Empire from the Ashes

Chapter Two

"Finished, Horus?"

The Planetary Duke of Terra looked up and grimaced as Lawrence Jefferson stepped into his office.

"No," he said sourly, dropping a data chip into his security drawer, "but I'm as close as I'll be for the next decade, so we might as well go. It's not every day my grandchildren have a twelfth birthday, and that's more important than this."

Jefferson laughed as Horus stood and sent his desk computer a command to lock the drawer, and an answering smile flickered on the old man's lips. He glanced at Jefferson's briefcase.

"I see you're not leaving your work home."

"I'm not going to the party. Besides, this isn't 'my' work—it's Admiral MacMahan's copy of Gus' report on that anti-Narhani demonstration."

"Oh." Horus sounded as disgusted as he felt. "You know, I've learned to handle prejudice. We all suffer from that, to some extent, but this anti-Narhani thing is plain, old-fashioned bigotry."

"True, but then the difference between prejudice and bigotry is usually stupidity. The answer's education. The Narhani are on our side; we just have to prove that to these idiots."

"Somehow I doubt they'd appreciate your terminology, Lawrence."

"I call them as I see them." Jefferson grinned. "Besides, you're the only person here. If it leaks, I'll know who to come after."

"I'll bear that in mind." Horus finished shutting down his computer through his neural feed as they strolled out of the office, and two armed Marine guards snapped to attention. Their presence was a formality, but Hector MacMahan's Marines took their responsibilities seriously. Besides, Horus was their Commandant's great-great-great-etc.-grandfather.

The two men took the old-fashioned elevator to the ground floor. White Tower at NASA's old Shepard Center had been Horus' HQ throughout the Siege, and he'd resisted all pressure to relocate from Colorado on the basis that the fact that Shepard Center had never been anyone's capital would help defuse nationalist jealousies. Besides, he liked the climate.

They crossed the plaza to the mat-trans terminal, and Jefferson was grateful for his bio-enhancement as his breath steamed. He wasn't in the military, so he lacked the full enhancement that gave Horus ten times the strength of an unenhanced human, but what he had sufficed to deal with little things like sub-freezing temperatures. Which was handy, since Earth hadn't yet fully emerged from the mini-ice age produced by the Siege's bombardment.

They chatted idly during the walk, enjoying the moment of privacy, but Jefferson was still a bit bemused by the absence of bodyguards. He'd grown to adulthood on a planet where terrorism was the chosen form of "protest" by have-not nations, and the report in his briefcase was proof his home world frothed with resentment as it strained to make a nine- or ten-millennium leap in technology. Yet for all that, violence directed at Earth's Governor was virtually unthinkable. Horus had not only led Earth's people through the carnage of the Siege, he was also the father of their beloved Empress, and only a particularly stupid maniac would attack him to make a statement.

Not, Jefferson reflected, that history didn't abound with stupid maniacs.

They entered the mat-trans facility, and Jefferson felt himself tense. It didn't look like much—merely a railed platform twenty meters on a side—but knowing what it could do turned that brightly lit dais into something that made the primitive tree-dweller within the Lieutenant Governor gibber.

His stride slowed, and Horus grinned at him.

"Don't take it so hard. And don't think you're the only one it scares!"

Jefferson managed a nod as they stepped onto the platform and the bio-scanners Colin MacIntyre had ordered incorporated into every mat-trans station considered them at length. The mat-trans had been the Fourth Empire's executioner, the vector by which the rogue bio-weapon infected worlds hundreds of light-years apart, and he had no intention of allowing that particular bit of history to repeat itself.

But the scanners cleared them, and Jefferson clutched his briefcase in a sweaty hand, trying very hard to appear nonchalant, as heavy capacitors whined. The mat-trans' power requirements were astronomical, even by Imperial standards, and it took almost twenty seconds to reach peak load. Then a light flashed... and Horus and Lawrence Jefferson stepped down from another platform on the planet Birhat, eight hundred light-years from Earth.

The thing that made it so damned scary, Jefferson thought as he left the mat-trans receiver gratefully behind, was that you didn't feel a thing. Nothing. It just wasn't natural... and wasn't that a fine thing for a man stuffed full of sensors and neural boosters to be thinking?

"Hi, Granddad." Jefferson looked up as General MacMahan held out his hand to Horus then turned to shake his own. "Colin asked me to meet you. He's tied up with something over at the Palace."

"Tied up with what?" Horus asked.

"I'm not sure, but he sounded a bit harassed. I think—" Hector grinned impishly "—it's got something to do with Cohanna."

"Oh, Maker! What's she been up to now?"

"Don't know. Come on, I've got transport waiting."

"Damn it, 'Hanna!" Colin paced back and forth before the utilitarian desk from which he ran the Imperium, tugging on his nose in a gesture his subordinates knew only too well. "I've told you and told you you can't just go chasing off after any wild hare that takes your fancy!"

"But, Colin—" Cohanna began.

"Don't 'But, Colin' me! Did I or did I not tell you to check your next genetic experiment with me before you started on it?"

"Well, of course you did. And I did clear it with you," Baroness Cohanna, Imperial Minister of Bio-Sciences added virtuously.

"You what?" Colin wheeled on her in disbelief.

"I said I cleared it with you. I sat right here in this office with Brashieel and told you what I was going to do."

"You—!" Colin turned to the saurian-looking, long-snouted, quarter-horse-sized centauroid resting comfortably on his folded legs in the middle of the rug, who returned his gaze with mild, double-lidded eyes. "Brashieel, do you remember her saying anything about this?"

"Yes," Brashieel replied calmly through the small black box mounted on one strap of his body harness. His vocal apparatus was poorly suited to human speech, but he'd learned to use his neural feed-driven vocoder's deep bass to express emotion as well as words.

Colin drew a deep breath, then perched on his desk and folded his arms. Brashieel seldom made mistakes, and Cohanna's triumphant expression made Colin unhappily certain she had mentioned it. Or something about it.

"All right," he sighed, "what, exactly, did she say?"

Brashieel closed his inner eyelids in concentration, and Colin waited patiently. The alien's mere presence was enough to give some members of humanity screaming fits, which Colin understood even if he rejected their attitude. To be sure, Brashieel was an Achuultani. Worse, he was the sole survivor of the fleet which had come within hours of destroying the planet Earth. He was also, however, the being who'd emerged as the natural leader of the prisoners of war Colin had captured after defeating the incursion, and most of those prisoners—not all, but most—were even more committed to the ultimate defeat of the rest of the Achuultani than humanity was.

For seventy-eight million years, the people of the Nest of Aku'Ultan had quartered the galaxy, destroying every sentient species they encountered. Of all their potential victims, only humanity had survived—not just once, but three times, earning it the Achuultani appellation of "the Demon Nest-Killers"—but Brashieel and his fellows knew something the rest of their race did not. They knew their entire species was enslaved by a self-aware computer which used their unending murder of races who meant them no ill to sustain the "state of war" its programming required to maintain its tyranny.

Not all humans were ready to accept their sincerity, which was why Colin had turned the planet Narhan over to those who had applied for Imperial citizenship. Narhan had avoided the bio-weapon for a simple reason; no one had lived on it, since its 2.67 gravity field produced a sea-level atmosphere lethal to unenhanced humans. Its air was a bit dense even for Achuultani lungs, and it was inconveniently placed—it was far enough from Birhat that travelers by mat-trans had to stage through Earth to reach the capital planet—but its settlers had fallen under the spell of its rugged beauty as they set about carving out their new Nest of Narhan as loyal subjects of their human overlord on a world beyond the reach of hysterical xenophobes.

"Cohanna had reported on progress with the genetic engineering to recreate Narhani females," Brashieel said at last. The rogue computer had eliminated all sexual reproduction by eliminating all Achuultani females. Every Achuultani was male, either a clone or an embryo fertilized in vitro. "Thereafter, she turned to discussion of her suggestion to increase our life spans to something approaching those of humans."

Colin nodded. Achuultani—Narhani, he corrected himself—were bigger and far stronger than humans. They also matured much more rapidly, but their normal span was little more than fifty years. Bio-enhancement, which all adult Narhani who'd taken the oath of loyalty had received as quickly as Cohanna got a grip on their alien physiology, stretched that to almost three hundred years, but that remained much shorter than for enhanced humans.

Extending Narhani lives was a challenge, but unlike humans, Narhani had no prejudice against bioengineering. They regarded it as a fact of life, given their own origins and the cloned children Jiltanith's Terra-born sister Isis had managed to produce over the last few years, and the possibility of recreating females of their species simply strengthened that attitude.

"We discussed the practical aspects," Brashieel continued, "and I mentioned Tinker Bell."

"I know you did, but surely I never okayed this."

"I regret that I must disagree," Brashieel said, and Colin frowned.

Hector MacMahan's big, happy half-lab, half-rottweiler bitch Tinker Bell had fallen in love with the Narhani. It amused Colin, given the way the dogs in every bad science-fiction movie ever made hated the "alien menace" on sight, but it was more than amusing to the Narhani. The Nest of Aku'Ultan had nothing remotely like her—indeed, one of the most alien things about the nest was the absence of any form of pet—and they found her fascinating. Almost every Narhani had speedily acquired a dog of his own, but they, like any other Terrestrial animal, would have been unable to survive on Narhan, and the Narhani were fiercely devoted to their four-footed friends.

"Look, I know I authorized limited bio-enhancement so you could take the dogs with you, but I never contemplated anything like this."

"I cannot, of course, know what was in your mind, but the point was raised." Colin clenched his teeth. The Narhani were as intelligent as humans but less imaginative and far more literal-minded. "Cohanna pointed out that genetic engineering would permit her to produce dogs who required no enhancement, and you agreed. She then reminded you of Dahak's success in communicating with Tinker Bell and suggested the capability for meaningful exchanges might also be enhanced."

Colin opened his mouth, then shut it with a snap as his own memory replayed the conversation. She had mentioned it, and he'd agreed. But, damn it, she should have known what he meant!

He closed his eyes and counted to five hundred. Dahak had insisted for years that Tinker Bell's barks, growls, and yips were more value-laden than humans believed, and he'd persisted with an analysis of her sounds until he proved his point. Dogs were no mental giants. Their cognitive functions were severely limited, and their ability to manipulate symbols was virtually nonexistent, but they had lots more to say than mankind had guessed.

"All right," he said finally, opening his eyes and glowering at Cohanna, who returned his gaze innocently. "All right. I admit the point came up, but you never told me you had anything like this in mind."

"Only because I thought it was self-evident," she said, and Colin bit off an acid response. He sometimes toyed with the notion that the millennia Cohanna had spent in stasis had affected her mind, but he'd known Terra-born humans just like her. She was brilliant and intensely curious, and little things like political realities, wars, and nearby supernovas were totally unimportant compared to her current project—whatever it might be.

"Look," he tried again, "I've got several million Terra-born who find simple biotechnics scary, 'Hanna." Her nose wrinkled with contempt for such benighted ignorance, and he sighed. "All right, so they're wrong. But that doesn't change the way they feel, and if that upsets them, how are they going to react to your fooling with the natural order of evolution?"

"Evolution," she replied, "is an unreasoning statistical process which represents no more than the blind conservation of accidental life forms capable of surviving within their environments."

"Please don't say things like that!" Colin ran his hands through his hair and tried not to look harried. "Maybe you're right, but too many Terra-born regard it as the working out of God's plan for the universe. And even the ones who don't tend to remember the bio-weapon and wake up screaming!"

"Barbarians!" Cohanna snorted, and Colin sighed.

"I ought to order you to destroy them," he muttered, but he shied away from the rebellion in her eyes. "All right, I won't. Not immediately, anyway. But before I promise not to, I want to see them with my own eyes. And you are not to conduct any more genetic experiments outside a Petri dish without my specific—and written!—authorization. Is that understood?"

The doctor nodded frigidly, and Colin walked around his desk to flop into his chair. "Good. Now, I've got a meeting with Horus and Lieutenant Governor Jefferson in ten minutes, so we're going to have to wrap this up. But before we do, are there any problems—or surprises—with Project Genesis?"

"No." Cohanna's spine relaxed. One thing about her, Colin reflected; she was a tartar when her toes got stepped on, but she recovered. "Although," she added pointedly, "I'm a bit surprised you don't object to the name."

"I wish I'd thought about it when Isis suggested it, but I didn't. And we're only using it internally and all the reports are classified, so I don't expect it to upset anyone."

"Hmph!" Cohanna sniffed, then smiled wryly. "Well, it's really more her project than mine, anyway, so I suppose I shouldn't complain. Anyway, we should be ready to move within the next year or so."

"That soon?" Colin was impressed, and he cocked his head to gaze at Brashieel. "How do you folks feel about that, Brashieel?"

"Curious," the alien said, "and possibly a bit frightened. After all, the concept of females is still quite strange, and the notion of producing nestlings with a nestmate is... peculiar. Most of us, however, are eager to see what they're like. For myself, I look forward to it with interest, though I'm highly satisfied with the way Brashan has turned out."

"Yeah, you might say he's a chip off the old block." Brashieel, whose race was given neither to clichés nor puns, looked blank, but Cohanna winced, and Colin grinned. "Okay, that's going to have to be it." His guests rose, and he wagged a finger at Cohanna. "But I meant what I said about experiments, 'Hanna! And I want to see them myself."

"Understood," the doctor said. She and Brashieel walked from the office, pausing to exchange greetings with Horus, Hector, and Jefferson on their way out, and Colin leaned back in his chair with a sigh. Lord! Combining Narhani literal-mindedness with someone like Cohanna was just begging for trouble. He'd have to keep a closer eye on her.

He opened his eyes to see his father-in-law studying the carpet. A quirked eyebrow invited explanation, and Horus chuckled.

"Just checking to see how deep the blood was."

"You don't know how close to right you are," Colin growled. "Jesus! After all the times I've lectured her on the subject—!" He stood to embrace Horus, then extended a hand to Jefferson. "Good to see you again, Mister Jefferson."

"Thank you, Your Majesty. You might see more of me if I didn't have to come by mat-trans." His shudder was only half-feigned, and Colin laughed.

"I know. The first time I used a transit shaft I almost wet my pants, and the mat-trans is worse."

"But efficient," the stocky, brown-haired Lieutenant Governor replied with a small smile. "Most efficient—damn it!"

"True, too true."

"Tell, me, Colin, just what has 'Hanna been up to now?" Horus asked.

"She—" Colin paused, then shrugged. "It stays in this office, but I guess I can tell you. You know she's bioengineering dogs for Narhan?" His guests nodded. "Well, she's gone a bit further than I intended. She's been working with a couple of Tinker Bell's litters to give them near-human intelligence."

"What?" Horus blinked at him. "I thought you told her not to—"

"I did. Unfortunately, she told me she wanted to 'enhance their ability to communicate with the Narhani' and I told her to go ahead." He grimaced. "Silly me."

"Oh, Maker," Horus groaned. "Why can't she have half as much common sense as she does brainpower?"

"Because she wouldn't be Cohanna." Colin grinned, then sobered. "The worst of it is, the first litter's fully adult, and she's been educating them through their implants," he went on more somberly. "My emotions are having a little trouble catching up with my intellect, but if she's really given them human or near-human intelligence, the whole equation shifts. I mean, if she's gone and turned them into people on me, it's not like putting a starving stray to sleep. 'Lab animals' or not, I'm not sure I even have a legal right, much less a moral one, to have them destroyed, whatever the possible consequences."

"Excuse me, Your Majesty," Jefferson suggested diffidently, "but I think, perhaps, you'd better consider doing just that." Colin raised an eyebrow, and Jefferson shrugged. "We're having enough anti-Narhani problems without adding this to the fire. The last demonstration was pretty ugly, and it wasn't in one of our more reactionary areas, either. It was in London."

"London?" Colin looked sharply at Horus, instantly diverted from Cohanna's experiment. "How bad was it?"

"Not good," Horus admitted. "More of the 'The Only Good Achuultani Is a Dead Achuultani' kind of thing. There were some tussles, but they started when the marchers ran into a counter-demonstration, so they may actually have been a sign of sanity. I hope so, anyway."

"Oh, Lord!" Colin sighed. "You know, it was an awful lot easier fighting the Achuultani. Well, simpler, anyway."

"True. Still, I think time is on our side." Colin made a face and Horus chuckled. "I know. I'm getting as tired of saying that as you must be of hearing it, but it's true. And time is one thing we've got plenty of."

"Maybe. But while we're on the subject, who organized this thing?"

"We're not entirely certain," Jefferson replied. "Gus is looking into it, but the official organizers were a bunch called HHI—'Humans for a Human Imperium.' On the surface, they're a batch of professional rowdies backed up by a crop of discontented intellectuals. The 'high-brows' seem to be academics who resent finding everything they spent their lives learning has become outdated overnight. It would seem—" he smiled thinly "—that some of our fearless intellectual pioneers are a bit less pioneering than they thought."

"Hard to blame them, really," Horus pointed out. "It's not so much that they're rejecting the truth as that they feel betrayed. As you say, Lawrence, they spent their lives establishing themselves as intellectual leaders only to find themselves brushed aside."

"I know." Colin frowned down at his hands for a moment, then looked back up. "Still, that sounds like a pretty strange marriage. Professional rowdies and professors? Wonder how they made connections?"

"Stranger things have happened, Your Majesty, but Gus and I are asking the same question, and he thinks the answer is the Church of the Armageddon."

"Oh, shit," Colin said disgustedly.

"Inelegant, but apt," Horus said. "In fact, that's what bothers me most. The church started out as a simple fusion of fundamentalists who saw the Achuultani as the true villains of the Armageddon, but this is a new departure, even for them. They've hated the Achuultani all along, but this is a shift to open racism—if I may use the term—of a particularly ugly stripe."

"Yeah. Anything more on their leadership, Mister Jefferson?"

"Not really, Your Majesty. They've never tried to hide their membership—why should they when they enjoy legal religious toleration?—but they're such an untidy agglomeration of splinter groups the hierarchical lines are pretty vague. We're still working on who actually calls the shots. Their spokesperson seems to be this Bishop Hilgemann, though I'm afraid I don't agree with Gus about her real authority. I think she's more a mouthpiece than a policy-maker, but we're both just guessing."

"You're going to discuss this with Ninhursag?"

"Of course, Your Majesty. I've brought Gus' report and I'm going up to Mother after this meeting. Admiral MacMahan and I will put our heads together, and perhaps Dahak can help us pull something out of the data."

"Good luck. 'Hursag's been trying to get a handle on them for over a year now. Oh, well." Colin shook his head and rose, holding out his hand to the Lieutenant Governor once more. "In that case, I won't keep you, Mister Jefferson. Horus and I have a birthday party to attend, and two pre-adolescent hellions who'll make us both miserable if we're late."

"Of course. Please give the Empress and your children my regards."

"I will—in between the presents, cake, punch, and general hullabaloo. Good luck with your report."

"Thank you, Your Majesty." Jefferson withdrew gracefully, and Colin and Horus headed for the imperial family's side of the Palace.