Shortly before midnight, Aurelius Venport sat at a long opalwood table in an echoing chamber deep inside the Rossak cave city. He had furnished this room for his business meetings with drug prospectors, biochemists, and pharmaceutical merchants, but Zufa Cenva sometimes used it for her own private meetings.

Even in the late darkness, the chief Sorceress was out in the dangerous jungles, training her young protégés and preparing them for suicide attacks. Venport did not know whether Zufa was eager or afraid for her volunteers to be called again.

He very much hoped his mate didn’t get ideas of her own, though she would probably love to make herself a martyr. Zufa took him for granted, blamed him for his imagined failings, but still Venport cared for the cold, pale Sorceress. He didn’t want to lose her.

Zufa had been due back more than an hour ago, and he’d been waiting for her. It did him no good to be impatient, though. The haughty Sorceress operated on her own schedule, considering his priorities unimportant.

Even in the darkest night, the cave room was illuminated by warm, comforting light— a glowing yellow sphere that floated gracefully above the table like a portable, personal sun. Dear Norma had sent it to him from Poritrin as a gift, a compact light source levitated by a new suspensor field she had developed. Based on the same principle as a glowpanel, but much more efficient, the device generated illumination as a by-product of the suspensor field itself. Norma called it a glowglobe, and he’d been considering its commercial possibilities.

Venport took a long drink of bitter herbal ale from a goblet in front of him. He grimaced, then drank some more, trying to bolster his nerve. Zufa should be here any minute, and he was anxious to see her. Out in the jungles the Sorceresses had erected a shrine to honor fallen Heoma. Maybe they were all there now, dancing around it under the starlight, chanting incantations like witches. Or maybe— despite their cool, agnostic logic and determination— they chose private moments to worship a Gaia life force, an Earth mother that embodied feminine power. Anything to set them apart from what they considered to be “weakling” men . . .

Beckoned by the glowglobe, nightbugs flew into the room from the outer corridors. The nocturnal insects had a voracious appetite for human blood, but only men were bothered. It was one of the jokes of Rossak, as if the Sorceresses had cast some sort of a spell on the tiny creatures to keep their men inside during the evenings, while women performed secret rites out in the jungles.

Another quarter of an hour passed, and still Zufa did not join him. Frustrated with her, Venport finished the ale and set the empty goblet on the opalwood table, heaving a disgusted sigh. He rarely asked to see her, but this was important to him. Couldn’t she give him just a few moments of her precious time?

Still, he would continue to seek her understanding and respect. For years, Venport had enjoyed substantial success in exporting medical narcotics and pharmaceuticals manufactured from Rossak plants. In the past month, his men had turned a large profit from the sale of psychedelics to Yardin. The drugs had become a favorite of the Buddislamic mystics who ran the place. The mystics used the Rossak hallucinogen in religious rituals, attempting to attain enlightenment.

Venport stared at a large, milky soostone on the table. A smuggler from Buzzell, one of the Unallied Planets, had sold him the extremely rare and valuable stone. The dealer had claimed that some soostones of extraordinary purity possessed hypnotic focusing abilities. He wanted Zufa to wear it with pride, perhaps on a pendant. The Sorceress could use it to make herself stronger.

He inserted a rolled slip of alkaloid bark into his mouth and crunched down, knowing it would make him relax. He dimmed the glowglobe and adjusted its spectrum to a more orange light, which caused the soostone to dance with rainbow colors. The alkaloid bark made him feel tingly, calm . . . and distant. The uncommon stone shimmered hypnotically, and he lost track of time.

When Zufa entered the room, her pale face was flushed, her eyes bright. She looked like an ethereal creature in the room’s rich glow. She wore a long diaphanous gown with tiny jewels sparkling across it like a field of ruby flowers.

“I see you have nothing important to do,” she said, already frowning.

He gathered his wits about him. “Nothing more important than waiting for you.” Rising to his feet with all the pride he could muster, he picked up the soostone. “I found this, and I thought of you. A gift from Buzzell, where my merchants made an extraordinary profit from—” Noticing an expression of disdain on her face, Venport felt flustered. His voice trailed off.

“And what am I supposed to do with it?” She examined the offering, without touching it. “When have I ever cared for pretty baubles?”

“It’s a rare soostone, said to have certain . . . telepathic enhancement characteristics. Perhaps you can use it as a focusing device when you instruct your trainees?” She stood like a statue, unimpressed, and he continued in a rush, “The Buddislamics on Yardin are clamoring for our psychedelics. I’ve made a lot of credits in the past few months, and I thought this was something you might appreciate.”

“I’m tired and I’m going to bed,” she said, letting him keep the present. “My Sorceresses have already proven their abilities. With machines still threatening every League world, we don’t have time to stare into soostones.”

He shook his head. What would it have cost her merely to accept his gift? Could she not at least have offered him a word of kindness? Hurt so deeply that even the calming bark could not soothe him, Venport shouted, “If we give up our humanity to fight the machines, Zufa, then Omnius has already won!”

She hesitated just a moment, but did not turn back to him. Instead, she went to her chambers and left him standing alone.