Chapter One

A great bowl of flowers had been set on a small table close to the window so that their petals reflected the light in a mass of glowing scarlet necked with amber, the stamens a brilliant yellow around styles of dusty black. The bowl itself was of veined porphyry, shaped with a rare elegance, curves melting one into the other to form an object of both visual and tactile beauty. A thing of delicate elegance in direct contrast to the room itself, which was bleak in its Spartan simplicity, all white and functional, the walls devoid of any decoration, even the carpet a neutral gray.

A room in which to work, to study and to plan with all distraction kept to a minimum. Something Irae could appreciate, as he could not the flowers. They were an anomaly and he crossed the room to stand before them, studying their form and arrangement before lifting his head to stare through the window itself.

It was set high in the building and framed a view of grim desolation. The soil had been leached to expose the underlying rock, the vegetation which once had covered it long since gone, as were the minerals once contained within the stone. Machines had dug and ripped and crushed and spewed their detritus, turning a pleasant landscape into a barren wilderness. Exploitation had left nothing but sourness and acid rains which, even as he watched, came to add more corrosion to the thick pane and the metal in which it was set.

Looking down, he could now understand the presence of the flowers; the contrast they provided to the desolation outside.

"Caradoc's work," said a voice behind him. "He said that a touch of color would help."

Turning, Irae said, "Help whom? You?"

An accusation, which Yoka dismissed with a small gesture of a hand which seemed to be fashioned from transparent porcelain. No cyber was ever fat, for excess tissue lessened the efficiency of the physical machine which was the body, but Yoka was skeletal in his thinness. Beneath the scarlet robe, his body was reed-frail, his throat a match for the gaunt face and sunken eyes which, with his shaven pate, gave his head the appearance of a skull. A skull set with the jewel of his eyes which burned now, as always, with the steady flame of trained and directed intelligence.