A yawn Lane couldn’t suppress came from the speakers.
“In both cases the orders were logged by Nathan Alt. Now five and a half weeks after he was allegedly fired.”
At last! A flare of hope seemed to go off in Koina’s heart. Her relief was so intense that she nearly staggered. Without noticing it, she began to pant for air. At last!
If the Members hadn’t been trapped in the sound of Lane’s breathing, more of them would have reacted. Some of Holt’s supporters slumped as if they were collapsing. Others gaped in disbelief and consternation; betrayal. Blaine tried to speak, but couldn’t find her voice. However, most of the Council simply stared at the speakers like men and women who were too aghast to understand what they heard. The ground they’d walked on all their lives—the power and position of the UMC—had begun to crack under them.
In the shocked silence Sixten jumped to his feet and thrust his fists triumphantly at the ceiling.
“This is crazy,” Cleatus croaked. The blood had been stricken from his face: he looked as pallid as a cadaver. “Alt must have planned it all along.” His lips quivered. His gaze raced around the room, as if he were looking frantically for an escape. “He must have betrayed our entire Security. We fired him. Somehow he got back in. Weeks after we got rid of him.”
The sight of his fear was all the evidence Koina needed. It confirmed that Lane was right.
“No, Mr. Fane.” The researcher seemed to fight her fatigue down for the last time. “You said yourself you changed your security after he was fired. That’s on the record. In any case, no one person can break into Anodyne. We’ve just proven that. Alt must have had clearance from Home Security, as well as the full authority of the Security Liaison’s office, in addition to his personal codes. Otherwise he wouldn’t have been able to get his hands on that chip.
“There’s only one possible conclusion. You’ve been lying all along. Alt was still working for the UMC when he made his plans to replace Clay Imposs. And the traitor who detonated him is still in that room.”
Lane faded away; then returned with an effort. “Everything we’ve done has been logged and recorded. You can access it whenever you want verification.”
Still in that room—The idea took a moment to penetrate. Then it seemed to sting the Members out of their stunned dismay. In a rush they all started talking at once; to each other or their aides; to anyone they could reach.
Koina pitched her voice to carry over the sudden hubbub.
“One last question, Dr. Harbinger. I know you’re exhausted. You’ve done brilliant work, and you deserve rest. But the last I heard this investigation was assigned to Director Lebwohl and Chief of Security Mandich. Where are they now? What have they been doing?”
If she could, she wanted to remove any taint that Hashi’s tarnished reputation might cast on Lane’s testimony.
Lane whimpered softly. Her breathing shook as if she were feverish. Nevertheless she rallied to answer.
“We’ve been working together. They’re back in the Anodyne computers. Getting more evidence. We may be able to trace the id tags for all three kazes to the same source.”
Somewhere she found the strength to finish, “Lane out.” But she couldn’t toggle her pickup. The speakers produced a thin, snoring rasp until someone closed her channel for her.
Cleatus’ eyes rolled, and sweat splashed down his face: he looked like an animal in torment. His hands made clutching motions he couldn’t complete, grasping after support he didn’t get from his downlink.
“Why?” he objected wildly. “Why would anybody do this? Why would Holt Fasner? My God, you can’t believe it. Send kazes against the Council? It’s insane! There’s been a mistake. Or that”—he sputtered in outrage—“that Harbinger is making it up. You could have been killed.” His voice broke into a cry. “I could have been killed!”
His fear was too extreme to be explained by failure. Nevertheless Koina took no pity on him. Suddenly Warden’s dreams had come back to life; raised from the dead by Lane’s inspired exhaustion and Hashi’s cleverness and Mandich’s loyalty. The Members had been shocked to the core: they believed her now. She would see Cleatus Fane in his grave before she let this opportunity pass.
“I don’t think you were in any danger,” she retorted, loud and clear as the ring of a carillon. “I think you’re the one who gave Captain Alt his signal to die. You were safe because you could choose when and where he exploded.”
Cleatus shook his head. Denials bubbled like froth on his lips. But she didn’t stop.
“As for why, I think that’s obvious.” She hammered the words as if she were nailing shut a coffin. “The Members might have passed Captain Vertigus’ Bill of Severance if that kaze hadn’t scared them so badly. In any case, Special Counsel Igensard’s investigation could have been dangerous to you. God knows it should have been. Under the right circumstances, it might have been fatal.
“Holt Fasner began to suspect that Warden Dios intended to make their crimes public—crimes committed by the UMCP on your CEO’s orders. Those kazes were sent to pressure the Council into protecting Fasner by getting rid of Warden Dios without weakening the UMC’s hold on the UMCP.”
She would have gone on. After all her years of distress and dishonesty under Godsen Frik—and all the pain of helping Warden do himself so much harm—she was more than angry enough to match Cleatus’ alarm. She wanted to pour acid by the vatful on his undefended head.
Sixten interrupted her, however. While she gathered her accusations, he called out like a trumpet, “Mr. President, I move we forget this proposal to recharter and enact my Bill instead.”
His old voice carried a grim thrill of vindication.
“Seconded!” Sigurd Carsin, Blaine Manse, and Tel Burnish shouted together.
Before Abrim could respond, Cleatus burst to his feet, jutted his beard at the ceiling. “No!” he howled. “Stop!” He might have forgotten that the Council existed. Desperately he tried to raise his voice across hundreds of k to UMCHO. “What’re you—? Don’t!”
But apparently Holt no longer heeded him. He ripped the PCR from his ear, flung it away. “You fools!” he raged at the Members. “You’re going to get us killed! Don’t you know that he won’t tolerate this?”
He seemed to be raving.
With a quick nod, President Len sent Forrest Ing and his guards to take the terrified FEA out of the room.
According to one of Koina’s techs, the command module and Trumpet were three minutes off Calm Horizons when the Council passed Sixten’s Bill by acclamation.
HOLT
Holt Fasner considered himself a true visionary, one of the last. After listening to the debacle of Cleat’s efforts to control the Council, he thought he might be the only one left.
Apparently that gaggle of self-important, gutless twits had no grasp on the real issues humankind faced. They probably couldn’t even have guessed what those issues were. Instead they were too busy acting like a damn guttergang to put one coherent idea in front of another. They were in a frenzy to tear down whatever they could reach, despite the fact that they’d benefited for decades from what they destroyed.
A visionary, any visionary, could have told them that the entire system which gave them their pretense of importance and authority was doomed.
Did they really think their misguided species could ever win against the Amnion? Did they actually imagine that an ideal police force—backed by an ideal budget, of course-could protect them from Amnion imperialism? They were wrong. Oh, in the short term, human production methods gave them an advantage. But over the long haul that would prove to be an illusion. Amnion genetic imperatives were steadier and more relentless than almost any amount of human political will. The aliens would study human production, human tissue, human decisions, and grow stronger. The process might take years or decades: it might take centuries. The Amnion didn’t care. The moment humankind’s determination wavered, the whole life-form would be swept out of existence.
&nbs
p; Holt would have explained all this to the votes years ago if he hadn’t been so full of scorn for his own kind. But the truth was that he didn’t think his species as it stood deserved to survive. The very ease with which he’d acquired his empire and his power, crushed his opponents, and manipulated every faction on the planet disqualified his supporters as well as his enemies from continuance. With virtually no exceptions, Earth’s offspring were too small-minded and fearful to even comprehend—much less appreciate—the grand scale of Holt’s vision.
So he wasn’t surprised that men like Ward tried to fight him. He’d used them from the beginning. Knowing that no police force could succeed at its stated mission, he’d created the UMCP to cover him while he worked at his larger aims. And he’d bent and twisted the GCES to give the UMCP exactly the right amount of strength: enough to appear effective; enough to threaten the Amnion; not enough to interfere with his larger designs.
As the votes on Suka Bator had just demonstrated—again—it was pathetically easy for small people with little minds to convince themselves they’d been betrayed.
His species as it stood didn’t deserve to survive: that was the crucial point. Therefore humankind had to change. They had to learn from the Amnion as much as the Amnion learned from them.
They had to become capable of what the Amnion could do.
Force-growing infants.
Imprinting minds.
Practical immortality.
The Amnion had it already. They passed their peculiar consciousness undisturbed from one generation to the next. Their bodies had become tools, organic artifacts, to be shaped, used, and discarded as necessary: when one suffered damage, grew old, or died, they simply imprinted themselves upon another. For that reason, their ultimate victory over humankind was inevitable. There was no limit to how much they could learn—or how long they could wait.
But if human beings acquired the same capability—if they developed the skill to pass their minds from one inadequate, mortal body to the next—if Holt could prolong his own life indefinitely—Ah, then the nature of the real contest would be altered. Then humankind’s innate talents for treachery and mass production would enable them to overwhelm their genetic enemies. And Holt would lead humanity into a limitless future.
Death would never be able to touch him.
The mere prospect was enough to seize his heart and make his head reel with urgency.
Unfortunately his visionary efforts were hampered by petty, self-absorbed, and above all numerous men and women who were congenitally unable to look at their lives from his vast perspective. They valued small truths and empty scruples more than the existence of their species; or they craved baseless prerogatives, minor wealth, and incomplete power too much to care about anything else. The votes had just demonstrated that harsh fact to Holt again—as if he needed confirmation.
His mouth twisted in distaste at the Council’s pigheadedness—and Cleat’s final breakdown into hysteria. The poor fool should have gone out with more dignity. Better yet, he should have considered the possibility that the fucking cops might get their hands on Alt’s id tag. Even those assholes in ED Security couldn’t do everything wrong: it was statistically inconceivable. And Hashi Lebwohl wasn’t stupid. Blinded by ego and misplaced loyalty, but not unintelligent. The minute Lebwohl walked into the extraordinary session, Cleat should have realized the danger.
Of course, once Lebwohl spotted Alt the bomb had to go off. There was no other way to get rid of the evidence. But Cleat should have made damn sure he did get rid of the evidence. Instead he’d panicked. When the DA director accosted Alt, Cleat had lost his nerve; triggered the bomb too late. And as a direct result the whole visionary edifice which Holt had erected to procure humankind’s survival was in danger of crumbling.
Well, he would have to adjust. His long life had taught him many things, one of the most useful of which was that every opportunity he lost created new openings to take its place. All he needed was the wit to see them—and the will to act on them. If he couldn’t get rid of Ward in order to continue using the UMCP as cover, he would simply go in another direction.
He wouldn’t miss Ward. He wouldn’t even miss Cleat. Or the UMCP. And certainly not the GCES. No, his only real regret was that he wouldn’t be able to get his hands on Davies Hyland. He wanted to see the results of imprinting for himself; to secure some vindication for his vision.
But it couldn’t be helped. Sixten Vertigus’ Bill of Severance forced Holt to let such luxuries go. His extended years had also taught him that regret was useless. Otherwise he might have wasted time cursing his decision not to have the fucking “hero” of Deep Star butchered decades ago.
As matters stood, Holt had only one significant cause for concern: the Donner bitch and her cordon of ships. While her authority held, he still faced enemies capable of taking action. But he believed he knew how to deal with the insubordinate harridan. If his timing was good—if he waited until the command module docked, and Davies Hyland and Vector Shaheed were aboard, and Marc Vestabule discovered Morn Hyland’s treachery—he could set Calm Horizons off like Cleat activating Alt’s chemical trigger. Then Donner’s ships would be compelled to engage the Amnioni. And by the time they’d all destroyed each other, he would be in control of the aftermath.
Still some lingering uncertainty nagged at him. An irrational desire to visit Norna before he committed himself plagued him. Despite everything he’d done for it, his body was just too old to carry so much stress without faltering. Independent of his mind, his viscera seemed to think he would be reassured if he talked to his mother.
After all, he asked himself, why had he kept her alive for so many years, when she was fit for nothing but death? Behind his rationalizations, and his frank pleasure in tormenting her, what was his real reason for preserving her? Did he still hope that she might ultimately say something he could trust to guide him? Or was he simply afraid her death would carry him one step closer to his own?
Damn that woman. Deliberately he rejected the idea of seeing her. He didn’t have time. And he already knew what to do. His plans were so clear that even Cleat had understood them. He didn’t need an inert lump of female baggage to tell him whether he was right or wrong.
It was too bad HO didn’t have super-light proton cannon. But the votes would have given him trouble for that: they would never have believed he needed such guns. His lasers were as powerful as any in human space, however, and his matter cannon were almost as good. His researchers had learned that if they first punched a hole with lasers they could drive matter cannon fire through atmosphere with virtually no resistance. The effect lasted for mere fractions of a second, but it would suffice.
Toggling his intercom, he called Operations and made sure his station’s cannon were ready to open fire on Suka Bator.
WARDEN
Marc Vestabule remembered Angus Thermopyle and treachery too well. That became obvious as soon as Warden was released from the small chamber where he’d been sequestered during his negotiations with Morn.
For what had seemed like a long time, they’d stayed where they were. Vestabule hadn’t spoken. To the extent that he’d exposed any humanlike concentration, his attention had been fixed on his PCR and pickup; on the communications channel linking him to Calm Horizons’ operational nerve-center. He might have forgotten Warden’s existence. Unlike Warden, however, he seemed to have no difficulty waiting.
For his part, Warden had locked his fears behind the bars of his arms and kept silent. Without his black capsule, he was utterly defenseless. And useless: there was no longer anything he could do to shape events, or fend off the ruin he’d set in motion. Morn and Angus, Koina and Hashi, Min and Holt Fasner would save or damn humankind without Warden’s participation. He’d kept his mouth shut because he hadn’t wanted to give Vestabule the satisfaction of hearing him babble in apprehension.
But then the Amnioni reacted to something he heard from his PCR. For a moment he replied in an alien tongue so guttura
l and threatening that it hurt Warden’s ears. Then he addressed Warden at last.
“The command module approaches, transporting Trumpet,” he announced. “We are in communication with Captain Dolph Ubikwe, who pilots the craft. He assures us that Davies Hyland and Vector Shaheed are aboard, and are prepared to surrender themselves.”
Poor Dolph, Warden thought obliquely. It must have galled his soul to let Morn take command of Punisher; but his present assignment was no better. How did he feel about delivering the means for humankind’s destruction to the Amnion? Bitter and betrayed, probably. Unless he trusted Morn? Or Angus—?
What could they do? What would they be willing to try? Warden had no idea. He found that he was no longer able to imagine what the people he’d created and abandoned might attempt.
“Preparations are complete,” Vestabule continued. “We will await them at the port designated for their arrival.” He indicated the door. Apparently he meant that he and Warden would receive Davies and Vector. “When they are aboard, Calm Horizons will announce a departure trajectory to your vessels, and commence acceleration.”
Warden’s heart thudded in his empty chest. Inside his breathing mask, his tongue hunted for a protection he didn’t have. “What about me?”
He assumed the Amnion would keep him, no matter what they’d promised before he left UMCPHQ. Despite his failures, he was a valuable prize. And they would want a hostage. His life might improve the chances that Calm Horizons would be allowed to leave unmolested.
Vestabule’s human eyelid fluttered uncomfortably.
“You will be permitted to join Captain Ubikwe aboard the command module, if that is your wish.”
Just for a second Warden’s head reeled as if he’d been granted a stay of execution. Permitted to join—He almost believed—The Amnion kept their bargains, didn’t they? They were notorious for it. Maybe they would keep this one?