"Iban," Myles muttered tiredly, "Shut up. You will go aboard Black Warrior and work with Commander Tiger. You will not pester the Lord Commander and create a command nightmare. "
Jakre stiffened. "Legate, may I remind you-"
Myles slammed a hand on the arnirest-and gasped as the pain shot through his broken ribs. Despite gritting his teeth against the pain, he stated, "Rot you, Iban. Forget it! Screw the posturing. We've no position left, don't you understand? Everything's about to come apart. Rega, Sassa, even Itreata. We're not Sassans anymore, damn it! We're all human, and if we let this get away from us, we're all dead. " He half stood, glaring at Jakre. "Do you understand, Iban? Dead!"
For the first time since he'd known him, Than Jakre had no response but to look stunned, .his mouth opening and closing as if gasping for air.
Myles sighed and sagged, fighting the rush of, pain his outburst had caused.
"I'm sorry, my old friend. I know you, know your pride. Iban, I'm serious.
We've all got towork together."
"He's right." Delshay had steepled her long fingers, watching them through half-lidded eyes. "You've seen the death and misery on Imperial Sassa, Admiral. The rest of your worlds are only months away from a similar fate."
Than Jakre sagged in the chair, a trembling hand covering his eyes.
Sinklar stopped as he reached an intersection of corridors. His brain refused him sleep, a thousand worries nibbling at his mind. Too much had happened; the entire universe had cracked, taking a sideways lurch into insanity. The knowledge of failure burned like slow acid in Sinklar's soul. He'd tossed and turned, replaying the past: The war on Targa; Gretta's death; Ily's perfectly executed seduction. His arrest
had ground him down into the muck of futility. Only after Staffa's conquest of Rega, had the extent of that futility really settled to plague him.
He needed Anatolia. She'd barely been out of his sight since they'd walked out of the Biological Research Center. The one time they'd been separated, she'd been captured, despite a heroic effort by two of Sinklar's best soldiers. Buchman was still in med, growing a new shoulder.
I shouldn't have let her go. The thought nagged. He glanced at his chronometer. She'd be aboard in another six hours, and immediately after that, they'd space.
He took comfort in the knowledge that she'd be there. Now that she wasn't at his elbow, he realized how much he depended on her. She'd filled that ragged-edged hollow torn out of his heart when Gretta died.
Now, lost in Chrysla's endless corridors, he shrugged at the intersection and proceeded straight ahead, only to have the way blocked by a heavy, squared hatch. Cluttered security gear studded the panel above. Emotionless glass eyes stared at him while IR scanners and a host of other gear swiveled to note his presence. He studied the portal for a moment, then, realization dawning, pivoted on his heel. He'd taken no more than a couple of steps before he heard the hatch slip open with a slight sucking'sound.
"Sorry, I guess I took a wrong turn back at He stiffened as the Lord Commander stepped out on graceful feet.
"Do you need something, Sinklar?"
Before the hatch slid shut, Sinklar Fist caught a glimpse of Chrysla's bridge, well lit, surrounded by three-sixty, overhead screens and instrument-clustered duty stations.
Sinklar crossed his arms, struggling to mask his emotions. "No. I . . . I needed some exercise. Just out walking. That's all. I guess I wasn't paying attention to where I was. "
Didn't the Lord Commander of Companions ever wear anything except that gray arm6r and that animated cloak? But as Sinklar watched, tension began to knot within that powerful frame as if boundless energy had suddenly been generated with nowhere to go.
"The bridge security picked you up." Staffa kar Therma hooked a thumb over his shoulder.
"I'm sorry to have bothered you. It's late and .
"And you couldn't sleep. " The first ghostly trace of a smile appeared at the edges of those hard lips. "I think I understand. "
Staffa looked exhausted, as if he hadn't slept for days. The tracks of worry had eaten into the man's face. Sinklar took a deep breath, fighting the urge to pace, to smack his balled fist into his palm. Glancing down, he realized his own stance mirrored the Lord Commander's-and that abraded a raw nerve.
"Good evening to you, Lord Commander. Again, excuse me for bothering you - "
Sinklar wheeled, stirring his urge to bolt like a Targan rabbit from a coursing fox. With iron discipline, he kept moving suddenly rubbery legs in a measured and controlled retreat. His heart hammered desperately against his ribs. Of all the people to run into, why-
"Wait. "
Sinklar glanced over his shoulder, seeing Staffa- start forward purposely. He made three steps before he faltered, sudden indecision in his eyes.
He fears me as much as I fear him.
Staffa smiled nervously, gesturing down the corridor. "To be honest, I couldn't sleep either. I'd like ... Well, there's an observation lounge. Would you . . . Could we go there? Talk, perhaps? "
Sinklar's attempted smile decayed into a grimace. He closed his eyes, raising his hands as thoughts roiled like charged interstellar gas. "This is crazy!
What do you want of me? I've hated you and all you stand for. You've conquered my empire, destroyed my dreams. Isn't that enough?"
"The dance of the quanta," Staffa whispered, pain hidden in his soft tones.
"Do you know what this is like? Can you conceive of how hard this is for me?"
"Oddly enough, yes. I'm having my own problems understanding ... accepting.
I've made my commitment. Nevertheless, I'm still no more than your prisoner."
Sinklar glared up at the man. "I don't know what to believe."
"Believe this: I need you. Every man, woman, and child out there needs you. No matter how you feel about me, we've got problems; and we'd better start dealing with them. Come. This way." He palmed the lock plate and stepped inside in a swirl of dark gray cape.
Sinklar took a position opposite and, as the lift accelerated, he locked gazes with the Lord Commander. Etarian sand tigers stare at each otheriust like this when they crouch over a kill.
From his earliest childhood, Sinklar had heard stories about this man. His legacy of misery, ruin, and death should have twisted up like foul mist around his feet. Now they stood, face-to-face, separated by a gulf of experience, education, and war, bound by ties Sinklar couldn't allow himself to accept. No matter what the hard data might be.
The ride couldn't have lasted more than five mihutes-an endless eternity-before the door slipped aside and Staffa walked vigorously down yet another of the sparkling white corridors. No more than fifty meters beyond the lift, Staffa palmed a lock plate then stepped through a reinforced pressure hatch and into a softly lit room.
The heavy hatch snicked shut behind Sinklar, and he looked around curiously.
Like all rooms on the Companions' prized battleship, this one, too, amazed him. The lounge had been molded into Chrysla's curving hull. From the radius, they were close to the bow. The tactite dome allowed nearly three hundred and sixty degree visibility. Through it he could see his conquered Rega and a smear of stars beyond. Behind the dome, the contoured walls had been tastefully paneled in sandwood afid jet and accented with an inlaid filigree of woven gold. A thick Nesian carpet rippled in different colors with every cushioned step. Recliners, gravchairs, and comm terminals would have seated twenty people. Soft music played for background and the air carried the honeyed scent of cinnamon and conifer.
"Something to drink?" Staffa asked as he paused before the golden dispenser with its intricately sculpted and jeweled fittings. "I'd suggest the Myklenian brandy. There won't be much more after this supply is exhausted. Divine Sassa saw to that. Rotted fool. I'd spared the distilleries in my strike, but his bumbling niop-up crews leveled them. "
Sinklar took a deep breath, trying to exhale the suffocating tension. "That would be fine."
Staffa handed him a drinking bul
b filled with amber liquid. Sinklar tasted it, lifted an eyebrow in approbation, and sipped again as he walked to the dome and stared out at the planet beyond. The sight evoked a lonely longing.
Rega: Symbol of broken dreams. That world-and the empire it had commanded-had nurtured him, educated him, and sent him off to war. For a brief moment, he'd believed himself its master and suffered his greatest humiliation when the solid rock of his convictions had been turned to sand beneath his naive feet.
Ily ... it's all Ily's fault. A sick disgust lingered in his thoughts.
Now he gazed down on the latest, and last, of Staffa kar Therma's conquests.
"What next, Lord Commander? The Regan Empire-and that of the Sassans-lies prostrate at your feet. Is your victory all you'd hoped it would be?"
Staffa came to stand beside him, a glimmer of vulnerability in those steely eyes. "No, Sinklar, it isn't. "
"Had I been given the time to retrain the Regan armed forces-teach them my tactics-I would have stopped you. " Staffa rocked nervously, the drinking bulb held behind his
back. "You'd have struck Ryklos. I read Mykroft's briefing file. We found a copy in one of the personnel rooms when we ransacked the Ministry of Internal Security. The three wave attack was an astute strategy. Had you pulled it on Than Jakre, you'd have destroyed him. Had you pulled it on me, I'd have smelled the trap and dealt you a stunning blow. "
"Such assessments are easy to make in retrospect, Lord Commander. "
"If you ever decide to visit Itreata, I'll allow you access to the Strategic Defense files. You'll find the entire scenario there-along with the dates at which the strategy was conceived and every subsequent modification added."
"All neat and tidy? I'm to believe you had every permutation covered?"
A grim smile curled Staffa's lips. "Remember, I've had years to study the situation. Ryklos made very good bait. Consider its position. For strategic reasons, it would have made more sense for me to incorporate it into the Itreatic border. Ryklos might be nothing more than a mining colony on a ball of ice, but it would have made a safe port, one beyond the radiation of the Twin Titans. No, Sinklar, despite any such advantages, it served my needs better as a soak off. "
"Are you really that flawless?"
"In war, yes. Flaws, however, come in many forms. One is the inability to guess the future-in this case, the accidental destruction of the computer complex on Imperial Sassa. "
"An oversight which could kill us all, unless, of course, your mysterious Seddi computer can effect a miracle tantamount to milking water from Etarian sand. " He paused. "I don't suppose you'd let me bring the First Division alongjust in case the Seddi--
"If you wish. I see the knife that I gave you still rests on your hip." Staffa gestured weary acquiescence. "When I gave you my word, I had no idea that your hatred ran this deep. "
"Call it distrust, Lord Commander. The Seddi-and you and your Companions-cost me too much in the past. Makarta, no matter what kind of computer is hidden there, is a difficult place to forget. " Sinklar's soul chilled at the memory of Makarta. He could see the corpses lying blasted in dark passages, recall the bitter taste of defeat as friends died one by one in the desperate assault on the Seddi fortress.
Sinklar read the sober expression on Staffa's face. Yes, you, too, left a part of your soul therg, didn't you, Star Butcher?
I
The Lord Commander seemed to shake off his depression. "Do you know that I risked everything to find you and your mother? My search led me to Makarta.
That's how we came to face each other there. Tell me that the quanta didn't laugh. "
Sinklar grunted to himself before asking, "What kind of being are you?
Anatolia is baffled by your genetics."
"I'm a clone, Sinklar, an artificially constructed human being. Am I fully human? The answer is yes on all counts. I am conscious and through observation, change the reality of God Mind. From the standp6int of the biologists, I can produce viable offspring-as you so admirably demonstrate."
"You are a monster." "Once, I suppose, I was." "Past tense?"
Staffa fingered his chin thoughtfully. "I take a great deal of pride in your intelligence and ability. You didn't win on Targa because you were stupid. You may hate me all you want, but it has fallen to the two of us to accomplish several tasks. First, we must keep the economic systems of Sassa and Rega functioning-integrate them, in fact. Second, we must break the Forbidden Borders, once and for all . . . and free humanity from the trap we're in. "
Sinklar sipped his brandy, eyes narrowed skeptically. "What about the conquered? I'm your prisoner. What do you want me to do? Take your orders? Do your bidding? Fall at your feet as a worshipful son? If you do, I'm sorry, but I know too much about your career. None of the human wreckage you've left in your wake sings your praises. Not only that, I've had firsthand experience with your Seddi friends. I don't know what game you're playing, but you can keep your tapa cards because I'm not buying chips."
Staffa closed his eyes, head lowered. "It's a long story. How familiar are you with psychology?"
"Familiar enough, I suppose."
"Using teaching machines, structured learning, conditioning, and reinforcement in a completely controlled environment from the time a child is an infant, how thoroughly could you modify his behavior?"
"Substantially, but that's a hypothetical-"
"How substantially? Using the total resources of the Regan Empire-their best psychologists and unlimited funding-how successful do you think you could be at shaping a child into a certain type of human being?"
Sinklar gestured futilely. "All right, fairly successful, but you can't discount behavioral genetics. People's personalities differ. That template is in the DNA, and with sexual reproduction each potential offspring has two to the twentythird chances to receive-"
"Not when you're talking about a clone, Sinklar. The Praetor of Myklene could structure his genetic program anyway he wished."
"But the mind still learns through random action. Stimuli are so varied and the mind is so plastic. The brain learns through making choices in the interpretation of seemingly random and contradictory data."
"In an uncontrolled environment, I agree that it does. But my environment was totally controlled. Every second
of my existence was orchestrated according to plan, Sinklar. I suspect they even used their machines to modify and pattern my dreams."
"Rotted Gods. " Sinklar fought a sudden shiver as he stared into those deadly gray eyes.
"Yes, Rotted Gods is right. The Praetor wanted a monster-as You so aptly noted-and he made one. In the process, I still had a fully human mind, centers for personality and all the pitfalls that make us behave in a human manner. I was, after all, a social animal. Who wants a monster they can't appeal to, communicate with? The Praetor played upon that human weakness. He laid traps there, psychological triggers.
Staffa stared vacantly out at the wealth of stars beyond the transparent tactite. "He knew I'd be coming for him. The day he drove me out, banished me from Myklene, he knew I'd be driven to return, to destroy him for what he'd done to me. "
"So you took the Sassan contract and blasted Myklene. Sinklar had edged away, wary gaze on Staffa.
"I did. There's more. But you've heard enough for now, enough to understand something about me ... and about him. "
"I've heard you twisted his head off his body."
Staffa nodded absently. "He'd taken Chrysla and you from me. He used those psychological triggers he'd installed so expertly in my youth." Staffa turned haunted eyes on Sinklar. "Do you know what it's like to suddenly have a conscience after you've lived all your life without one? Your brain floods with endorphins, doparnines, acetylcholines, and other chemicals. You suffer fits of wretched depression and sudden exultation. Morose thoughts one minute, crazy intuition the next as the brain struggles toward equilibrium. You became my obsession."
Sinklar tossed off the last of'the brandy. "I don't want to be anyone's
obsession. Especially yours."
Staffa chuckled humorlessly. "Relax, Sinklar, I'm sane now. I've made my peace with what happened. I did what I did. A man can't change facts anymore than he can change galactic drift. But what he can do is learn . . . atone, if you will. "
' 'So that's it? The Praetor tripped his triggers and you became a good guy?
Just like that?"
"Not exactly, " Staffa said dryly. "Like you, overconfident and brash, I charged out into the real world. On Etaria I was sold into the collar-made a slave. I got a real education out in the deep desert beyond Etarus. I spent my time thirsting and suffering in the True Sand hauling water pipe. My companions out there . . . "
Staffa's grip tightened around the drinking bulb, powerful muscles straining, tendons standing from the back of his hand. "Maikans, most of them. People, gentle people, whom I'd condemned to the collar after I conquered their world for Tybalt. I watched them die, Sinklar. One by one I watched them roast in a hell of my making and die. Peebal . . .Koree . . . and the others."
Staffa's cheek twitched as the lines deepened at the corner of his haunted eyes.
Sinklar endured the lengthening silence.
Finally Staffa exhaled and turned, gaze gone leaden. "I've kept you long enough for one night. I suggest you access the data on the current economic situation in Free Space and its implications. Enemy though you may consider yourself, I've given you security clearance for most of the system. "
Staffa whirled and strode away in a floating billow of dark gray cloak. He barely hesitated as he slapped the lock plate and stepped through the hatch.
Koree? Peebal? What had happened in that Etarian desert? Who was this man?
This strange "father?" And what does it mean for me? For Mac, and Anatolia?
And worse, for my people?
Sinklar walked over and stared at himself in the mirror, shocked as he realized that the tormented exhaustion in Staffa's face mimicked his own.
Inside the Regan Ministry of Internal Security, they broke the code twenty minutes before Anatolia was scheduled to catch the shuttle. Another eleven minutes vanished as controls were run on the data to ensure that no virus had been released by their access.