Empire from the Ashes

Chapter Forty-Two

"Got a second, Ma'am?"

Esther Steinberg stood in the door of Ninhursag's office once more, and Ninhursag's eyebrows rose in surprise. It was the middle of the night, and Steinberg had been off duty for hours. But then she frowned. The commander was in civvies, and from the looks of things she'd dressed in a hurry.

"Of course I do. What's on your mind?"

Steinberg stepped inside the door and waited for it to close behind her before she spoke.

"It's those mat-trans records, Ma'am."

"What about them? I thought you and Dahak cleared all of them."

"We did, Ma'am. We found a couple of small anomalies, but we tracked those down, and aside from that, everything was right on the money."

"So?"

"I guess it's just that curiosity bump again, Ma'am, but I haven't been able to get them out of my mind." Steinberg smiled crookedly. "I've been going back over them on my own time, and, well, I've found a new discrepancy."

"One Dahak missed?" Ninhursag couldn't keep from sounding skeptical.

"No, Ma'am. A new discrepancy."

"New?" Ninhursag jerked upright in her chair. "What d'you mean, 'new,' Esther?"

"You know we've been pulling regular updates on the mat-trans logs ever since you put me on the project?" Ninhursag nodded impatiently, and Steinberg shrugged. "Well, I started playing with the data—more out of frustration at not finding any answers than anything else—and I had my personal computer run a check for anomalies within the database. Any sort of conflict between downloads from the mat-trans computers on a generational basis, as well as a pure content one."

"And?"

"I just finished the last one, Ma'am, and one of the log entries in my original download doesn't match the version in the most recent one."

"What?" Ninhursag frowned again. "What do you mean, 'doesn't match'?"

"I mean, Ma'am, that according to the mat-trans facility records, I have two different logs with precisely the same time and date stamp, both completely official by every test I can run, that say two different things. It's only a small variation, but it shouldn't be there."

"Corrupted data?" Ninhursag murmured, and Steinberg shook her head.

"No, Ma'am. Different data. That's why I came straight over." Her mouth tightened in a firm line. "I may be paranoid, Admiral, but the only reason I can think of for the difference is that between the time we pulled the first log and the time we got the latest update, someone changed the entry. And under the circumstances, I thought I should tell you. Fast."

"Esther's right," Ninhursag said grimly. She and the commander sat in Colin's Palace office. Steinberg looked acutely uncomfortable at being in such close proximity to her Emperor, but she met Colin's searching look squarely as he rubbed his bristly chin. "I double-checked her work, and so did Dahak. Someone definitely changed the entry, and that, Colin, took someone with a hell of a lot of juice."

"Are you telling me," Colin said very carefully, "that the goddamned bomb is sitting directly under the Palace right this instant?"

"I'm telling you something is sitting under the Palace." Ninhursag's voice was flat. "And whatever it is, it isn't the statue that left Narhan. The mass readings matched perfectly in the first log entry, but they're off by over twenty percent in the second one. You have any idea why else that might be?"

"But, good God, 'Hursag, how could anyone make a switch? And if they pulled it off in the first place without our catching it, why change the logs so anyone who checked would know they had?"

"I don't know that yet, but I think we're going to have to reconsider our theory that Mister X and the Sword of God are two totally separate threats. I find it extremely hard to believe the Sword just coincidentally blew up the officer who oversaw the statue's transit here the very night he did it. If Esther hadn't caught the discrepancy in masses, we never would have connected the two events; now it hits me right in the eye."

"Agreed. Agreed." Colin leaned back with a worried frown. "Dahak?"

"My remotes are only now getting into position, Colin," Dahak's mellow voice replied from thin air. "It is most fortunate Commander Steinberg pursued this line of inquiry. It would never have occurred to me—I have what I believe humans call a blind spot in that I assume that data, once entered, will not subsequently metamorphose—and the Palace's security systems would almost certainly have prevented our orbital scans from detecting anything. Even now—"

He broke off so suddenly Colin blinked.

"Dahak?" There was no response, and his voice sharpened. "Dahak?"

"Colin, I have made a grave error," the computer said abruptly.

"An error?"

"I should not have inserted my remotes so promptly. I fear my scan systems have just activated the bomb."

"The bomb?" Even now Colin hadn't truly believed, not with his emotions, and his face went pale.

"Indeed." The computer's voice seldom showed emotion, but it was bitter now. "I cannot be certain it is the bomb, for I had insufficient time for detailed scans before I was forced to shut down. But there is a device of some sort within the statue—one protected by a Fleet antitampering system."

The humans looked at one another in stunned silence, and then Ninhursag cleared her throat.

"What... what sort of system, Dahak?"

"A Mark Ninety, multi-threat remote weapon system sensor," the computer said flatly. "My scan activated it, but it would appear I was able to shut down before it reached second-stage initiation. It is now armed, however. Any attempt to approach with additional scan systems or with anything which its systems might construe as a threat, will, in all probability, result in the device's immediate detonation."

" 'Tanni! 'Tanni, wake up!"

Jiltanith sat up as quickly as her pregnant condition allowed, and the shaking hand released her. She rubbed her eyes and stared at her father, and the ghosts of sleep fled as his expression registered.

"Father? What passeth?"

"They think they've found the bomb," he said grimly. Her eyes flew wide, and his mouth twisted. "It's under the Palace, 'Tanni—hidden inside the Narhani's statue."

"Jesu!" Her eyes narrowed. There'd been a time when she'd personally managed Nergal's Terra-born intelligence net against Anu, and she hadn't lost the habits of thought that had engendered. " 'Tis a ploy most shrewd," she murmured now. "Should it be discovered, as, indeed, 'twould seem it hath, then would all assume 'twas the Narhani concealed it there."

"That's what we think," Horus agreed, but his voice's harshness warned her he hadn't yet told her everything, and her eyes demanded the rest. "It's armed and active," he said sighing, "and it's covered by an antitampering system. We can't get to it to disarm it, or even to destroy it."

"Colin!" Jiltanith whispered, and clutched her father's arm.

"He's all right, 'Tanni!" Horus said quickly, covering her hand with his own. "He and Gerald and Adrienne are activating the evacuation plan now. He's fine."

"Nay!" Her fingers tightened like talons. "Father, thou knowest him too well for that, as I! He will not flee so long as any of his folk do stand exposed to such danger!"

"I'm sure—" Horus began, but she shook her head spastically and threw off the covers. She swung her feet to the floor and stood, already reaching for her clothing.

"I must go to him! Mayhap, were I there, I—"

"No, 'Tanni." Her head snapped around, and he shook his head.

"I tell thee I am going." Her voice was chipped ice, but he shook his head, and her tone turned colder still. "Gainsay me in this at thy peril, Father!"

"Not me, 'Tanni," he said softly. "Colin. He's ordered me to keep you here and keep you safe."

Her eyes locked with his, and her fear for her husband struck him like a lash. But he refused to look away, and a dark, terrible sorrow, like a premonition of yet more loss, twisted her face.

"Father, please," she whispered, and he closed his eyes, unable to face her pain, and shook his head once more.

"I'm sorry, 'Tanni. It was Colin's decision, and he's right."

"Dahak is correct," Vlad Chernikov said. "We dare not send any additional scanners into the gallery, but I have deployed passive systems from beyond a Mark Ninety's activation threshold and carried out a purely optical scan using the Palace security systems. While I can find no outward visual evidence, our passive systems have detected active emissions from a broad-spectrum sensor array which are entirely consistent with a Mark Ninety's. I fear that any remote—or, for that matter, any human with Imperial equipment—entering the gallery will cause it to detonate."

"God." Colin closed his eyes, propped his elbows on the conference table, and leaned his face into his palms.

"The evacuation will begin in twenty-five minutes," Adrienne Robbins' holo image said. "I'll coordinate embarkation from the Academy; Gerald will handle ship-to-ship movement from Mother, but we don't have enough ships in-system to handle the entire population."

"Some additional transport'll begin arriving in about ninety-three hours," Hatcher's image said. "Mother sent out an all-ships signal as soon as I got the word. We'll have another six planetoids within a hundred and fifty hours; anything after that'll take at least ten days to get here."

"How many can we get aboard the available ships?" Colin asked tautly.

"Not enough," Hatcher said grimly. "Dahak?"

"Assuming Dahak is used as well, and that we move as many as possible to existing deep-space life support in-system but beyond lethal radius of the weapon, we will be able to lift approximately eighty-nine percent of the Birhat population from the planet," the computer responded. "More than that will be beyond our resources."

"Mat-trans?" Colin said.

"On our list," Adrienne replied, "but the system's too big an energy hog to move people quickly, Colin. It's going to take at least three weeks to move eleven percent of Birhat's population through the facility."

"We don't have three weeks!"

"Colin, all we can do is all we can do." Gerald Hatcher didn't look any happier than Colin, but his voice was crisp.

"We've got to take that bomb out," Colin muttered. "Damn it, there has to be a way!"

"Unfortunately," Dahak said, "we cannot disarm it. That means we can only attempt to destroy it, which will require a weapon sufficient to guarantee its instant and complete disablement from outside the Mark Ninety's perimeter, and the device is located in the most heavily protected structure on Birhat. While we possess many weapons which could assure its destruction, the Palace's structural strength is such that any weapon of sufficient power would effectively destroy Phoenix, as well. In short, we cannot ourselves 'take out' the device without obliterating the Imperium's capital, and all in it."

"Horus! What the hell is going on?" Lawrence Jefferson had commed from Van Gelder Center, Planetary Security's central facility, not his White Tower office, and like many of the people swarming about behind him, he looked as if he'd dressed in the dark in a hurry. Horus wondered how he'd gotten to Van Gelder so quickly, but he wasn't about to look a gift horse in the mouth.

"Big trouble, Lawrence," he replied. "Get as many of your people as you can to the mat-trans facility. We're going to have thousands of people coming through from Birhat, starting in about—" he checked his chrono "—twelve minutes."

"Thousands of people?" Jefferson shook his head like a punch-drunk fighter, and Horus bared his teeth.

"Some lunatic's put a bomb under the Palace, and the damned thing's got an active antitampering system," he said, and watched Lawrence Jefferson go bone-white. The Lieutenant Governor said absolutely nothing for a moment, then shook himself.

"A bomb? What sort of bomb? It sounds like you're evacuating the entire planet!"

"We are," Horus said grimly. "This thing's probably powerful enough to take out all of Birhat—and Mother."

"With a single bomb? You're joking!"

"I wish I were. We've been looking for the damned thing for months. Well, now we've found it."

"What about the Emperor?" Jefferson demanded.

"He's hanging in until the last minute, the damned young fool! Says he won't leave until he can get everyone else out."

"And Jiltanith?" Jefferson asked quickly, and Horus smiled more naturally.

"Thanks for asking, but she's safe. She's still in White Tower, and she's staying here, by the Maker, if I have to chain her to the wall!"

Jefferson closed his eyes for a moment, mind racing, then nodded sharply.

"All right, Horus, I'm on it."

"Good man! I'll be down to give you a hand as quick as I can."

"Don't!" Horus raised an eyebrow at the Lieutenant Governor's quick, sharp reply, and Jefferson shook his head angrily. "Sorry. Didn't mean to bark at you. It's just that you can't do anything down here that I can't do just as well, and from your tone of voice, Her Majesty isn't too happy at staying here on Earth."

"That," Horus agreed, "is putting it mildly."

"Well, in that case you'd better stay there and keep an eye on her. God knows no one else on this planet has the seniority—or the balls!—to tell her no if she orders them out of her way. Besides, it's going to be a madhouse down here when refugees start coming through. I'll feel better with both of you tucked away someplace nice and safe, where whoever's behind this can't get at you in the confusion."

"I—" Horus started to reply, then stopped himself and nodded unwillingly. "You may be being paranoid, but you may also be right. I can't see why anyone would want me dead if they can't get 'Tanni and—please the Maker—Colin, but whoever's behind this has to be a lunatic."

"Exactly." Jefferson gave him a grim smile. "And if he's a lunatic, who knows what he may do if he thinks the wheels are coming off?"