Penelope Bailey stood beside a wooden bench next to the pond behind her house, her eyes trained blindly on the sky, seeing what no one else on Mozart could see, what no more than a handful of sophisticated instruments on the planet could detect.

“You are a fool, Moses Mohammed Christ,” she murmured. “Have you learned nothing from our prior encounters? Do you think my power is limited to destroying your churches?” She paused. “There is still time to turn back—but you will not retreat, will you? What lunacy has possessed you, what demons have goaded you into attacking me when the only possible result is your destruction?”

She sighed deeply, then went inside to make herself a cup of tea. The fleet was not yet in the formation she desired, and she knew that she had an hour or more to prepare herself. She sat down at a small table in the kitchen, added some lemon to the tea, stirred it absently, and continued looking out the window.

There were still factors to be sorted out, alternatives to be found, actions to be considered. Six of the Anointed One's ships had developed engine trouble; should she destroy them, or let them live to tell the story of his defeat, to spread tales of her power throughout the galaxy? There was another ship, too, one that she foresaw would not join the formation, that seemed somehow special though she could not yet determine why.

Then she turned her attention to the Democracy. The Plan took constant modification, incessant monitoring. This man must die; that woman must not. This world's economy must collapse; that lone miner must discover his planet's only diamond pipe. She twitched, she posed, she postured, she did all that was necessary to bring about the desired events, and then she began reading the permutations of those events, for each of them altered a million possible futures, and she was presented with a new set of choices, a new spate of alternatives, all of which must be read and analyzed and extrapolated.

She concentrated on the Plan for perhaps forty minutes. Then, satisfied that it was on track for another day, she made another cup of tea and walked out to the pond once more. Again she looked blindly up to the skies.

“Soon, Moses Mohammed Christ,” she murmured. “Soon.”

She finished her tea and set the cup and saucer down on the wooden bench.

“I would have given you another six years,” she said softly, staring at the sky. “Eventually I would have defeated you in the Spica sector, but you would have enjoyed six more years of power and authority. Now I will have to rebuild your organization, will have to assert myself sooner. I will adjust and I will triumph, but I cannot fathom why you have chosen to throw your life away. When we met at Spica, I would have given you no alternative but to fight or run, and because you could not lose face before your followers you would have fought.” She paused, frowning. “But there is no reason for this confrontation today, no reason for you to die on the Inner Frontier. I must learn what brought you to this unhappy end, for it became likely only a week ago and certain only this morning.”

And because she did not have the gift of reading the past, she turned her attention once more to the future, to the infinite number of futures confronting her, searching through them for a key to unlock the recent past, to determine the reason for her enemy's suicidal decision.

And, within a very few minutes, she found it.

“Of course,” she said, with no feeling of surprise. “It had to be you.”

She closed her eyes to better see the future.

“You learn well, Carlos Mendoza,” she said, a half-smile on her lips. “You will not approach until the attack has begun, and at that time I shall be too busy neutralizing the doomsday weapons to bother with you. Their threat is immediate, while yours, though greater, is further removed in time, and I will have to let you land.”

She concentrated harder, sifting through the futures. “You chose your position with foresight and intelligence,” she continued. “No meteor, no asteroid, no debris can reach you before you join the battle. And yet,” she said, “perhaps I can show you that I have more weapons in my arsenal than even you anticipate.”

Suddenly she smiled. “A pacemaker? Blood thinners? You are prepared, are you not? Very well. You shall not die of a heart attack or a stroke before you can face me.” She paused. “Some things even I cannot change. Evidently it has been ordained in the Book of Fate that I must confront you one last time.”

And now her face contorted with rage. “I have never sought to make you my enemy. Twice I could have killed you, and twice I allowed you to live. I could have destroyed Last Chance in the twinkling of an eye, and yet I did not. And still you seek me out, you remain dedicated to my destruction. It is because of you that I have become a fugitive among my own people, that I have spent the past twenty years in hiding or in confinement. You are the architect of my unhappiness, and today, when I have done what I must do to the fleet that approaches, I shall face you one last time.”

She paused, trying to control her emotions.

“I will show you no more mercy than you would show me,” she whispered. “I have things to do in the galaxy, great things, things that are beyond your feeble comprehension. You will never hinder them again.”

She looked up at the sky once more, not to where the fleet was gathered, but to where a lone ship, still light years away, was speeding toward Mozart.

“You shall learn what it means to oppose me now that my powers are mature,” she promised. “You shall learn why men fear the darkness, and why death itself can be a mercy. Prepare yourself, Carlos Mendoza, for this is your last day of life.”