of the
latest events.
        Asodo Hatch and his elder brother Oboro Bakendra went down
Scuffling Road, crossed its intersection with Zambuk Street,
continued down Scuffling Road, and so after a walk of some
considerable distance came upon the scene of the battle which had
that day given them victory over the Free Corps.
        Hatch had deceived Senk, knowingly, and with malice
aforethought; and then Senk had unwittingly deceived the Free
Corps. Thus setting the stage for the Free Corp's destruction.
Within the minor mountain of Cap Foz Para Lash, the
Startroopers and Combat Cadets of the Free Corps had been briefed
by Paraban Senk, the diligent Teacher of Control. The unembodied
Senk had told the Free Corps that the announced "opening of the
Chasm Gates" had been but a ploy to lure them into an imprisoning
trap.
        Senk had then informed the Free Corps that it was in the
long-term interests of the survival and functioning of the Combat
College that Dalar ken Halvar - and indeed the entire Empire of
Greater Parengarenga - be united under the militant religion of
Nu-chala-nuth. For the Combat College was breaking down; and,
unable to rely upon the ancient machinery of probability-
manipulation, Senk must necessarily enlist religion for support.
        Senk had announced to the prisoners that they would be held
within Cap Foz Para Lash indefinitely if they were not prepared to
co-operate with this new plan. If however they chose to ally
themselves with Asodo Hatch and with the Nu-chala-nuth, then they
could look forward to playing a leading role in a great and
prosperous future.
        After some discussion, the members of the Free Corps had
agreed to make those rather painful adjustments to the new reality
which had opened before them. And so it had come to pass that, as
the Dog Day celebrations began to get underway, the Free Corps had
been released from the minor mountain of Cap Foz Para Lash.
        The Free Corps had set off down Scuffling Road, marching in a
body from the Combat College toward the Grand Arena. The plan was
that in the Grand Arena they would take an oath of allegiance to
Asodo Hatch in particular and to the Nu-chala-nuth in general.
However, the Free Corps had never reached the Arena.
        Along the way, the Frangoni had taken the Free Corps in a
classic ambush, attacking from the west - bursting out from ruined
houses, from unruined houses, and from bamboo screens hastily
erected and made to look like windbreaks. Every Frangoni man,
woman and child capable of holding a blade had joined that ambush.
        Those of the Free Corps who had not been cut down immediately
had fled to the east - only to fall victim to pit-traps and to
sharpened bamboo spikes planted in carefully concealed holes.
        The slaughter had been almost universal.
        Manfred Gan Oliver had been accounted for, and on discovering
the corpse of Gan Oliver the valorous Asodo Hatch had - but,
enough! There is no need to be saying what Hatch did to the
unfortunate Gan Oliver once Gan Oliver was dead! Suffice it to say
that all of Dalar ken Halvar soon heard of the fate of that
corpse; for terror is a potent weapon, and the niceties of Hatch's
position were such that he could not afford to let any weapon lie
unused.
        But while Gan Oliver had been definitely (and definitively!)
accounted for, no sign of the corpse of Lupus Lon Oliver had been
found anywhere, and nobody could be found who had seen that young
man escaping.
        The ambush had taken place before midday, and it was now
late in the afternoon. As Asodo Hatch and Oboro Bakendra returned
to the scene of the slaughter, they found some of the Pang engaged
in putting the turd of a dog into the mouth of every corpse - this
placement of turds being a form of defilement which was
traditional amongst the Pang.
        There on the field of battle stood the beggars Grim, Zoplin
and X'dex Paspilion, holding forth in witness of the mighty deeds
of Asodo Hatch, Saint Hatch, savior of the people, upholder of
the Way, beloved of god. They told of how Saint Hatch had, in days
long gone and days yet recent, dispensed an equal justice to
beggars, never shunning to give them the mercy of his wisdom.
        With an even greater enthusiasm, the beggars told of how, in
a time of dire trouble, the mere mention of the name of their
beloved Saint Hatch had been sufficient to win them admission to
the mountain halls which had ever previously been barred to them.
They told of how, in the ever so recent past, Saint Hatch had
captained a ship crewed by the Nu-chala-nuth in a mighty war
against the godless Ebrell Islander Lupus Lon Oliver.
        Saint Hatch was greeted by those who had been listening to
the beggars, and he was acclaimed by them.
        Hatch accepted this acclaim, then continued his tour of Dalar
ken Halvar. In due course, he came to the banks of the Yamoda, the
slow and shallow river which wended its way through Dalar ken
Halvar, which slushed through the swamps of the Vomlush and then
wasted its substance in the huge and heat-vomiting pit known as
the Hot Mouth.
        Here Hatch paused on the site of his father's funeral pyre.
On the far side of the river, smoke was rising from present-day
fires which were aflame in that quarter of the city known as Hepko
Cholo. There the Pang and the Frangoni were united in making short
work of those few Evolutionists who had not yet fled the city.
Asodo Hatch was by no means the only person in Dalar ken Halvar to
have been severely vexed by the follies of Evolutionary Theory,
and by the rapacity of the Perfect Master who preached that
Theory; and there had been no shortage of willing volunteers ready
to suppress the Evolutionary Heresy in the name of Nu-chala-nuth.
        It was there on the river bank that Hatch said goodbye to his
brother Oboro Bakendra, for Oboro chose to take a punt-ferry
across the river, in the hope of being able to personally
supervise the dead of Edgerley Eden, the centaur who had for so
long preached the ludicrous and vexatious doctrines of evolution.
Hatch chose to remain alone at the site of his father's
funeral pyre, and to settle himself in meditation.
        But he was not to be allowed to so settle himself, for his
meditations were scarcely begun when he was accosted by Shona.
        "Ho, Hatch!" said Shona.
        Hatch thought this scarcely an appropriate way for an emperor
to be addressed. Still, he was new to the job, and maybe some of
the fine detail would prove not to be in accordance with his
expectations. So Hatch responded:
        "Ho, Shona! A great day!"
        "Great for whom?" said Shona, with surprising bitterness.
"That dogs should share their death with men, and men with dogs.
Is this greatness?"
        Hatch found this challenge slightly incoherent, but there was
no mistaking the emotional force behind it.
        "I did what I had to," said Hatch, feeling slightly
defensive.
        "And what will you have to do in the future?" said Shona.
"All Parengarenga will be in outright revolution before the year
is done."
        "I don't think so," said Hatch.
        "What can you offer them?" said Shona.
        "The Combat College," said Hatch. "It has a cure-all clinic.
The treatment of syphilis, the quenching of cancer, the
reconstruction of noses. The upgrading of faces and the suctioning
of fat. Through such promise I can control the rulers of every
region of the empire, and they in turn will control their people
for me."
        "I have not heard that the Combat College is yours to
command," said Shona.
        "Yet it will be," said Hatch. "It will open to me and mine,
admit those I chose and deny its breach to all others. With the
Combat College, I can safeguard the rule of the empire."
        "For the moment," said Shona.
        "Forever," said Hatch. "I have unleashed a religion militant.
I have set loose the Nu-chala-nuth. My people have consecrated
themselves by blooding their swords in the service of faith. I am
acclaimed as a saint already."
        Unconsciously, Hatch let declamatory passion seep into his
voice as he delivered himself of this speech. He spoke as if he
addressed an audience of seventy thousands. Rhetoric was ever a
Frangoni vice, and Hatch was true to the ways of his people: there
was nothing he liked better than to unleash a speech.
        "So," said Shona softly. "It can trick, cheat and kill. Oh,
and make speeches! Great speeches, Hatch, are you proud of your
speech, are you proud of ... aagh! What's the use? You've decided,
haven't you?"
        "I did what I had to," said Hatch defensively.
        Yet he was uncomfortably conscious of his guilt burden. He
had brought the Free Corps to destruction, yet many of those
people ... well ... Hatch had trained with them, had known them as
companions and colleagues ... and ... he had feared for the
future, hence had arranged murder. But was it not perhaps better
to risk the future than do something which was ... was what?
Unpardonable?
        Suddenly, very sharply, Hatch remembered Lupus Lon Oliver.
Lupus had said that a man who kills himself hands to his son a
sharp sword.
        "I will not do it," muttered Hatch.
        But ....
        "I have heard that the Nu-chala-nuth is no Way for women,"
said Shona suddenly.
        "It is true," admitted Hatch.
        "Then what future for women?" said Shona.
        Hatch was about to say that the women must suffer what they
must. Then caught himself. Because - of course! - Shona herself
was a woman.
        This came as something of a revelation to Hatch. For Asodo
Hatch had never thought of the burly Shona as a woman, just as he
had never thought of her as being one of the Pang, or one of the
Yara, the Unreal - though she was all of those. He had always
thought of Shona as being, well, Shona. His ally. His friend.
        "The men must have something," said Hatch lamely.
        Yes.
        There was a lot of truth in that.
        The recent unrest in Dalar ken Halvar had been sparked by the
discontent of the lower orders, the slaves and the Yara, the
slaves and the Unreal. They had hoped to win a better life for
themselves, and they construed a better life in terms of material
reward.
        This was only natural.
        A beggar in his rags, a beggar beset by fleas, a beggar with
nothing but a dog-corpse for company, knows full well the
importance of the material world. Others in like condition can be
tempted to revolution in the hope of improving their material
conditions. And why not? What have they got to lose? Hatch knew
this of the poor: those who have been reduced to nothing will
ultimately count their lives as nothing, and hence will risk all
for next-to-nothing.
        So the objective conditions of Dalar ken Halvar's poor had
encouraged them to revolution, albeit to an unsuccessful and
chaotically disorganized revolution which had stood no chance
whatsoever of success until Asodo Hatch took charge of it.
        But with the revolution now won - and won in the name of Nu-
chala-nuth, a religion which preached the equality of all men -
what would be the results of a division of the spoils? As Hatch
knew full well, an equal division of the wealth of Dalar ken
Halvar would by no means glut the appetites of the many, for Dalar
ken Halvar was poor. Parengarenga as a whole was poor. The entire
continent had been wrecked and wasted by millennial mismanagement,
by erosions and depletions, extinctions and eradications.
        So since wealth was limited, and since its equal division
would not secure the glut of dreams, what then could be offered to
the men who had so suddenly been made equal members of a just
society? Why, the rule of women, of course!
        And Hatch, from his long study of politics, knew that the
rule of women is a prize often offered to men. He knew Shona to be
independent: a free-striding Startrooper who was the cash-manager
of her household and mistress of her own destiny. He did not think
she would like the future which was being offered to her under the
rule of the Nu-chala-nuth.
        And now she was standing in silence, her silence an
accusation.
        "What am I to do?" said Hatch. "I mean, I can kill myself,
but ... is that what you want?"
        He was not speaking in jest.
        And Shona knew it.
        "Hatch," said Shona, "I ... I don't have anything to say."
And with that she turned, and left him.
        Shona was entirely without gratitude, and Hatch allowed
himself to be hurt by that. After all, he had gone to a lot of
trouble to ensure that Shona and other Startroopers and Combat
College were delayed or waylaid, being either prevented from
entering the Combat College in response to its summons, or else
being separated out from the Free Corps ranks as the Free Corps
marched toward the Grand Arena.
        Through such exertions, Hatch had saved those he thought of
his closest friends, thinking that they would serve as a close-
knit group of confidantes and advisers. He had thought to keep his
friends during the loneliness of the long years of power which
faced him.
        But now ....
        It seemed that was not to be.
        At least not as far as Shona was concerned.
        With that thought in his mind, Hatch turned away from the
Yamoda River. Evening gathered about him as he made his way back
to the kinema. It was dark by the time he stood in front of the
Eye of Delusions, his limbs heavy with fatigue, his skin tainted
with the sweat of his long marches through Dalar ken Halvar, the
taste of the red dust of the Plain of Jars upon his lips.
        Paraban Senk had given up bluffing.
        No insect-mandible human showed any more upon the Eye of
Delusions. Instead, the Eye was a blank gray, and from it came a
hissing like the falling of distant rain. Hatch had never seen the
Eye fall blank before, and the sight of it affected him oddly.
        He ventured to the lockway. The outermost door, of course,
had failed entirely, but two doors of rock-hard kaleidoscope still
stood between him and the Combat College. Would the doors
acknowledge him?
        The first of the remaining doors dissolved away to nothing.
Hatch stepped into the airlock. The kaleidoscope of the door
reformed. No voice spoke to Hatch within the airlock. There was
only the hiss of air, supplemented by another hiss - dull, dry,
dead. The hiss of ancient vacuum.
        The interior door dissolved away to nothing.
        Hatch stepped into the cream-colored corridors of the Combat
College. Stepped into the mountain of Cap Foz Para Lash. The
corridor was littered with trash. Here the Free Corps membership
had waited while the lockway airlock cycled them into the outside
world a few at a time, and here were their combast ration tubes,
their banana skins, their apple cores, their bits of fried whale
blubber - the casual litter of their last taste of life.
        They would have been happy. Well - disappointed to have
realized that the Chasm Gates had not after all opened. But. Well,
they had been promised a share of power, the chance to do
something, to be something.
        And Hatch -
        Asodo Hatch shook himself free from the past, and strode on
into the future, waiting for the dorgi to come lurching out to
challenge him.
        The password!
        What was the password?
        Was there still a password? And had the old one changed? And
what had the old password been in any case?
        He could not remember!
        Hatch hesitated.
        Maybe the dorgi was expecting a password, would kill him if
he didn't have it, the lockway should have given it to him, he
didn't have it, couldn't remember it.
        Then Hatch felt a dreadful temptation. He was tempted to go
on, to challenge the dorgi. Password or no password. And if he
died, well. He was ready for death. But. His wife. His child. His
lover. All three were inside the Combat College. Hatch could not
risk letting himself be killed by a homicidal machine simply for
lack of a password.
        So what should he do?
        Well, Onica, Talanta, the Lady Iro Murasaki - they were all
safe in the Combat College. That was no problem. Time was no
problem. So Hatch should withdraw. He should at least get the old
password. He would remember it himself, surely, if he was able to
sit down in peace and think. Or someone else would know it, Shona
would know it. And if there was a new password, why, the Eye of
Delusions had a communications capability, Hatch could talk with
Paraban Senk through the Eye, there was no reason to venture in
any further, not now.
        With this thought through, Hatch beat his retreat. But the
lockway's innermost door refused to recognize him. The faintest
hint of warmth remained to its iridescence, but it was rapidly
cooling to the chill which dominated the entire Combat College.
        "Senk!" said Hatch, raising his voice to a roar. "Let me
out!"
        Then he hammered on the kaleidoscope.
        But there was no response, not from Senk, not from anyone.
        So Hatch turned.
        Slowly, slowly.
        And ventured down the corridor at a funeral pace.
        Ventured to its intersect with the dorgi's lair.
        Where -
        Hatch risked a glance into the dorgi's lair, and saw not the
beast, but, rather, the slop-slurped hunk-gunk dissolution which
marked its wreckage. Hatch knew immediately what had happened. To
the uninitiated, it would have looked as if the dorgi had melted.
But Hatch knew full well that the dorgi must have tried to use
those of its weapons which were based upon the manipulation of
probability. And those weapons had malfunctioned, thus destroying
the dorgi.
        Hatch stepped into the dorgi's lair, wanting to be sure,
wanting to have the physical satisfaction of knowing that his
much-hated enemy was really dead.
        It was.
        Of course.
        And in its ruins there was something silver, something
curiously winking-glinting. Cautiously, Hatch stooped. And picked
it up. It was a small thing and a heavy thing, a thing heavier
than lead, heavier than gold, heavier than depleted uranium. It
was made of an intricate interweaving of shining wires, and it
shimmered with its own unquenchable light.
        Hatch knew what it was.
        The thing which Asodo Hatch had found in the ruins of the
dorgi was a mazadath, otherwise known as an Integrated Stabilizer.
In the technical literature of the Nexus, a lot of bold and
confident jargon surrounded the nature and use of such devices. A
mazadath lay at the heart of every Nexus machine which manipulated
probability. A mazadath protected such a machine from being
digested by the hazardous forces it manipulated. That was the
theory, in any case - thought this mazadath appeared to have
failed this dorgi!
        The Nexus was a civilization based on the manipulation of
probability, and a mazadath was an essential part of any machine
designed to manipulate probability - but the uncomfortable truth
was that humans could neither understand nor manufacture any such
thing as a mazadath. The Nexus had purchased mazadaths in bulk
from the Vangelis, a race of partially-disembodied alien creatures
also known as the Shining Ones. Had it not been for the Vangelis,
the entire transcosmic civilization of the Nexus would have been
quite impossible.
        So now Hatch had in his possession one of the essential
components required for the building of a machine which could
manipulate probability; though he knew full well that the
supporting technologies were so complex that no such task could
possibly be brought to fruition within his own lifetime.
        Still -
        Hatch realized he was unconsciously engaging in an extended
exercise in delay, for he was fearful of what lay ahead. Paraban
Senk, the Teacher of Control who ruled the Combat College, was
obviously not willing to let him leave. So he had to go onwards. A
confrontation with Senk lay ahead of him, and Hatch was by no
means sure that he would survive such a confrontation.
        After all, if Senk got really angry with Hatch, then Senk
could cancel the manufacture of food in the Combat College
cafeteria. That way, Hatch would ultimately starve to death, if
Senk continued to refuse to allow him out through the lockway. Or
maybe Senk could pump all the air out of the Combat College. Was
that possible? Hatch didn't know. But he had an uneasy suspicion
that he might get round to finding out. The hard way.
        Still.
        He had no choice.
        So, having pocketed the mazadath - it would make a nice
souvenir, if he lived - Asodo Hatch strode on down the corridor.
        Making for Forum Three.