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.Travel through the old, disused phloem tubes was, as the Emperor had indicated, not pleasant, but never had Stoakes been inside so long or travelled so fast through the tubes.Though there were no jump stations, he knew that, under the Emperor’s control, he was making use of the fold zones at key stitch points to speed his progress.At journey’s end, he was disgorged, wet and exhausted, from parting Vine fibers into a hidden chamber in the Root Palace on Planet 1401 that would serve as his quarters for the duration of his assignment.He was given the leisure of a third day to use as he would before beginning, but only took half of it to clean up and to sleep.Now he dressed in his charcoal gray clothes as he reviewed the video record of Anis Lausden.A pretty girl.A giantess, but a girl nonetheless.And pretty.It was a shame.He went Dark and passed through the slit in the wall that was the only access to his quarters.He emerged into a service hall that fed into one of the main corridors.He returned to normal and joined the light traffic walking the halls and made for the main gate.Many had the same idea.The Palace was still settling into the planet and expanding to its final proportions.Before that was done, no one could really start their proper work.There was a certain amount of restless excitement that had no other outlet than to lay eyes on Planet 1401.The courtyard, with its enclosing walls nearly complete, was filled with people wanting to get a look from the courtyard gates and just beyond.Many more were already atop the walls.Stoakes snickered to himself.There was nothing to see, especially on a planet with no real threat to offer.The seas were past the horizon, the sun was weak, and the atmosphere was lazy, making for a boring sky.But they’d been cooped up for a year and scared senseless by Ty Karr.He understood their need, and their presence would make it easy for him to slip out unnoticed.Holson was still being kept busy and would soon be sent on an assignment that should be a good start to taking his mind off of Anis Lausden.Stoakes wasn’t afraid of Holson, but when he thought of meeting the man, even in passing and even with Holson none the wiser to his identity or his deeds, he couldn’t help feeling an irrefutable sense of dread.Perhaps that was healthy.Though Holson was still new as a Shade, Stoakes couldn’t help but be impressed by his accomplishments.Stoakes had fought side by side with Laedra Hol, and if Holson was anything like his teacher, there was good reason to be impressed—and cautious.Once past the courtyard gates, Stoakes drew his loose collar up over the lower half of his face, leaving only his eyes exposed.With a quick look around, he went Dark, becoming a true animate shadow.He blended easily with the other shadows and no one thought to pay him any attention.He kicked off the ground and and propelled his significantly reduced mass—a single kilogram now—for kilometers at a time before having to touch down and kick off again.Along the way, he overtook Barson’s marching tank troops in their mechanized centaur rigs.There appeared to be about two thousand of them, on their way to relieve Holson’s skeletons.A jump ship would be coming for Kapler to fetch him to the Palace.If Barson’s troops were allowed to wipe out the perimeter camps surrounding Kapler’s Tower, it would be simple for Stoakes to slip in and do his work unseen and unknown amidst the butchery, but the Emperor had promised Kapler his choice of genetic samples to later use to repopulate the planet once his term of service was finished.No matter.Stoakes preferred it this way.In and out, unseen and unknown.No witnesses—left alive, anyway—local or alien.The challenge appealed to him.Once he was within sight of the Tower, he leapt high up into the air where he floated like a leaf, getting a clear perspective of the distribution of the locals and the skeletons.With enough wind, he could drift over the lines to the Tower itself, but he’d heard about the Lightning Gun and would make an easy target.He picked his entry point, and upon landing, he made for it, darting through the camp with its tents and its sentry giants, stirring only the wind.He passed through the skeletons and kept low to the charred ground, showing up against the Black Fields not at all.Stoakes arrived at the Tower’s base and made a complete circle around it, noting the main entrance and several service entrances at intervals.Any of these, locked or not, would allow him entry, but he wanted to wait until he could be sure that the Lightning Gun was deactivated.Barson’s troops were to occupy the Tower and keep the would-be revolutionaries in check—it wouldn’t do to have them accidentally set the Gun off, so Kapler would certainly disable it.Without the threat of the Gun, Stoakes would have a wider choice of exit routes.The metered stomp of the march started to sound across the Black Fields, and Stoakes could hear the whine of a jump ship approaching.He waited for Kapler to come out and greet the commander of Barson’s troops before slipping into the Tower through one of the service entrances.He figured he had some time—minutes at least—before the occupation of the Tower began and was complete.Inside, he paused for a moment in a dark corner, reached into a pocket, and produced the Yellow Diamond Spectacles [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]