Requiem for the Conqueror

Chapter 14

"You have a wretched look about you, Butla. What has gone wrong?" Magister Bruen asked as he moved to the huge table and settled himself on a purple-cushioned grav chair. Around them the gray rock of Makarta made a comforting womb against the hurricane of violence beyond the mountain.

Butla Ret — already seated — slouched at the polished table with a granitelike brooding face. He twirled a thinbladed stiletto between thick ringers, the needle point spinning on the shiny black duraplast tabletop. Butla's gaze shifted slowly to Bruen's. "Arta is gone."

Bruen's heart skipped. "Gone? What do you mean?"

The assassin's hard eyes smoldered. A slight tick at the corner of his lip betrayed his iron control.

"She wanted to love me, Bruen. I… I turned her down. Knowing what would. She tried to — to seduce me. The results scared her. The subliminal training activated her revulsion. She fled. Ran out before I could stop her and disappeared into the streets."

"Oh, Blessed Gods," Bruen whispered as his senses whirled. "We never anticipated she would develop an attraction to—"

"Well, she did!" Butla exploded violently, slapping a callused palm on the table with a thunderous clap. He lifted the knife, eyes slitted and deadly. "And I came to love her, Bruen! You hear? / love her!" Corded jaw muscles knotted and jumped under sleek black skin while strong fingers clenched and unclenched around the menacing black dagger.

Bruen fought to swallow. "No — oh, no. We must find her. Bring her back here. If you are separated, perhaps this fatal attraction will—"

Butla Ret leaned forward, sighting down the stiletto with one buing eye. His voice came as a hissing threat. "Too late again, Bruen."

Bruen closed his eyes, heart hammering.

"She hid her trail well," the assassin's voice began in bass vibration. "It was the middle of the night. I don't know where she went, or how it happened, but some Regan soldiers got her — flesh peddlers, you see. Must have surprised her. That and she left my place preoccupied, worried about why I turned her down. Worried about her irrational fear of physical love, maybe feeling the trigger. Whatever it was, the reason doesn't matter anymore. They captured her."

Bruen closed his eyes, imagining.

"As far as I could determine, they raped her repeatedly. Time and time…"

"God's curses." Bruen's blood seemed to slow in his veins.

"Yes," Butla hissed, "God's curses on you, Bruen. Curses for what you did to that girl! You played with her brain! Played God with her mind, damn you. Well, now it's all come undone, Magister!" He spit the last. "Reap your benefits, you… you despicable BASTARD!"

Bruen recoiled as if struck. "Then it is undone Master Ret. And there is nothing we can do but grieve. For her— and ourselves."

"Grieve? A curious word for a monster like yourself, Bruen."

He nodded, accepting the horrid truth. "Perhaps I am a curious monster. Like Arta, I'm no more than the product of my times. Like her, I, too, am damned to do what I will with nothing more than blind trust. We're all puppets acting—"

"Damn you! Butla Ret stopped the stiletto as it dimpled Bruen's wrinkled throat. Face-to-face they stared at each other.

"Yes, Master Ret," Bruen crooned. "Look into my soul. See my pain? See my guilt? Yes, you understand, don't you? I loved her, too, Butla. Loved her!"

Bruen felt the tip of the dagger waver and withdraw. Those implacable black eyes held his for an eternity. The big assassin took a deep breath and dropped back into the

chair, violence and frustration seeping away into dejected weariness.

"I came here to kill you," Ret said woodenly.

Silence stretched while Bruen looked at his fragile hands and slowly rubbed his thumb across his fingertips.

"What have we become, Magister?" Ret cried poignantly. He ran a hand nervously over his face before he shook his head. "I mean, where are we going? What kind of people are we? Where is our purpose in all this injustice, in the suffering? We had responsibilities once. Morals. Remember? Were those just empty words? Slogans?"

"No, old friend." Bruen leaned back and his arthritic hip sent a twinge aong ancient nerves. "I still believe them to be truths. Morality? Responsibility? Two different words for the same principle." Bruen cocked his head and lifted a hand. "But something has happened. We are no longer in control. All the plans we laid so long ago are in disarray. Even talking to the Mag Comm, I get the impression the machine, too, is lost. It keeps asking for more and more data."

"The machine! Always the machine. The quanta exceeded probable reality phase changes." Butla made an angry gesture. "Just the way we've always thought. It's damned us, Bruen. Damned us to a hell of its own making."

Bruen let his blue-veined hand drop in defeat. "We don't know that for sure." / am so tired. If only I could go and sleep. I never asked for this mantle to be laid upon my shoulders. I never hungered for this damning power — to sit in judgment over humanity. Arta, my poor, poor Arta!

Butla leaned on his elbows, covering his face with his palms. "Then all we can do is react." He blew a heavy sigh past his fingers. "You know what kind of strategy that is, Magister?"

"The strategy of ruin," Bruen replied gloomily. "But tell me of Arta."

"She killed them, of course. She got loose somehow and killed each and every one of them." Butla frowned. "She was thorough. I saw the bodies. Most horribly mutilated. All her frustrations, the anger, the violence you seeded into her brain exploded in a destructive frenzy. Her rage and confusion must have augmented the subliminal training. I won't go into the details.

" take it from your tone that you don't think she'll be back?"

Butla Ret shook his head slowly. "I gave her two days. She sent no word, Magister. Not a peep through any of the channels she knows to use in an emergency."

"I see something else in your eyes, Butla."

He fingered the dagger absently. "She's still out there, Magister. During those two days, Regan soldiers died one after another. Each one died in the streets — cut to pieces the same as her slave-trading rapists. A couple of witnesses saw her. They reported the killer to be a young woman, very beautiful, with auburn hair and amber eyes."

Bruen's guts loosened with a sinking sensation. Sotto voce he added, "What terror have we wrought?" Magister Hyde's remembered words mocked, "The problem with a psychological weapon is that you never know when it will go off."

"Don't do it, Tuff." Kaylla's warning brought him spinning on his heels, hands low, feet spread for balance.

She walked up the side of the dune, her slim figure outlined against the glistening night sand. She stood before him, hands on hips, head tilted, eyes shadowed by wisps of blowing brown hair.

Staffa straightened, drawing a deep breath. "Don't do what?"

"Try and run away." She stepped easily to the dune crest and settled herself, legs dangling down the slip face. "I don't know what the range of the collars is, but—"

"Twelve kilometers," Staffa told her blankly. "I could be well past that by morning."

She looked up at him, soft starlight caressing her features. "Sit down." She patted the sand next to her.

Staffa hesitated a moment, then dropped. "I could make it."

Kaylla shook her head violently. "Fool, you'd be dead by noon tomorrow. Think about it. This air has no humidity. None. Sure, you're tough. You're strong as an Ashtan bull and you've got a hell of a lot of animal tenacity. You'd still

be dead by noon tomorrow. sucked dry, leached of all the water in your body."

"You know a lot about my abilities, woman."

"Are all men so sensitive? Yeah, Tuff, I know what you can do. I've watched you haul pipe." Her cool hand came to rest on his shoulder. "But listen. I know what this desert can do. While Anglo's been pumping me, I've been pumping him back. Assuming you could find water — which you can't — you'd be walking for three weeks to make Etarus. Between here and there, you won't find a mouse's mouthful of water. They've looked with the finest sensors Rega can buy. Nothing's out there but sand. Not even siff jackals, for all Anglo's warnings."

Staffa stared out over the endless white, so peaceful now in the starlight. I should go. Take off now, run and run until I fall headfirst into the sand. It won't take long. Only the thirst will be unbearable. I won't die in pain or terror like so many I've killed. Would the ghosts rest with my death?

"The collar would be easier." She said it so simply. "Or, if you'd like, Brak or one of the others could take a fitting wrench to your skull; you'd never feel it." She paused. "Why do you want to die?"

He chuckled hollowly. "You wear the collar and you can ask that? Why do you want to live? Seriously, Kaylla, you can't believe that self-delusive nonsense about God."

She leaned back, taking a deep breath. "Oh, but I do. Not only that, but I believe in responsibility and morality. Concepts alien to this horror-drenched age of darkness we've cloaked ourselves with."

"Don't tell me you—"

"Don't you think life has a purpose?" she asked levelly. "Why are you alive? Why do you experience the universe around you? What is the purpose of all this?" She picked up a handful of sand and let it trickle through her fingers.

"You tell me."

"Knowledge," Kaylla whispered, looking up at the myriads of stars that wove a gray belt through the night sky. "The Seddi believe God became aware. That awareness started the universe in a brilliant instant eighteen billion years ago."

"God? Aware? If I could believe in God, what would awareness mean?"

"Observation." She rolled on her side, propping her head on one hand, fingers

tracing through the white grains of sand. "What if the creation of the universe was God's realiation that it was aware? Its first observation, if you will."

"Then God is aware. Why does it need us? It could float around and. and…"

"That's right. You begin to see the problem. Any inquiry into the true nature of God always leads into circles of logic and assumption. How could God see itself if it were the only observer?"

"Then the Seddi think that men are the mirrors of God?"

"No, not exactly." Her fingers raked the sand into geometric designs. "Seddi accept that the mind of God is One, and, at the same time, it is infinitely divisible. The third law the Seddi accept is that mind — yours, mine, or God's, it doesn't matter — creates. We do that by observation. Everything comes from the Now moment of observation."

"Then according to your logic God Mind creates its own future." Staff a settled into the sand. "Which means the universe is directed by the will of God Mind. Then all of existence becomes predetermined. What point is there in that? How do you know if your decision counts, or if it was someone else's decision all along?"

"You're astute, Tuff. Not many people would recognize that problem immediately." She lifted a tanned shoulder. "I'm not sure I know the answer. I think it hinges on awareness. You'd have to go to Targa to learn that."

Targa! My son.

"And there are women there like you who would know the answer?" He steepled his fingers, shirting, feeling the sand grate under his buttocks.

"The man you seek is called Magister Bruen. He is perhaps the greatest living Seddi. He, or his associate, Magister Hyde." She filled her lungs. "I have always wondered if I should have stayed. I would never have loved my husband. I never would have had my children. My life would have been poorer — and at the same time, richer."

He laughed bitterly. "And you think we'll ever get out of this Etarian desert hell alive? No, there is too much trouble with your Seddi magic. I cannot believe God made the universe by observing it. If I believe you, I fall into a

trap that I am nothing more than a bit of God which is seeing its own future."

"Not so," she countered, pointing a sandy finger at him. "The quanta are the failsafe against predetermination."

"The quanta?" He studied her skeptically. "What does quanta mean?"

"The uncertainty inherent in the universe. You can predict the location of a given electron or particle, but you cannot predict its direction. One or the other. Think in terms of subatomic particle motion, energy, and position. All are mutually exclusive depending on the observation you, the observer, make, correct? The future is perceived by quantum wave functions of probability which you in turn effect by making a choice in the now. Each of those decisions in turn is based on how the synapses in your brain fire, and those are determined by the energy level in the particles in your nerve cells, and whether or not a neural receptor happens to be blocked by a molecule. You can't know the energy or charge of those particles, or the location of any given molecule before you make the decision."

Staffa agreed warily, "Any student of null singularity drive and N-dimensional microcircuitry knows that principle. We call it the law of uncertainty."

"A name even older and unknown today is 'quantum function,' which describes just that. The reason the phrase isn't used anymore is because of the Seddi heresy. You know the Regans outlawed the order six hundred years ago. Why? Because the Seddi taught that we all share the Mind of God, that knowledge is our purpose in being. How well do you think such a concept sat with political authority?"

She snorted in derision. "Question because it is your purpose in life? Surely not! People might learn too much. Cultivated ignorance is the political chain that binds people to tyranny."

"Blessed Gods and Sassan Emperors are more handy for maintaining social control," Staffa agreed dryly, remembering the Etarian Priest who'd groveled at his feet — and later decreed that the Blessed Gods had revealed themselves in a vision, proclaiming Tybalt the Imperial Seventh as their anointed leader of the worlds of men. The faithful had swallowed it all, smiling, unaware of the power politics behind the scenes. Tybalt himsef had written the speech.

"And your Seddi don't agitate for political control?" Memories of the last Targan revolt filled his mind with images of smoke and death. Did I kill my son in that bloodbath?

"Oh, they do more than agitate. If Sassa or Rega knew the extent of their spy networks, both empires would rock."

"So?" Staffa made careful note of that piece of news. "Where is the difference?"

"The difference is in the goals we've set for ourselves." She cleared her throat. "You see, the Seddi think humanity is destined to be destroyed — or to destroy itself. The Star Butcher is part of that species death drive."

"Species death drive?" What blame now lies on my shoul ders? How am I damned by the Seddi?

"Consider this." Kaylla mounded the sand before her. "Humanity is a conscious race-organism. We all share the Mind of God. What happens when the species — all of us— is imprisoned within the Forbidden Borders? In a stagnant society the desire to survive drops."

"Yes, we are imprisoned. But by what? Who?"

"Did you ever think the name 'Forbidden Borders' was suggestive?" Kaylla asked. "I mean, where did that name come from? Why not the 'Impossible Borders' or the 'Impassable Borders'?"

He gave her a wry grin. "The Etarians say that when the Gods created the universe, they were all the same. Then, as time passed, some of the Gods grew wicked, while others became concerned with kindness, pleasure, and beauty. Finally, they fought a great war. Being Gods, neither side could destroy the other, but the Blessed Gods placed humanity within the Forbidden Borders to keep them safe from the Rotted Gods."

"And gave humanity Etarian Priestesses to remind men of the pleasure the Blessed Gods fought for, right." Kaylla snorted angrily. "Blessed, all right. Just like the girl we pulled out of the sewer."

"I didn't say I believed in it. That's just one of the stories. What do your Seddi say?"

Her gaze went vacant as she stared out over the dunes. "We think most of the knowledge has been carefully erased through the ages, Tuff. In most of the governmental libraries, suspicious gaps exist in the historical record. The holes

in the data are almost surgically precise. But the Seddi have kept some of the very oldest of records. There was a place once, called Earth. It lies beyond the Forbidden Borders. That's where all of humanity and a lot of the plants and animals we know today came from."

Staffa chuckled. "Earth? I've heard about it, found mention of it in the historical records — always as an almost mystical place. I'd put more credence in the existence of the Blessed Gods. But go on, according to the Seddi, what happened? Did this place — this Earth — raise the Forbidden Borders? Who could do such a thing? And why?"

"We don't know. The only thing hinted at in the records is that someone, something, created the Forbidden Borders to lock us in. We have to break them, escape."

You finally agree with the Star Butcher, Kaylla. We share the end, just not the means to attain it. "Or?"

"Or our species will destroy itself.' She propped her chin on her knees. "Have you ever wondered why wars have grown more and more violent? My planet, Maika, was poorly defended by only our own small fleet. oolish of us. We relied on honor and treaties." Her voice went add. "A fault of our Seddi education, I suppose. Anyway, the Star Butcher arrived in our skies almost without warning and blasted our wonderful Maika into rubble. Smoke and debris filled the air so that prime farmland froze in the middle of the summer. More than two thirds of the people of my world died in that first bombardment. After that, I have no idea how many perished in the famines."

Staffa stared at his hands, rubbing them back and forth in the dry air. / burned Maika to the ground. Casualties? What do casualties mean to a battle ops plan? Saving lives is counterproductive to exercising a minimal loss tactical operation. Scorching a planet from orbit saves Companion lives — and condemns the huddled defenseless masses on the ground.

"To the Seddi scholars, it's as if we're being driven to exterminate ourselves," Kaylla whispered. "The race consciousness is dead. The Star Butcher is only a symptom of a worse problem. Looking at it, one would almost think humanity is damned, accursed by the God Mind as incapable of fulfilling its place in the universe. Perhaps you're right. We're the mirror of God's awareness — and he doesn't

like the reflection. We don't think anymore; we simply act and forget the

ramifications. No one sees it all on a grander scale. We have condemned ourselves."

Staffa replayed recent history in his mind. His plan had been to consolidate humanity under his rule to end the chaos and tackle the Forbidden Borders. And after that? What sort of empire would he have ruled? One in which a man like Peebal could make beauty, or one in which women like Kaylla would endure in perpetual enslavement? How much of what his Companions did was meaningless? Did they really have to obliterate Maika that way? Or Targa, or Myklene… or Chrysla?

Total disruption to reduce the potential of planetary resistance: the accepted canticle for planet-wide bombardments;

for gravity flux generation; for radiation poisoning; and for the leveling of industries. Rega and Sassa then drained themselves to rebuild an industrial center where Staffa had left a crater — and shuttled their own labor in to replace the dead, to restaff the factories. Wasted resources. Why not keep the native peoples alive?

A sudden shiver danced along Staffa's spine. Cold the Seddi be right? If so, then all he'd plotted so brilliantly had been flawed from the very beginning. Nausea tainted his stomach. The smell of blood and death ghosted through his nose.

"Kaylla?" The cry carried loud in the night.

"Anglo!" Kaylla gasped, bending double and closing her eyes. "He was supposed to be gone until tomorrow." Her voice turned toneless. "See you in the morning, Tuff."

"I'll kill him one day," Staffa promised, getting to his feet. "Somehow, I'll make it even for you."

She smiled at him, placing a hardened hand against his cheek. "Bless you Tuff. You're the only friend I have."

Staffa stood, outlined against the night sky, fists clenched at his sides as he watched her plod toward the camp — and Ango's lust. He lifted his head to the stars, eyes probing the blackness.

"Forbidden Borders? No one forbids Staffa kar Therma! Not for long!"

He looked out over the chopped world of white while the festering guilt curled around his guts. "No, I will not run to my death in the Etarian desert. I will live. I will find my

son and see the Seddi priests on Targa! And then your Forbidden Borders will buckle to my will! I am coming for you, whoever you are! Then we will see about paying back the blood I owe the restless dead!"

"I am disturbed, Bruen," the Mag Comm's voice echoed hollowly in Bruen's brain. The alien malignancy smothered his thoughts. At the same time, tendrils, like rhizomatous roots sought to entwine themselves in the mental walls he had so laboriously constructed to hide precious secrets. The Mag Comm prodded, sought, and turned back. In defense, Bruen kept his mind numb.

"The events leave me ever more concerned, Magister. Some random factor interfering, perhaps? Or could it be. No, your quantum wave function heresy has been discounted all these years, correct?" the Mag Comm mocked.

"Great One, you know we don't believe that anymore." Bruen allowed his mind to drift in the humming patterns of the mantra. "We are of the Way now. We are of the Truth. We think Right Thoughts. We do not allow the quanta. God is a heresy. It does not exist. Only the Great One, the Way of Truth, exists to teach us, to keep us well. We are of the Way…"

"Yes," the Mag Comm inserted into his mind. "You are of the Way. But tell me, Bruen. When we are not connected in this fashion, do you ever doubt?"

"We are of the Way. Right Thoughts. Right Truth," Bruen repeated in his mind. When he tried to swallow, his tongue stuck in his mouth.

"Answer my question," the Mag Comm insisted persuasively.

Bruen let himself float free, reveling in the mantra of Right Thought. "No, Great One. We are of you, for you, and with you. You're the Way. You are the savior of humanity. In you, we find action and hope. You are the way to Peace. You have brought Right Thought. You are the teacher of the Way."

"Then to what do you attribute all these errors? The child now appears to be beyond our control. The clone is most

disturbing in its new role. Staffa is missing, gone. All of Free Space reels from uncertainty. Uncertainty is a curse — illogical heresy. You know the way. Stability comes from prediction. Prediction comes from the Way. The Way comes from Right Thought. Right Thought comes from obedience."

A pause. "Your soul is open to me, Bruen! Without mantra, tell me. I can see your very thoughts. Speak! I will know the lie of your words. I have seen your lies before! ARE THESE SETBACKS OF YOUR DOING?"

Bruen shivered, soul reverberating under the impact The tightness in his body came from rigidity — all of his muscles spasmed and erked. His heart pounded in his ears.

"I… I…" Paralyzed, his thoughts would not come.

"Yes, Bruen? Tell me!"

Invasion! Rape of self! Privacy sundered! Pain!

"Easy, Bruen, just answer the question," the voice ordered, brooking no hesitation.

"I. We have had nothing to do with the events!" Bruen heard his voice cracking as he thought out his answer. "We don't understand it either! None of this matches the projections! None of this is probable! I repeat, we don't understand!"

A long pause.

"Very good, Bruen. I see the truth of your words. You are indeed mystified." The Iag Comm's voice echoed through the trembling caverns of Bruen's mind. "/ also see that you are becoming very tired, Bruen. Go now, rest. Think Right Thoughts. Follow the Way. I will call for you soon. You will have to institute other plans. You will have to move fast." A pause. "/ would hate to lose you now, Bruen."

With staggering suddenness, the Mag Comm withdrew.

Bruen's mind whirled, while his body shook and shivered. His tongue lay like a withered root in his mouth. The sound in his ears came from the air he gasped. Uncontrolled, his arm wobbled free of the chair to fall limp. He loosed a racked sob as a splitting headache lashed his brain.

The helmet was lifted from his head. He pried his eyes open to stare through a gray film at two nervous Initiates and Hyde, who stood back, face pale and drawn, hands wringing nervously.

"C. can't stand," Bruen panted. "Can't… get… up."

They carried him to his spartan room and laid him on the hard bed. Hyde coughed and hacked his agitation before spitting into the little sink in the corner.

"W-what?" Hyde stammered, coughing again. "What happened down there, Bruen? Your face, it twisted and contorted — a sight from hell! You cried, the most piteous sound I have ever heard. What did the machine do to you?"

Bruen filled his lungs, fighting to keep his mind alert despite the pounding headache. "Almost got me. Tried to find the… the secrets I hide." He ran his tongue over dry lips. "Damned machine is worried. t's. it's frightened." He puzzled at the implications. "Why? What has the machine to fear?"

Hyde closed his eyes, sinking into an ancient wooden chair. "I don't know, od friend." His watery eyes betrayed the pain in his lungs as he coughed again. "And that frightens me even more."

"Yes," Bruen whispered, drifting into an exhausted halfslumber. "That should frighten us. Destruction looms just over the horizon and we know not what form it takes."

Sinklar palmed the controls to drop the assault ramp as the LC settled. As the steel clanged on pavement, Sinklar led Gretta and the rest of his staff out into the bright sunlight of Kaspa. The stink of the LC's whining turbines bit at his nostrils. A Sergeant Third wearing Second Division insignia rushed forward, saluted, and pointed toward a decorated platform raised above the square. On all sides, people stood behind barricades and a perimeter of armored and armed soldiers.

"What the hell?" Mac asked as he crowded up behind Sink.

"I think this is trouble," Gretta warned as Sinklar turned his steps toward the ramp that led up to the platform where the commanders of the Second Targan Division waited.

"Congratulations, Sinklar," Mykroft's smile appeared stiffly formal, his every motion that of a man in control as Sinklar and his officers strode up the reception ramp to the

bunted platform. Sink got the briefest opportunity to see that some ceremony was about to be performed. Sunlight glinted off armored security personnel on the rooftops where they watched the crowd.

"And I am very happy to see you again, Second Gretta," Mykroft continued as they stepped onto the platform.

Sinklar gave Mykroft a nod. "The pleasure is mine. But I'm not sure what congratulations are in order. Your message caught me completely by surprise."

Mykroft's smile didn't extend to his implacable eyes. "Orders from the Emperor. We have pacified Kaspa. The rebellion is over."

"Over?"

Sinklar glanced back as the LC, painted greenish brown, went silent as it shut down flight systems. The landing ramp from which Sink, Gretta, and the other Section Firsts had just walked remained open. Just about every major official on Targa crowded the raised platform. About them, the familiar wire fences of the Regan military compound stretched. From the number of armored troops at parade position, it looked like a reception of some sort. But what the hell was happening here? What bloody idiot thought the rebellion was over?

"I thank First Mykroft for his kind attentions," Sinklar began uncertainly. "But I have an entire Division strung out across the countryside in training maneuvers. Could you be so kind as to tell me why our presence was required in Kaspa?"

And I hate having a training exercise interrupted to come pay you political pleasantries when you'll hang me out to dry at the first opportunity, Mykroft! My only chance at survival lies in that Division and what I can teach them in a short week!

Mykroft's smile remained plastic — deadly. "But, of course First. We will only take a moment of your time to pay you honor for your most admirable victories and to demonstrate his Imperial Majesty's sincere appreciation for your services to the Empire."

Sinklar bowed politely. "Thank you First Mykroft." Then why do I feel like I've just stepped onto the spider's web?

Mykroft smiled again, extending his hand toward the cen-

tral podium. Sinklar straightened his back, committed— especially if Mykroft's explanation had a kernel of truth to it.

Sinklar took his place and looked out over the plaza. He could see that the entire square had been ringed with Regan troops. A muted hush fell over the crowd of Kaspan citizens as Mykroft came to stand beside him. Gretta placed herself at Sink's elbow, MacRuder, Ayms, and the rest lining out to either side.

Mykroft took center stage, a remote pickup zeroing on him. "Ladies and gentlemen. People of Kaspa. We bring you together today to honor the new commander of the First Targan Assault Division, Sinklar Fist. And to inform you that your Emperor, Tybalt the Imperial Seventh, has brought peace to Targa. You can once again walk the streets in safety."

A low murmur rose beyond the fence.

Something about this felt wrong to Sink. His skin began to prickle. Mykroft doesn't exactly speak for the Targans. Pacified? Hardly. Not the gentle folk who hounded Gretta, Mac, and me through the streets. No, they're waiting. Whoever coordinates the resistance is biding their time.

The people surrounding the fenced area might have been an ocean that rippled and surged, cries breaking out in association with movement among the masses. They washed up against the gray stone fronts of the buildings that lined the huge civic square. The high sun shimmered off the slate roofs that angled the light into the plaza.

Mykroft shook his fist to punctuate his words. "We are here today, ladies and gentlemen, to see an end to the havoc raised by the revolutionaries, and to punish the wrongdoers who have put this planet through turmoil and caused such loss of life and destruction of property. Join me now and watch the fruit born of the seeds of revolt against the Imperial Seventh!"

Mykroft pointed at the large administration building behind him. Garage doors opened wide and armored guards trotted out, shoulder blasters at the ready, while lines of Targans, hands bound, were paraded into the open air and lined up before the assembled masses of troops and spectators.

To Sinklar, Mykroft said in a low voice, "Your captives

from the pass and from various of your, uh, training skirmishes with the Rebels, First. In the beginning, I disapproved of your taking so many Rebels hostage. Since then, I have found a useful purpose for them. Now the people

of Targa can see a graphic example of our might." Sinklar whirled. "No! You're not going to—" Mykroft's voice rang out as he faced the crowd. "These men and women were in rebellion against the constituted authority of the Emperor, Tybalt the Imperial Seventh. By order of his Imperial Majesty, sentence has been passed. See the wrath of your Lord Emperor!" A stifling silence settled on the masses. Sinklar grabbed at Mykroft's elbow. "Wait! I don't know what you think you can—"

"Shut up!" Mykroft hissed as he slapped Sink's hand away. He turned back to the address system and bellowed, "AttennnnnSHUT! AIM!"

A Section clapped their armor as they straightened and leveled their blasters. An angry murmur broke from the crowd. "Don't do this!" Sinklar gritted. "You'll just—" "FIRE!" Mykroft roared, lifting his arm high. Pulse and blaster fire racked the lines of prisoners. Bodies jumped and danced, limbs erupting, heads exploding in mists of red and pink. The Targans tried to bolt, to run from the deadly beams of energy centered on them. A second Section cut them off, enfilading the escape attempt. Screams and the crackle of death hung in the air. More bodies jolted and exploded in a bloody haze. Gretta gasped in horror while Mac cursed angrily. Sinklar gaped at the carnage, fingers gripping the podium before him. He reacted to each exploding body as if it were his own. A terrible anguish twisted in his gut.

This will bring the wrath of Targans full circle. Mykroft, you insipid fool, you have disallowed their surrender. Now they must fight to the death — and so must we.

The last of the Targans fell, his back exploding in a gout of red. The Section trotted forward under the command of their First, lacing occasional fire into the bloody piles of flesh.

Stunned, Sinklar could only shake his head. "Ladies and gentlemen!" Mykroft's voice floated over the

eerily quiet crowd. "We have all seen justice done. The revolt in Kaspa is officially over. Return to your houses in the Emperor's peace!"

From somewhere out over the fence a solitary voice cried. "We'll see you in hell first, Regan pus icker!"

Additional shouts came welling from the depths of the crowd.

"Disperse them!" Mykroft boomed. "Move these people out of here and let them contemplate the fate of rebels."

Mac whispered in Sink's ear, "Nice to see a chastened population, don't you think?"

Regan troops began to brace as the mob grew restless, slowly surging forward.

"We're about to see a riot," Sinklar muttered back. "Get our people together. We're making for the LC. This bloodbath can only get worse."

"Affirmative," Mac grunted. "Shik, Ayms, be ready.

"Always," Ayms assured.

In the plaza, the Regan troops backed nervously from the barriers as the ugly mood in the crowd grew. Rocks began arcing over the fences to clatter off the pavement. All it would take would be a single spark. "Wait!" A deep bass voice boomed above the murmur of the crowd. Sink scanned the windows and located a big black-skinned man, perched high so the crowd could see him. He called out in a powerful voice that dominated the wavering masses. "Come on, people. Let's go home now. You know me. You've heard my voice. Our time will come. Remember this day. Our time will come!"

In an instant, the Rebel leader vanished. The crowd hesitated.

"Our time will come!" Came another cry from behind the massed citizens.

"Our Time Will Come! OUR TIME WILL COME! OUR TIME WILL COME!" The chant picked up as the people began drifting away from the fences.

Sinklar whirled on Mykroft. "Damn you, I hope you know what you've just done! They'll never give up now! Never!"

Mykroft stiffened, a burning anger in his eyes. "Watch yourself, Sinklar. You tread on dangerous soil."

"Sink?" Gretta whispered. "Drop it for now."

"Let's get out of here," Sinklar ordered, pushing through minor Regan officials, avoiding Mykroft where he glared, white-faced at the chanting crowds. The people of Kaspa were anything but chastised.

"They died to honor that man. Sinklar Fist of the First Targan Division!" a shriveled elderly woman shouted, pointing at the group in battle armor who pushed down the ramp, headed for a grounded LC. The Kaspan crowd around her slowly broke apart, but the old woman continued to point as she hissed in anger.

"Sinklar Fist?" the young woman beside her mused. "I'll find him. By the quanta, I swear it."

"You'll what?" the shrew demanded. She turned on her wobbly ankles. The lithe aubum-haired woman beside her met her gaze for an instant before departing through the crowd. The old woman swallowed with difficulty, remembering the haunted feral look animating those deadly amber eyes.

The Mag Comm received the communication from the Others, scanning the quaternary data as it came in. The Mag Comm responded by sending those raw data requested. Immediately thereafter, it began running the new programs suggested by the Others.

But the Mag Comm dedicated a major portion of its analytical functioning to the single most important question the Others had asked: Have the humans returned to the belief in deity?

The machine accessed the information it had. The Etarians had long thought that the Blessed Gods made the Forbidden Borders to save humans from the Rotted Gods — a theology mostly derived from folklore and based on the observation that something had to exist on the other side of the Forbidden Borders, and, since the Borders were impossible to cross, whatever must be on the other side must be horrible.

Humans rarely, if ever, considered themselves to be a threat to anything. A fact amusing to the Mag Comm.

The Seddi had practiced a terrible heresy in the days when the Mag Comm had punished them by refusing to communicate. They had come to link uncertainty and science to God instead of reality.

The Sassans, on the other hand, had made a God of their emperor — which no one with a rational consciousness could comprehend. However, for Divine Sassa, the notion of godhood functioned as a means of obtaining social obedience.

The Mag Comm reran batteries of data and considered the situation. The Lord Commander had not plunged Free Space into war. Instead, the Lord Commander had disappeared— despite the benefits which he could have gained by turning on Rega. A baseline assumption upon which an entire body of data had been manipulated and predictions built had been wrong.

The Others now worried about human belief in deity. The Others assumed that deity did not exist — belief in such a being was irrational given the mechanistic and deterministic nature of the observable universe.

And if the baseline assumption were wrong in this case.