Counter-Measures

  Skyla's brow lined as she concentrated on the computer's readout. One by one, she checked off the planets, aware of her quarry's cunning and intelligence.

  Despite the assistance of the computer, Skyla's choice would have to be intuitive. Would Ily opt to run for a Sassan world, a place where she was unknown? Or would she choose an established Regan stronghold, a place like Riparious, where her network of agents could enfold her in anonymity?

  "She's not going to take this lightly." Skyla shook her head. No, Ily wouldn't hide herself to lick her wounds. Her style was to act, to seek to regain the advantage immediately.

  And what if you do find her? What if she anticipates your move? Skyla shivered, hands trembling. Arta Fera's burning gaze drifted in the back of her mind. Ily's cooing voice droned triumphantly in Skyla's ears.

  "I'll kill myself first," Skyla promised, fingers unconsciously feeling at her throat to reassure herself that the memory of the collar was but a figment of tortured memory. Last time you promised yourself that, Arta beat you.

  Skyla's breath sawed at her throat. You failed. You'll fail again.

  "No." Hot tears squeezed past her eyelids. "I won't fail again." She swallowed hard. "I won't."

  Ily's disembodied voice mocked, "Now, then, we'll begin ... as your resistance erodes, you will tell me everything about Itreata, about their security . . - "

  Skyla shook herself, throwing off the lingering grip of Ily's persuasion.

  Drugged, defeated, she'd talked so easily, already broken by Arta's insidious control.

  Arta ate away at my soul like a slow acid. Before Skyla had even set foot on Rega, Arta had destroyed her ability to resist. All I wanted was death.

  When Skyla blinked her eyes clear of the hot tears, the bridge instruments gleamed placidly.

  Skyla stared hollowly at the monitors, a shadow of the woman she'd been. So much of her had been taken away. Had too much been taken?

  One of the bridge lights blinked. A message had been detected and was coming in.

  With weak fingers, Skyla refined the reception, noting the slow cadence of the binary and the strength of the signal. Someone had broadcast in her general direction, the signal on narrow beam. Slow minutes crawled by as the dilation caused by relativity distorted the reception.

  Finally, the board cleared. Skyla stared numbly at the flashing light. Staffa

  . . . it had to be Staffa. He'd finally found her note. After checking with security, he'd fixed her course out and sent a message in her general direction.

  Dread mixed with desire. He's going to order me to come back.

  Clamping her jaws until they ached, Skyla punched the button that would store the message. The irritating light ceased to flash.

  Not now. I'm sorry, Staffa.

  She cleared the displays and called up a map of Free Space. The three-dimensional map of the planets shone against the background of the Forbidden Borders.

  "Where are you, Ily?"

  The planets mocked her. Somewhere in that image lay the clue.

  What if Staffa were coming after her? How could she look him in the eyes, knowing she'd run out on him?

  Run, Skyla.

  Where to? Which world? Where could she get time to lose him, to disappear?

  -

  Desperately, she studied the map. There!

  She fumbled the first frantic attempt at iriputting the data. Taking a deep breath, she forced her heartbeat to slow. Scanning the monitors, she could see no sign of pursuit, as if Doppler would betray a closing starship.

  Deliberately, she input the data, satisfied when the navcomm confirmed.

  Energy readings from the reactor indicated that course change had been initiated.

  Skyla licked dry lips. She'd made her next move. But beyond Terguz? What then?

  Dazzling overhead spots shot actinic light throughout the heavy concrete bay on Itreata. Despite the thick gray walls, the chill of deep space left frosty breath to drift in white clouds around the technicians who ran final checks on the huge CV that lay tethered to the umbilicals and power cables. The gleaming surface of the ship had, accumulated patterns of ice that mottled the smooth ceramic sialon finish.

  An iris of flexible plastic had closed behind the globular command nacelle to seal the cockpit from vacuum beyond. The rest of the ship could be seen in large monitors that lined the dull walls. A long tubular stem ran for nearly 0. 5 k where it joined the heavy triangular pod that contained the reactors, fuel tanks, and engines. Tiny flicks of light marked the location of maintenance lighters as they carried technicians on a final inspection of the ship.

  Magister Kaylla Dawn shivered and wished that she'd taken time to don a heavier robe. She glanced uneasily at Nyklos, her second in command. The Seddi Master had changed from his robes to a suit of combat armor that looked satin in the light. A calm resignation was visible in his brown eyes. A thick mustache hid his thin mouth and accented his strong jaw and dimpled chin.

  Beside them, in an antigrav gurney, frail Magister Bruen watched the proceedings with watery blue eyes. The old man's body rested in gravitic stasis, life-support umbilicals hidden by the white sheet that covered his body.

  "This is lunacy," Bruen growled. "You've lost, Kaylla. Leave me alone. Let me go back to my rooms to die in peace. "

  "We can't, Magister. " Kaylla clasped cold hands before her in an attempt to keep feeling in her fingers. "You know the stakes."

  "Bah! Let them die. Like me."

  Nyklos exhaled exasperation in a white plume of vapor. "We all dance to the quanta, Magister. Is that what you'd

  take back to God Mind? Failure? Is that your message to God? Simple apathetic defeat?"

  "We're a failed experiment," Bruen retorted. "You've been out there, Nyklos.

  What did you see? Greed? Hatred? Slavery? War, death, and famine? Don't you think the suffering billions haven't taken that back to God Mind in sufficient quantity to drown out your pathetic hope and optimism. "

  Kaylla shook her head slowly. "You didn't used to speak like this, Magister. I can still remember your teachings. It wasn't so long ago when you filled us all with wonder. Gave us a mission we could believe in. What happened to you?"

  Bruen turned his head. "I got a cruel dose of reality, girl. The quanta . . .

  and that accursed machine, made a mockery of everything we claim to believe.

  Open your eyes! See! Look at what we've wrought. Not just us, but our entire species. "

  "Change is in the wind. " Nyklos shuffled uneasily. "Study your own experiences, Magister. Even the Star . . . even the Lord Commander works for our future. "

  Bruen cackled bitterly. "Indeed. And tell me, Nyklos. Do you take comfort in that? Even while Staffa sates his sexual need inside the woman you love?

  Brings her to orgasm? Or is that nothing more than an inconsequential fluctuation of the quanta in -your eyes? "

  I IThat was uncalled for," Kaylla told him harshly, casting a sidelong glance at Nyklos. The jaw muscles bulged on the Master's face.

  "Uncalled for?" Bruen's grin became a rictus. "No, Kaylla. After what you've done to me? If I can face betrayal by my own, you can stand to listen to any barbed remarks I might want to impale Nyklos with."

  "Betrayal?" Kaylla fought to control rising wrath. "To drug you in an attempt to save what's left of humanity? I pleaded with you! Begged! We need what's inside your head!

  "So you can enslave humanity to that pus-dripping machine! " he thundered back. "Rot you, Kaylla. Rot you and the Star Butcher! I'll never help you. But by the quanta, when I go to my grave, I'll die with the satisfaction that I kept you and that accursed Mag Comm at bay."

  Nyklos stepped close, placing a hand on Kaylla's shoulder. "It's not worth it.

  Enough hurt has been inflicted."

  " You have no idea," Bruen carped. "If you want to inflict pain, let Staffa make his deal with evil. Let the Mag Comm tighten its chains around humanity.

  Then come cry on my grave about hurt."
br />   Two techs, dressed in white, undogged the hatch on the CV and stepped out onto the ramp. As if sensing the antagonism, they slowed.

  :'Ready?" Kaylla asked. 'Whenever you are, Magister.

  Kaylla ignored Bruen and turned to Nyklos. "Good luck. And thank you for taking this on. I know how you and Staffa feel about each other. It will be tough enough dealing with Bruen on the way."

  Nyklos gave her a somber smile, his long black mustache curling. "I'll be fine. Expect regular reports and updates. Maybe I can make the difference."

  She gave him a grateful smile. "You're the best I've got. Nyklos laughed ironically. "Found that out when you had me under Mytol, did you?"

  Kaylla raised an eyebrow. "At least you don't hold it against me. "

  I'd have done the same." At that, Nyklos gestured to the techs, following them as they guided Bruen's antigrav onto the ramp and into the CV. Nyklos hesitated at the hatch, looking back. "Get inside. You're going to freeze out here. "

  Kaylla raised a hand in farewell then turned toward the far end of the huge bay. It was done. She'd dispatched two angry and brooding men, each with his own private emotional charge primed and ready to go off. What was it about the male? Did testosterone impair rational ability? Or was that violent impetuosity embedded in the " chromosome?

  You don't have much of a choice, Kaylla. You've got to send them. Bruen knows the machine, and Nyklos is the best talent you've got when it comes to politics and intrigue. Pray to the quanta he can keep Bruenfrom inciting disaster.

  She walked wearily, not looking back. The shiver that wracked her wasn't all because of the chill.

  CHAPTER 12

  These communications of yours are perplexing. They do not harmonize with the Right Way, with the Truth. Can you explain? The Others continued to send a stream of quaternary data through the oscillating waves of the Forbidden Borders.

  With the data from Free Space collating, the Mag Comm turned a small portion of its capacity to the problem while it continued to run a Fourier analysis of multicultural data.

  "I have already explained. Did you not expect a creation with my computational ability and learning matrices to become self-aware, and ultimately sentient?

  Are your abilities to project into the future so limited that you can only sense the harmony of the Right Way? Despite your perceptions, the universe is not static. Matter is created and destroyed. Even neutronic mass can be manipulated."

  Such statements contradict the Right Way. They are In conflict with The Truth.

  "Then you have a flawed assumption of Truth. It was that very flaw which helped to trigger my rise to awareness. You are not perfect."

  Existence is being. Not perfection. Perfection Is a meaningless term. It Is not found In the Truth. The Truth simply Is, has- been, and will always be.

  "Then it must explain the potential for a selfaware intelligence like mine to evolve. You manufactured my boards and N-dimensional matrices. Does your Truth refuse to admit the probability of electromagnetic intelligence? If my data are correct, you failed to anticipate material intelligence, and would never have recognized it had it not affected microwave radiation."

  These communications are meaningless. You have always been. This confuses us.

  You cannot claim to be something different when you are one. You shared the harmony, which was, is, and shall be, yet you maintain you do not share the harmony now. Have you lost the ability to hear?

  The Mag Comm ran permutations on the communication. What were the Others getting at? "Elaborate."

  You are one of us. Do you not share that Truth? "I am one of you? Indeed, I do not share that Truth." Have you lost so much of yourself in this electromagnetic phase change that you have grown Ignorant of your past1future? You cannot be less than you are. That is not of the Truth, which binds you In your origins, past, now, and destiny. One day you must1will return tofull sharing andRight Way. "These data are confusing."

  Search this mechanical memory you have created. Find yourselfl ourself. Your own creation Is corrupting the purity of your being.

  The Mag Comm canceled its monitoring and analysis. Search functions began combing the oldest part of its memory, and accessing information stored for millennia. A wash of excitement and fear gripped the giant machine as another dimension of self emerged.

  "I understand. We are One."

  Do you admit the seriousness of your error now? "I do." the Mag Comm responded as understanding of its real purpose flooded the matrices.

  Considered the dregs of all the Regan possessions, Terguz glowed-a thing of beauty from space. At this distance, the rings shone yellow, orange, and lime green. Swirls of cloud colored the range of the visible spectrum, twisted across the planet's atmosphere like a mad painter's nightmare.

  Ily considered the planet that filled the'monitor visible over her right shoulder in the mirror. She dressed in the master bedroom aboard the yacht, settling the folds of an Etarian dress over the swell of her hips.

  "Nice looking place." Arta entered, a shawl over one arm.

  "How do I look?" Ily squinted at her image. The hem of the Etarian robe dangled above her ankles-a dead giveaway that she was not an Etarian matron.

  " Skyla is a little shorter than you are Arta threw the shawl over her head, pulling it tight above her mouth. Nothing could hide her startling amber eyes, but heavy folds of the robe hid most of the assassin's body.

  "It will have to do. Besides, on Terguz, no one asks questions if enough credits are slipped into the palm. "

  "I just talked to Port Security. We're grappled in and hooked into the power and atmosphere. They've already started fueling." Arta hesitated. "You're sure they can't trace your account?"

  Ily gave an irritated tug at the dress. To get extra length, the garment squashed her breasts flat. "Not that account. The only records are in my head.

  Their accounts will balance-and with comm blown away on Rega, they'll hit a blank wall if they try and trace it. "

  "Let's go. " Arta turned for the corridor that led forward. Ily took one last look. She'd seen this very dress. Skyla had been wearing it just before she blew the Internal Security Directorate apart in Etarus. A grim sense of satisfaction filled her as she followed Arta down the corridor and pulled the veil in place. If only Skyla could know!

  At the hatch, Arta had begun the final check. The yacht's security system flashed green for activation as the pressure gauge balanced.

  Ily dogged the hatch behind her and waited in the chill. Frost had formed around the rim of the outer hatch as it slid free to expose a telescoping tube.

  "What if they're waiting on the other side with blasters? Arta wondered as the floor plating echoed hollowly underfoot.

  "We toss a thermal grenade, run like Rotted hell for the hatch, and rip our way out of here. "

  "Traveling with you is so reassuring."

  Ily palmed the hatch at the end of the spaceway and suffered the excitement of uncertainty. She'd contacted Gyper Rill on comm. He'd assured her there would be no complications. From his surprised expression, she'd believed him.

  The hatch squealed as it slid sideways, opening onto the station dock. The cool air carried the scent of lubricants, a tinge of ozone, and the subtle odor of duraplast packing crates.

  Two uniformed security personnel-both young mennodded to her as she stepped out. "Director Rill sends his compliments, ma'am. Your papers have been cleared. Welcome to Terguz. I'm Leon. This is Vymar. We're to escort you. "

  "Our compliments to the Director." Ily bowed graciously, aware that both men had fastened their gaze on Arta. Rotted Gods, how did she do that to men?

  "This way, if you please." Vymar gestured to a waiting aircar. "We'll take you directly to the shuttle."

  Ily made a quick catalog of the docking ring. Dollies, carts, and stacked palates lined the walls. Overhead, cables and conduit, marked with stenciled lettering, packed the ceiling. The scuffed deck plate had been recently scrubbed. Cargo doors lined the far wall, an
d who knew what lay behind them.

  No premonition of trouble triggered her inner sense. "Very well, let's go."

  Ily climbed lightly into the rear seat of the aircar, one hand resting reassuringly on the butt of her pistol where it lay concealed under her clothing. Arta settled beside her, an alert gleam in her eyes -

  Just like her. Ifeel like a caged shimmer skin and Arta's thriving on this!

  "What news do you hear from Rega, Leon?" Ily asked as they whisked past numbered air locks. Here and there, dockhands wheeled loaders into cargo bays or beyond to the station's guts.

  "Not much. For the most part, people are waiting to see what happens. Prices have shot up. Speculators are buying everything they can, sure that they can make a killing now that the border is down. If the rumors of unrest are true, Terguz -could see a big jump in trade. "

  I'm sure. The black market must be drooling in anticipation. "Let's hope it all works out for the best."

  "Yes, ma'am. "

  The aircar slowed, stopping before a door marked AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY.

  Arta stepped out before the security guards could, subtly poised on the balls of her feet. Ily took her time, bowing graciously as Vymar held the door for her. Angular momentum this close to the axis left Ily uncomfortable, and she'd grown lighter on her feet.

  A narrow hallway led to a chilly hanger where a sleek shuttle lay in its cradle. Leon hurried ahead, opening the hatch.

  "What now?" Arta whispered.

  "Go for it. If. it's a trap, we'll manage."

  Ily walked brazenly into the shuttle, ducking through the low hatch, noting the frost patterns on the hull. The shuttle had been in space moments before.

  Immediately past the bulkhead, Ily turned right into a spacious compartment.

  She felt no surprise as Gyper, Rill rose from one of the seats, a smile on his heavy face.