The library was a big place, long, broad, high enough for a  gallery with huge fireplaces at either end.  Once it had been the great hall of the stronghold but, as the House had grown, so had the building; now the fireplaces were blocked, the windows filled, the walls lined with books and records instead of banners, trophies and weapons.

Only the blazons on the chimney breasts remained unchanged: the Caldor insignia deep-cut into imperishable stone, a hand, grasping.

It would be grasping, thought Blaine with cynical amusement.  The Caldors were noted for their greed but then, he admitted, so were the Fentons, the Tomblains, the Egreths and all the rest of the eleven Houses which now ruled Hive.

Once it had been twenty-three, but that had been before the Pact had fraozen the status quo.  Now it was eleven.  Soon, inevitably, it would be less.  He wondered if Caldor would be among those to survive.

He turned and looked down the library.  It was dimly lit by modified flambeaux but, at a table toward the center of the room, a man sat in a wash of light.  It came from the viewer at which he worked, throwing his face into sharp relief.  Sergal, the librarian, was as old and dusty as his cherished books.  Blaine moved toward him, soft-footed on the stone-paved floor, coming up from behind so that he could look at the viewer over the old man's shoulder.  He frowned at what he saw.  "What are you doing?"

"My lord!"  Sergal started, almost falling from his chair.  "My lord, I did not hear you.  I -"

"Relax."  Blaine felt a momentary guilt at having startled the old man.  And Sergal was old, older than his father and almost as old as grandfather, who was so old that he was more dead than alive.  He leaned forward, studying the viewer.  It showed a portion of the family tree, not just the record of births, deaths and unions, but in more exact detail; the genetic patterns displayed in a color-code of dots and lines, the history of genes and chromosmes.  "For Uncle Emil?"