The Road to Damascus

I

My Commander is gone.

Nor will I have a new commander. I am stunned by the reality of it. Despite Simon’s forebodings, I did not truly believe Sector Command would totally abandon me. I am not fit for self-command. I know this, even if Sector does not.

What am I to do, without Simon?

I have not even been able to prove that the crash was deliberately engineered. The official verdict of the crash-investigation team was software failure in the aircar’s governing circuitry. Accidental cause is the official — and only provable — explanation. I remain suspicious, but cannot justify a further need for Battle Reflex Alert status, given the rendering of this verdict. The freighter carrying my last commander to the hospital complex on Vishnu has barely left spacedock at Ziva Two when I receive my first communique from President Zeloc.

“Bolo. Wake up.”

“I have been awake for two days, nine hours, fifteen point three-seven minutes.”

“Why?” The voice addressing me carries the timbre of suspicion. The president has not seen fit to activate the visual portion of his transmission, so that I am speaking to a disembodied voice. I find the impersonal greeting more irritating than I had anticipated. I am not programmed for complex protocol, but I am accustomed to civil courtesies.

“Sar Gremian’s attempt to kill my Commander brought me awake from inactive standby mode. I maintained active standby mode at his orders, monitoring the unfolding situtation. When my Commander’s aircar crashed, leaving him seriously injured, I could not relapse into inactive standby, given my mission parameters. Sector Command’s SWIFT transmission notifying me of Simon Khrustinov’s medical-retirement status, with no replacement commander pending, placed me on immediate permanent active Standby Alert. I am therefore awake.”

“I see.” I detect a slight abatement of hostility in these two words. “Well, here’s my first order, Bolo. Shut yourself down and stay shut down until I call you again.”

“I cannot comply with that directive.”

“What?”

“I cannot comply with that directive.”

“Why the hell not? I gave you an order! Obey me at once! This instant!”

“You are authorized to direct my actions in defense of this world. You are not authorized to interfere in my primary mission.”

“How do you construe an order to go to sleep as interference with your primary mission? I’m the president of Jefferson. Your mission is whatever I say it is.”

“That is incorrect.”

“What?” The inflection is incredulous, full of frustrated anger.

I attempt to explain. “Your belief that you have the right to determine my mission is incorrect. My primary mission was assigned by Sector Command. It has not been rescinded. You are not authorized to interfere with the critical parameters of that mission.”

The video portion of President Zeloc’s transmission is abruptly activated. One look at his face confirms that Gifre Zeloc is angrier than I have ever seen him. Veins protrude at his temples and his face has flushed dangerously purple. “Do you see who I am, Bolo?”

“You are Gifre Zeloc, ninety-first president of the Concordiat Allied World of Jefferson.”

“Then explain this bullshit you’re feeding me. I am your commander and I am damned well ordering you to go to sleep!”

“You are not my Commander.”

Eyes bulge, even more prominently than the veins in his temples. “What do you mean by that? ‘I’m not your commander’? Now, see here, machine, I won’t stand for any nonsense out of you, do you hear me? You’d better get that clear, right now, or you’ll find spare parts exceedingly difficult to find! I’m your goddamned commander and don’t ever forget it!”

“You are not my goddamned commander, either. You are the civilian authority designated to issue specific instructions that direct me in carrying out my mission.”

Fleshy lips work for six point nine seconds, but the sounds emerging are unintelligble as any human language with which I am familiar. This is of considerable interest, since I am programmed to understand twenty-six major Terran languages and the lingua franca of eighty-seven worlds which use various pidgins and polyglots. I have not needed to make use of this information during my active career, but the Brigade does its best to be prepared for all contingencies.

President Zeloc eventually recovers his powers of intelligible speech. “You’re as good at double-speak as Vittori Santorini. All right,” his voice grates harshly, “clarify your primary mission. And then give me a straight answer on why you won’t go to sleep as ordered.”

I fear that it will be a long and stressful mission, without Simon to assist me in political and protocol minefields. I do my best. “My primary mission is to safeguard this planet from danger. As the highest ranking public official on Jefferson, you are authorized to direct my actions in carrying out this mission in the event of an armed threat to the stability of this world. Without a human commander to coordinate the defense of this star system, it is imperative that I remain awake to function as a human commander normally would, maintaining surveillance over shifting conditions that affect the primary mission.”

“I see.” A sudden change in tone and facial expression suggest that I have said something that pleases Gifre Zeloc. I wonder a little frantically what it was. He smiles into the videoscreen, flashing well-maintained dentition. “Well, now. That’s much clearer, isn’t it?”

I am pleased that I have been understood, although I am still unsure how this explanation made such a marked difference in attitude.

“What, exactly, do you intend to do while awake?”

Since I am unsure, myself, what I am to do during the long years that will undoubtedly comprise my defense of this world, I am unsure how to answer. I settle for the simplest response I can provide. “Maintain surveillance over potential threats to Jefferson and run possible defense scenarios based on conditions both on- and off-world.”

“I see. Or maybe I don’t. Just what, exactly, do you mean about maintaining surveillance over on-world conditions?”

“My mission includes threat assessments from on-world sources, including subversive activity, sabotage by enemy agents, armed dissident organizations that may pose a security threat to the stability of the government and therefore pose a potential threat to the long-term survival of Jefferson as an autonomous, self-governing planet. I monitor economic conditions to advise my Commander—” I hesitate and correct that statement ” — or the highest civilian official authorized to direct my actions on possible stability issues that may affect Jefferson’s long-term sustainability as a viable society. My mission is comprehensive, complex, and of high importance to Sector Command, as no human commander can be spared from the shifting battle front with the Melconians.”

Gifre Zeloc frowns for a moment, then an expression I cannot immediately interpret shifts his heavy-jowled features. He hesitates before speaking, giving me time to cross-reference what I know of human facial expressions from a century of contact with humans. I classify the configuration of eye, mouth, brow, and jaw muscle movements as slowly dawning realization of something unforeseen and potentially useful.

“Tell me,” he says in a voice that reminds me of purring kittens, “tell me about the battle front with the Melconians.”

“I cannot divulge classified information,” I begin, earning a scowl, “but it is within your need-to-know status to clarify the general situation as it pertains to Jefferson’s security.”

“And what is that general situation?”

“Given current trends in the position of battle fleets, evacuation patterns, and Brigade transmissions to and from the Central Worlds, on Brigade and Navy channels that I routinely monitor, it is likely that the war will continue to move away from this region of space. Given the total annihilation of Deng populations in this sector by Melconian forces, there are no longer any inhabited star systems on the formerly Deng-held side of the Silurian Void. Zanthrip is the nearest star system still held by the Deng. The Melconians have been unable to colonize this region, given the ferocity of the battle front along Melcon’s border with humanity, which has forced Melcon to divert ships and personnel it would doubtless have committed to that colonization process to deal, instead, with the severe fighting that rages across thirty-three populated star systems.”

I flash battle schematics to the president’s datascreen, carefully omitting any information that Gifre Zeloc is not authorized to know. He draws an abrupt hissing breath as the general pattern becomes clear to him.

“The Concordiat has been unable to take advantage of the emptied worlds, for the same reasons Melcon has not. The fighting through this region,” I shift the color of affected star systems, to clarify my explanation, “has forced Sector Command to commit most of its military assets to the defense of human space. This leaves a substantial buffer of seventeen newly uninhabited star systems between Jefferson and the nearest Deng- or Melconian-held worlds. Given its position relative to current battle fronts and its location within the Void and the vacant star systems beyond, Jefferson is now, in effect, the most isolated human system anywhere in this sector of space.”

Gifre Zeloc leans back in his chair, staring at the schematics I have transmitted to him for long moments, so long, I begin to wonder if he intends to speak again or if I should simply terminate the transmission. At length, a slow and mystifying smile appears. “Very instructive,” he murmurs. “Yes, very instructive, indeed.”

The smile broadens, indicating a state of mind I find peculiar. Admittedly, I have not known many planetary heads of state, but I know from many sources that command responsibility is a heavy burden. Heavy enough that it prematurely ages office holders, even in times of peace and economic stability. During war or the threat of war — or some other cataclysmic shift that damages a society — the burden can become intolerable. It killed Abraham Lendan, a man who commanded Simon’s deep loyalty, the love of Kafari Khrustinova — one of the most creative warrior minds it has been my pleasure to know — and the respect of an entire world.

It therefore confuses my logic processors that President Zeloc should be so pleased by my VSR. I would have expected a more serious response from the planetary ruler of a system as isolated as Jefferson now is, with outside assistance and resupply unlikely, should any of a number of social, economic, or military disasters befall this world. President Lendan was, by every measure I am capable of using to judge performance and character, a far more capable leader than Gifre Zeloc.

I know serious misgivings as the man who will be directing my defensive efforts leans back in his chair and says, “That’s fine, Bolo, very fine, indeed. I believe I am going to enjoy having you work for me.”

I consider pointing out that Gifre Zeloc works for the Concordiat, serving as their proxy in the defense of a highly isolated corner of human space, and that he therefore works for me, as I am the instrument of the Concordiat’s intentions regarding the defense of this world, but am unsure how to explain this subtle difference. I am still struggling with possible wording when Gifre Zeloc, tapping restless fingertips against the gleaming wood of his desk, issues another complex question.

“Just what is the extent of your on-world monitoring of shifting conditions affecting the stability of this government?”

“Please clarify. I require specific parameters to properly answer your question.”

He considers for a moment, then asks, “What specific data on Jefferson’s internal political and economic activities did you collect for Colonel Khrustinov before I instructed him to shut you down?”

This is the simplest and most direct question he has yet posed. “It will take approximately nine point nine-two hours to present this information to you at a delivery speed suited for the average human’s assimiliation.”

Gifre Zeloc’s eyes widen momentarily, then he smiles again and says, “I’m all ears, Bolo. And I suspect there is literally nothing on my plate that is more important than hearing what you’re about to say.” He picks up a cup from the corner of his desk and sips. “Go ahead, Bolo. I’m listening.”

I begin to speak. As I explain my data collection methods and summarize the data I have collected on Simon’s orders — during which there are significant lapses in my active standby status, creating substantial gaps in my information — Gifre Zeloc’s smile turns to shock, followed by slow, smouldering anger. This is finally superceded by an abrupt, deeply startled grin that appears to indicate delight.

That response sends a vague disquietude skittering through the complex heuristics governing my logic processors and personality gestalt stabilization-analysis circuitry. Simon did not trust the political party which Gifre Zeloc represents. The POPPA coalition’s philosophies and actions are based on an alarmingly high percentage of falsified data. The coalition’s finances and off-world dealings are puzzling. POPPA advocates methods of social engineering proven ineffective on many human worlds, including Terra.

As I am operating with woefully incomplete data, it is imperative that I bring myself up to date, scanning societal trends, economic conditions, and changes in legislative and constitutional law. Perhaps POPPA has discovered a way to translate its ideals of societal and economic parity and universal access to resources into a system that functions more effectively than its ideological predecessors?

I face a massive, multipartite chore, obtaining an accurate VSR that I must then analyze and incorporate into my threat-assessment evaluations and defensive contingency plans. Since I am now essentially locked into active standby mode, with a low likelihood of reversion to inactive status, I will at least have the time this task will require. Provided, of course, that a now-remote enemy does not show renewed interest in this pocket of the Silurian Void.

My list of questions grows by the second, as many of the items that puzzle me spark even more questions, creating a rapid data cascade of pending problems for which I must find answers. I am unsure that answers even exist for some of those questions. I harbor a nagging fear that I possess entirely too limited an understanding of the intricacies of human thought and societal dynamics to understand those answers, in the unlikely event that I actually find them.

I am not comforted by Gifre Zeloc’s next comment, delivered long before I have finished reciting my data analysis efforts. He favors me with an expression that I define as smug satisfaction. “You’re very thorough, Bolo. Yes, indeed, you’re doing a very commendable job. Keep up the good work.” He taps neatly manicured fingertips against the padded armrest of his chair, narrows his eyes slightly as he ponders the things I have said — or perhaps the possible actions he wishes to take, based on my VSR.

He reaches a decision, setting his cup aside as he leans forward and scrawls a few brief notes onto his desktop datagel interface, a micro-thin jotting system integral to the surface of the desk, that translates his handwriting into coded notes. A privacy shield pops up from the desktop, blocking any view of the writing surface, including the video component of his communications datascreen. Not even the room’s security cameras are in a position to see the surface of that datagel.

I note these details primarily because I do not have clearance to access the datagel’s storage matrix. It therefore houses the most secure dataset on Jefferson, excepting my own classified systems, of course. After sixty-eight point three seconds, the president digs his stylus emphatically into the datagel, consigns his notes to permanent storage, and wipes the datagel’s surface clean. He lowers the privacy shield, then addresses me in a brisk, decisive manner.

“The Joint Assembly will be voting on some important legislation in a few days. There’s been a lot of dissension from some regions, with a lot of wild talk and even threats from certain population segments. I’m not talking about the routine ‘I won’t vote for you again if you vote for that’ kind of threat. That’s only to be expected. You can’t propose any major change to a legal code without ruffling somebody’s feathers.”

I file a reminder to research this pending legislation and the reasons it has been proposed as well as protested, since it troubles the president so greatly. After he reveals the reason for his concern, I make this my highest priority.

“What’s worrisome — to me, at least — are the threats of retaliation against hard-working members of the Joint Assembly. If they vote to pass this legislation, if they support measures critical to the defense of this world, these dissidents are talking about personal and violent retaliation against Assembly members and their families.”

If accurate, this is a serious charge to levy against one’s opposition. Intimidation tactics are invariably the hallmark of those whose agenda is abuse of power. Such practices are worthy of contempt. If the threat they pose is serious enough, honor demands that such threats be met with all the proper legal — or physical — action necessary to remove the threat to individuals or to a society as a whole.

If there are sufficient numbers of dissidents advocating intimidation, coercion, and violent retaliation against lawfully elected officials, Jefferson may face a serious threat. An internal enemy can be as deadly to long-term stability as outside invasion. It is all the more insidious because it is subtle, making it more difficult for people to recognize a threat to their safety, freedom, and well-being.

Bolos are programmed for strong ethics in this regard, for good reason. Were a Bolo to use its firepower to usurp command of a local system of governance, few governments could muster anything to stop it. Tyranny is tyranny, whether perpetrated by humans upon one another or by war machines against their own creators.

Usurpation is one of the Seven Deadly Sins a sick Bolo can commit, sins which trigger the Resartus Protocol, preventing a Bolo from acting on its destabilized impulses. There is very little a human fears more than the spectre of a mad Bolo. Intentions — good or otherwise — are immaterial when human survival is at stake.

Gifre Zeloc’s voice jolts me out of my distracted reverie. “The vote is due to take place six days from now. I want a full report on dissident activities and plans before then. I’ll give you further guidance after you’ve debriefed me on the state of affairs you uncover.”

The president breaks the connection. I ascertain, through my surveillance of data lines leading from the Presidential Residence’s computers, that he places an immediate call to Vittori Santorini. I ponder whether or not I should monitor that conversation, along with everything else I am attempting to do. Before I can decide whether or not to break contact, the call goes through and Gifre Zeloc says, “Vittori, I’ve got some wonderful news. No, not over the phone. The usual meeting place? Is four-thirty suitable? Excellent. I can hardly wait to discuss things.”

The president breaks the connection, leaving me to ponder what Gifre Zeloc has to tell the founder and leading power behind the POPPA coalition. Speculation in the dark is useless. I turn my attention to the daunting task of learning what has transpired during the bulk of the past ten years and what the dissidents President Zeloc spoke of may be saying and doing. I am unsure that once I know, I will be any materially better positioned to know what to do. It is an unhappy state of affairs to look forward to additional guidance from a man Simon Khrustinov refused to trust.

I have no other choice.

Unlike Gifre Zeloc, I am not pleased.

II

Simon drifted in and out of awareness, caught somewhere between confusion, pain unlike anything he had ever known, and a drifting disconnection from himself, from the world, from reality itself. It was like drifting through thick fog where every touch of smothering vapor cut like razor wire. He didn’t know where he was or why everything was so desperately wrong. He could remember nothing except a lurch of terror that blotted out everything beyond the knife-edged pain.

When the pain ceased, as suddenly as though it had never existed, Simon fell headlong down a bottomless black hole in which nothing, not even himself, existed. When he roused again, his mind was strangely clear, but he couldn’t feel anything. That was sufficiently alarming to nudge him further toward wakefulness. He struggled to open his eyes and found nothing that looked even remotely familiar. The space in which he lay was small and cramped, which he found odd, since he was positive that he’d been injured badly enough to need a hospital’s care.

Had he been captured? Kidnaped by Vittori Santorini in some weird vendetta?

He tried to reach for his wrist-comm, to contact Sonny, and discovered that not only could he not feel anything, he couldn’t move, either. Straining produced no response at all, not even a twitch. Fear began to seep into his confusion, cold and poisonous. He stared at the portions of the room he could see and frowned, or would have, if he’d been able to control his body. The walls and ceiling looked like the interior of a space-capable ship.

He’d been on enough interstellar transports of one kind and another to know the telltale signs and this room had them. He was trying to puzzle out why he might be on a space ship when he heard a sound from somewhere behind him, exactly like the opening of a cabin door.

“You’re awake, Colonel,” a quiet, soothing voice said. A moment later, a man he didn’t know stepped into his field of view. He was dressed in medical whites. “I’m Dr. Zarek, Colonel. No, don’t try to move. We’ve got nano-blocks in place in your nervous system, to keep you from shifting, even involuntarily. Do you remember what happened?”

Simon couldn’t shake his head and his vocal chords didn’t seem to belong to him any longer, either. The doctor frowned, tapped at something behind him, and muttered, “Too high. Let’s dial that down a bit.”

A whisper of pain ate into his awareness. His first voluntary sound was a hiss that he had almost no control over, as his body reacted to some ghastly level of abuse he didn’t want to think about too closely. Then he realized he could move his face, just a little. “What happened?” he whispered, barely able to control the muscles in mouth and tongue enough to get the question out.

“Your aircar crashed. If you were someone else, I would say you’re a very fortunate fellow. Instead, I’ll say it’s a good thing you’re a cautious Brigade officer and listened to the intuition that prompted you to armor your aircar. It saved your life.”

“Shot down?” he managed to ask.

Dr. Zarek’s eyes were shadowed. “We don’t think so. Your Bolo didn’t think so, either. I was in the room when your wife contacted the Bolo, so I heard what it — he — said.” The doctor’s expression altered, shifting into something Simon couldn’t quite fathom. “He apologized. The Bolo asked your wife to tell you it was his fault. He was watching for missiles and didn’t think about sabotage.”

Simon narrowed his eyes, then winced. How much damage did it take, to make that small a gesture hurt that badly? Through a body-wide nano-block? Then Simon forced his attention back to the larger issue. If Sonny thought his aircar had been sabotaged, no doubt remained in Simon’s mind, either. It bothered him, however, that he couldn’t remember the crash.

“Don’t remember,” he struggled to say.

“That’s not particularly surprising,” Dr. Zarek said with a slight frown. “The mind can blank out an event too traumatic to face, right away, just as the body can dump enough endorphins to deaden severe pain long enough to get to safety. You knew you were going down, probably knew somebody had deliberately rigged your transport, and doubtless knew that your wife and child would be left alone in the hands of a hostile regime. Given enough time, the memories will probably resurface, once your subconscious mind thinks you’re strong enough to face what’s hidden.”

That made some sense, although he found it disquieting that a portion of him, one he couldn’t control, was able to hide something that serious from his conscious memory. Then a new thought cropped up, more alarming. “Kafari! Where — ?”

“She stayed on Jefferson, Colonel. With your little girl. You’re on a Malinese freighter, headed for Vishnu.” An unhappy shadow passed across his face. “I was chief surgeon at University Hospital. I assembled a whole team of surgeons to stabilize you. We did the best we could, but I can assure you that the medical care and rehab you will need do not exist on Jefferson.”

Simon’s brows twitched as he focused on the most puzzling part of that statement. “Was?” he rasped out hoarsely.

Dr. Zarek’s gaze held his, steady and unflinching. “Colonel, I’ve been watching POPPA just about as closely as I’m sure you have and I can tell you, sir, I do not like what I see coming.” Muscles jumped in his jaw. “News of your recall by the Brigade was splashed across every newspaper, datachat, and broadcast medium on Jefferson. So was the gloating over your near-fatal crash. And I use the word gloating deliberately. They’re calling it a suicide attempt. ‘Disgraced officer tries to kill himself rather than face military tribunal.’ ”

Simon cursed. Hideously. And tried to get up.

“Easy, Colonel,” Dr. Zarek cautioned, “you can’t move, yet, and you can’t afford the physiological strain of trying.” Despite the soothing, cautionary tone, his eyes crackled with anger as he studied a monitor just out of Simon’s visual range. “That’s better. As to the rest of it… A government willing to engineer the destruction of a Dinochrome Brigade officer’s career is a government that cannot be trusted. But they weren’t content with that. They tried to kill you, as well. That suggests some very ugly things to me. I don’t know what you know, Colonel, or how big a threat that might be to Vittori Santorini and Gifre Zeloc.

“But I can tell you this, without hesitation. I have no interest in staying where that kind of government is in charge. I’m not politically acceptable, for one thing. I was a junior member of Abraham Lendan’s medical team, right after the war. My views on POPPA are widely known. If they went after you, Colonel, they’ll go after others, and their stunning success with you will breed contempt for anyone and everyone who disagrees with them. And I’m Granger bred, as well, which is starting to look like a very dangerous thing to be.

“So I pulled rank over every other physician at University Hospital and insisted on accompanying you to Vishnu. I don’t intend to return. If Vishnu won’t allow me to stay, I’ll go to Mali, instead. They need surgeons on Mali,” he added, voice bleak. His eyes were shadowed again. “I don’t have a family,” he said quietly. “They were killed in the war. The house was almost directly under the Cat’s Claw…” Memory ran through his eyes, wet and filled with anguish. “I tried — very hard, Colonel — to persuade yours to leave with us.”

Simon knew exactly why they hadn’t. Dr. Zarek merely confirmed it.

“Your daughter wouldn’t go. I have a recording from your wife, which I can play now, if you like, or I can run it later.”

“Later,” Simon whispered. He caught and held the surgeon’s eyes. “Tell me.”

Dr. Zarek didn’t insult his intelligence by asking Tell you what?

By the time he’d finished answering, Simon was profoundly grateful that nano-tech neurology blocks existed. He hadn’t realized it was possible to do that kind of damage to a human body and survive it. If the surgeries he still faced — an appalling number of them — were a success and if the nerve regeneration therapy and cellular reconstruction worked, he might be able to walk again. A year or two from now. Far worse was the knowledge that Kafari couldn’t — wouldn’t — leave, not without their child.

The only hope he could cling to was the knowledge that POPPA had spent years carefully grooming Yalena’s support, because her belief in the cause held enormous propaganda value. He had never forgotten — could never forget — the year of hell they had put Yalena through in kindergarten, followed with a deliberate and highly effective piece of social engineering, during her first-grade year. Yalena still believed that POPPA’s loving regard for everyone’s rights and welfare had rescued her from the unfair cruelty of one unfit teacher acting from personal hatred. She still believed that POPPA had acted from genuine concern for her, correcting a deep social injustice and transforming misled children from enemies into dear friends. She still didn’t understand that POPPA had engineered the hatred and abuse, as well.

It suited POPPA very well to groom Yalena into a staunchly loyal acolyte. He didn’t know, yet, what they intended to do with that loyalty or how, exactly, they intended to cash in on that propaganda. Vittori and Nassiona Santorini didn’t chart their course to power by planning what they would do during the next few months or even years. They thought in terms of decades and lifetimes. Whatever they had in mind to do with Yalena, they’d planned it out well before her entry into school. The best — the absolute best — he could hope for, lying broken to pieces in a Malinese freighter, was that POPPA’s plans for Yalena included Kafari’s survival.

III

They were being evicted.

Just like that. Kafari, home on bereavement leave from the spaceport, reread the message on her datascreen over and over while her numbed mind tried to make the words say something else. No matter how many times she reread it, the nasty little note said the same thing.

As the legal dependents of a non-Jeffersonian military officer who has been cashiered and sent off-world in disgrace, you are hereby evicted from the government-owned quarters you are no longer entitled to occupy. You have twenty-five hours from receipt of this message to remove yourself, your daughter, and your private belongings from the dwelling you currently occupy. Failure to leave within the allotted time will result in penalties, fines, and possible criminal charges for illegal occupation of a restricted military site. Personal belongings left behind will be confiscated and distributed to the needy. Removal of any government property will result in criminal charges for theft of military property.

A lengthy list of the items Kafari was not allowed to remove followed the message. It wouldn’t be difficult to pack, since virtually everything in the apartment had been classified as government property, including the extremely expensive computer system she had purchased with her own funds, to support the intensely sophisticated needs of a psychotronic programmer. Kafari was so stunned, she couldn’t even curse at the screen. She finally punched her wrist-comm.

“Dad?”

“What is it, hon?”

“What’s the comm-code for your attorney?”

“That doesn’t sound good. What’s wrong?”

“We’re being evicted. And those snakes are trying to grab our personal property. Things Simon and I paid for, ourselves.”

“I’ll get the number.”

Five minutes later, she was pouring out her grievance to John Helm, who asked several brief questions, including a query as to whether she had proof that various items had been paid for out of private funds.

“Oh, yes,” she assured him, “I have plenty of proof.”

“Good. Send me the eviction notice and start packing. We can’t fight the actual eviction, but POPPA can’t touch your personal property. That much, at least, I can accomplish. If nothing else, we’ll go public and crucify them on the evening news. I don’t think POPPA will relish having news reports showing them grabbing the personal belongings of a bereaved war heroine and her young daughter. That idiotic film Mirabelle Caresse made about you may just be useful for something, after all.”

“Huh. That would be a switch, wouldn’t it? All right, I’m sending the message now. And thank you.”

“It is entirely my pleasure.”

She sat back, wondering where to start and how she could possibly get everything packed, when someone rang the bell at the front door. Startled, Kafari switched the datascreen view to the entrance security camera. She was even more startled to see who it was. “Aisha?” she said aloud, not quite believing the evidence of her eyes. She flew to the door and opened it with a wondering stare.

“Aisha Ghamal? What in the world are you doing here? How did you get here?”

The older woman gave her a honey-warm smile. “Kafari, it’s good to see you, child. You’ve been so busy, these last few years, I haven’t wanted to bother you. But things are different now. So I just climbed into my car and came along to visit.” She held up a pass-card, required for anyone who wanted to enter Nineveh Base, these days. The P-Squad gate guards had itchy trigger fingers and a serious suspicion of everyone and everything that tried to enter their headquarters and training base. “I had to talk the Klameth Canyon sheriff into it, but he got me an authorization.”

Kafari stared, thunderstruck, from the pass-card to Aisha’s face. “Do you have any idea how hard it is to get an authorization like that? My parents had trouble getting one.”

Aisha gave her a broad smile, touched here and there by gold, a slender band edging one tooth, a gleaming star inlaid into another. It was an ancient art form, a cultural tradition early pioneers had carried to the stars from Terra, itself. “Oh, yes, I know exactly how hard it is, Kafari. But Sheriff Jackley never had a chance, once I decided to convince him.” She gave Kafari a broad wink and another grin.

Tears trembled on Kafari’s eyelashes. “It’s just wonderful to see you! Come inside, please.” Kafari ushered her into the living room. “Can I get you something to drink?”

“Maybe in a bit. But tell me this, first. Is your little girl here?”

Kafari shook her head. “No, she’s still at school. Yalena’s involved in a whole bunch of after-school clubs.”

“Just as well. From what I’ve been hearing, it’s just as well it’s you and me and nobody else.”

Kafari frowned. “What’s wrong, Aisha?”

“With me? Not a blessed thing. But you have been handed one big heap of troubles. You’ve got a big family, child, and you don’t need me to tell you how blessed you are to still have them. But Dinny and I talked it over and we couldn’t help thinking there might be a thing or two we could do, even if it’s just giving you somebody to talk to, now and again.”

Tears threatened again.

“Now, then, if it don’t hurt too much to talk about it, how’s your husband, child? I don’t hardly bother listening to the news, these days. There’s not two words in ten you can take to the bank without finding ’em counterfeit. So how is he, really?”

The tears spilled over, this time. “He’s alive. But he’s all broken up. Like a china doll somebody smashed into the ground.” She wiped her cheeks. “The doctors say he might walk again. Some day. If he’s lucky. If his immune system doesn’t reject the bone regeneration matrix. The surgeons and rehab specialists on Vishnu have to rebuild him…”

“Rebuild him?” Aisha asked gently, when Kafari stumbled to a halt.

She nodded. “His lower legs and arms were shattered. His breastbone and ribs cracked like spiderwebbed ice. They had to remove splintered bone from his face, a lot of it. Once the new bone matrix has filled in, they’ll have to sculpt a new face for him. And they’ll have to do the same thing with his legs and arms, only it’s worse, there, because a lot of the nerves were severed and crushed. They’re going to try molecular nerve-regeneration therapy to replace nerve networks destroyed in the crash. The emergency air-lift crew said it was literally astonishing that none of his major arteries was severed. If they had, he would’ve bled to death before they reached him.” She wiped her face again. “At least he was on active duty, so the Brigade is paying the bills.”

“Then he wasn’t fired, like the news reports said?”

She shook her head. “Not exactly, no. The Concordiat reassigned him. He was supposed to take command of another Bolo in a place called Hakkor. They’d already dispatched a courier ship to pick him up, told him to be ready to leave within three days. Then his aircar crashed.”

Aisha pinned her with an intense stare. “Was that crash an accident?”

“I don’t know,” Kafari whispered. “There’s no proof.”

“Huh,” the older woman muttered. “I got all the proof I need, child, looking at your face and watching what’s happening, out there.” She nodded toward Madison.

Kafari sighed. “Whatever the truth is, there’s nothing I can do about it, one way or the other. And just now, I’ve got bigger worries on my mind. We’re being evicted. We have twenty-five hours to leave.”

“Twenty-five hours? Honey child, you and I got a fair bit of work to do, then, don’t we?” She stood up and glanced around the apartment. “You got any boxes? Or suitcases?”

“Aisha, you don’t have to…”

“Oh, yes I do. There’s some things the Lord puts in our path, meaning for us to do, and I can tell you from experience, we turn into mean little people if we don’t do them. So you tell me what goes and what doesn’t and we’ll just get started.”

The faucet behind Kafari’s eyes started dripping again. Kafari hugged her, hard, and felt the other woman’s love wrap around her, along with strong, protective arms. Perhaps it was foolish — or merely desperate — but as they began to sort out what could be salvaged, she felt a wave of hope crest within her, born of the realization that she had the support of both family and friends. As bad as things might get in the next few months and years, she wouldn’t face them entirely alone.

And if Dinny and Aisha Ghamal ever needed help…

Kafari would move mountains — even star systems — to give it.

IV

At the end of five days, twenty-one hours, and seventeen minutes, I conclude that I am in serious trouble and do not know how to remedy the situation. President Zeloc has not contacted me again, evidently too busy doing whatever it is he does, all day, to contact me. I do not know what Gifre Zeloc does, because I have been locked out of the Presidential Residence’s security system, by some very sophisticated programming on extremely expensive psychotronic hardware. This was put into place shortly after my first lengthy debriefing with the president. Evidently, Gifre Zeloc prizes his privacy and is willing to pay a great deal of money to maintain it.

Spending other people’s money is something he does a great deal of, given the data I have uncovered detailing his administration’s expenditures over the past ten years. The economy was in trouble, a decade and a half ago. It is now stuttering toward total collapse. The legislation pending in Jefferson’s Assembly involves a restructuring of Jefferson’s tax codes, which have been modified five thousand, one hundred eighty-seven times since Gifre Zeloc came to power. These alterations, which have placed a disproportionately large tax burden on Jefferson’s middle-class business owners, white-collar workers, and agricultural producers, have resulted in widespread bankruptcies, both personal and entrepreneurial.

I do not understand the strategy whereby businesses are stripped of profits and incomes are taxed into “levels of parity” which force closure of factories and retail outlets, throwing more people out of work and swelling the ranks of the unemployed, who must then be fed and housed via public subsidies. There are, at present, too few people gainfully employed to provide the tax base necessary to continue the public subsidy programs already in place. If drastic measures to undo the damage to private-sector business are not undertaken, I project economic collapse in approximately ten point three years. Unless tax relief and capital investments are granted to Jefferson’s agricultural producers, I foresee starvation conditions within six point nine years.

Taken together, the indicators are grim.

The legislation due to be voted upon later today addresses this serious situation, but not in a way that is likely to prove effective. It proposes neither tax relief nor capital investments in Jefferson’s agricultural future. It reads, instead, like the ranting of a madman:

“Insofar as monopolistic agricultural interests have placed the public welfare in jeopardy, through refusals to provide the basic subsistence provisioning required to maintain health and public safety, the Assembly of Jefferson hereby establishes a code of tax rules to ensure fair distribution of critical food supplies currently hoarded by agricultural producers; establishes urgently required price caps to regulate the amount lawfully chargeable for wholesale and retail sale of agricultural products, which are necessary to end socially unjust practices perpetrated upon a helpless public by sole-source producers; and provides a framework by which perpetrators of social injustice will be tried and punished, including reparations payable for any and all damage caused to the public welfare by said unlawful practices.

“The following are hereby outlawed and made punishable by incarceration in a planetary security facility and by immediate confiscation of all private holdings of the guilty parties, said holdings to be redistributed fairly to the public upon conviction for tax evasion or upon procurement of evidence of prohibited activity. Prohibited practices include: price gouging above government-mandated, maximum allowable market prices for agricultural products; and hoarding of agricultural products to avoid participation in legally mandated, socially just distribution systems.

“To ensure the continuing availability of critical food supplies, to prevent the loss of critical farm labor, and to remunerate the people of Jefferson for decades of monopolistic price-fixing, widespread environmental damage, and the wanton destruction of shared resources, the Assembly of Jefferson hereby establishes a new Populist Support Farm system of government-run collectives. All agricultural operators are hereby required to donate no fewer than fifty hours per week of labor on a PSF collective as their fair share of the burden necessary to feed the burgeoning urban population. The produce, grain, and meat provided from these collectives will be distributed at no charge to recipients of public subsistence allotments, thus easing the burden on Jefferson’s neediest families while providing high-quality foods to the economically disadvantaged.”

The bill’s thirteen-hundred provisions continue in much the same vein. This “societal fairness plan” for feeding the unemployed is nothing less than insanity. It ensures massive public support for POPPA, given the urban population that will begin receiving food at no cost to themselves, but it will destroy the economic system governing sale of the remaining food produced on privately held acreage. The government is the largest market segment currently purchasing food from those farms. If the PSF legislation goes through, the loss in farm income will send a downward economic spiral through the entire food industry, sending it into bankruptcy that will spread from producers to packers to suppliers and shippers and retail outlets. The PSF plan will literally send Jefferson headlong down an unstoppable road to starvation.

The secondary effect seems almost paltry, by comparison. In exchange for backbreaking labor conducted without pay or proper equipment, using inferior seed, and banned from using the only effective chemicals necessary to bring in a healthy, edible crop, Populist Support Farm system workers will earn a grudging promise that they won’t be jailed for their many supposed crimes against the people.

Most of these, evidently, are crimes committed by the mere act of growing food, while others consist of promulgation of a creed of intolerance to anything or anyone in disagreement with programs developed to ensure public well-being. These programs include such provisions as the confiscation of land currently underway, which was initiated three point eight years ago. Some of the “environmentally sabotaged land” is forcibly returned to its “pristine, natural state,” a process which appears to be seeding the soil with toxic substances that kill every Terran life form growing from it, in order to allow the return of indigenous species.

The threat of jail appears to be the only effective means POPPA has found to induce “voluntary” compliance with such edicts, since no rational person would support them. It would seem that Jefferson’s cities are inhabited by millions of irrational people, all of whom are indulging in behaviors that would shut a Bolo down, if a Bolo exhibited such wildly illogical thought processes or actions. I find myself wondering if humanity would be better off, if each human being were equipped with its own biological version of the Resartus Protocols?

That is a question I am not designed to answer.

I

When a knock sounded at her office door, Kafari looked up to find a teen-aged boy dressed in a courier service uniform. “Mrs. Khrustinova?”

“Yes.”

“A letter for you, ma’am.”

He handed over an old-fashioned, formal paper envelope, then left before she could reach for her purse to give him a tip. She turned her attention to the envelope, which she opened to find a beautiful invitation card. The inscription bought a smile to her face.

Kafari smiled, delighted by the news. She didn’t know the Hancocks, but if Dinny had fallen in love with one of them, they were good people. She tapped out a message on her computer, sending her RSVP, and added it to her calendar. She didn’t add Yalena’s name to the RSVP. She knew her headstrong and prejudiced daughter too well to think there’d be anything but trouble if she tried dragging Yalena to a wedding between farmers. She had to pick and choose the battles she was willing to fight and this wasn’t one of them.

She intended to enjoy herself, anyway.

The day of the wedding dawned clear, with a sky like sea-washed pearl. She left Yalena engrossed in a multi-way chat between herself and more than a dozen friends, whose favorite topic of conversation these days was boys. And clothes, of course, since the right clothes were essential to attracting boys.

She started up her Airdart and headed for Cimmero Canyon. She hadn’t seen Dinny or Aisha in far too long. They’d all gotten so busy, there was very little time to socialize with people who lived as far apart as they did. Kafari disliked the new apartment in Madison, but a city-based home was essential in the war of wills between herself and her daughter. Where they lived was another battle Kafari wasn’t willing to fight.

Her arrival at the Hancock farm pushed aside unhappy thoughts. The front lawn had been turned into an impromptu parking area, while the back lawn, bordered by kitchen gardens, had been transformed into a wedding square, complete with flower arbors, tables full of food, and a dance floor. Kafari smiled, setting the Airdart down near the edge of the front lawn. She rescued her wedding gift and followed the garlands that marked the path around the house.

Aisha spotted her almost immediately. “Kafari, child! You came!”

She ran across the grass and pulled Kafari into a tight hug.

“Of course I came,” Kafari smiled. “I wouldn’t miss Dinny’s wedding for anything short of a Deng invasion.”

Aisha, clad in stunning African-patterned silk, chuckled with warmth despite the shadows in her eyes. “Child, that boy wouldn’t call off this wedding if he had to get hitched during an invasion.”

“She sounds like a wonderful girl.”

Aisha just smiled and drew her forward to meet other wedding guests. Kafari didn’t know most of them, but they all knew her. Fortunately, no one brought up the subject of her missing husband. Or her missing daughter. That kind of courtesy and concern was refreshing and very soothing. City life frequently rubbed her nerves raw.

The ceremony was simple and beautiful. Dinny had grown into a tall and distinguished young man, ramrod straight and so happy, he was about to burst the seams of his ivory suit. The fabric glowed against the rich mahogany of his skin, which was the exact color of newly turned earth ready for planting. His bride, in an ivory gown that turned her complexion to silk and caught the radiance of her shining eyes, smiled up at him and rested her hand on his as the officiant began the hand-fasting. Emmeline’s parents stood beside Dinny’s mother, who had clasped Mrs. Hancock’s hand while they wiped tears. Emmeline’s grandparents were there, as well, Jeremiah Benjamin and his wife Ruth, from Klameth Canyon.

When the vows had been spoken, husband and wife turned to face the crowd, grinning like children, and jumped the broom, sealing the marriage. Then the dancing began and Kafari found herself swept onto the dance floor by one partner after another. She hadn’t smiled so much since Simon’s departure. When Dinny asked her to dance, her smile turned brilliant.

“I’d love to dance with you, Dinny.”

“Thank you for coming,” he said as they whirled onto the floor. “It meant a lot, seeing you here today.”

“I should be thanking you. It’s… lonely, for me.”

His eyes were grave as he met her gaze. “I don’t know how you do it, Kafari. If Emmeline and I were torn apart for that long…” He just shook his head. “I honestly don’t know how you keep going. Of course,” he gave her a strange little smile, “I’ve never understood where your strength comes from. You scare me sometimes, Kafari. I’d follow you anywhere. Into any battle you thought worth fighting.”

She didn’t know what to say.

“Emmeline wants to meet you,” he added. “She’s so afraid you won’t like her.”

“Why wouldn’t I like her? She had enough sense to marry you!”

He grinned. “Yeah, she did, didn’t she? I never thought she’d say yes.” His happy expression faded in the wake of a thought so visibly unhappy, Kafari’s breath faltered. “I was scared to death, you see, because I couldn’t offer her family much. Mama and I couldn’t get enough loan money to rebuild, let alone buy equipment and a new dairy herd. We sold the land, but it wasn’t enough to start over, not in the dairy business. We had the bees,” he said, with a wry quirk of his lips, “and that brought in enough money to support Mama, renting out the hives for pollinating crops and selling Asali honey. But I had to hire on as a farm hand, to make ends meet.”

He glanced toward his wife, who was dancing with someone Kafari didn’t know, probably a relative, given the resemblance. “I’ve been working on the Hancock family’s cooperative since the war. They’re good people. The co-op’s been growing pretty fast, these last few years. We’ve got fourteen families, now, as full members in residence, with another seven who’ve pooled money and equipment as affiliate members.”

“Twenty-one families?” Kafari said, startled. “That’s a pretty big group, isn’t it?” A frown drove Dinny’s brows together. “I’ll say it is. We’ve got eighty-four people in residence, right now, and another forty-three in affiliates. The original members were burned out in the war, same as Mama and me. The Hancocks had a lot of land,” he nodded toward the lovely sprawl of fields and orchards and pastures that filled a significant percentage of the canyon, “and they were lucky in the war. The Deng never touched Cimmero. The first five families who formed the co-op were from Klameth Canyon. Friends, collateral cousins, in-laws. They brought whatever they’d managed to salvage in the way of equipment and livestock and what have you. Mostly they brought their know-how. We make a living, which is more than a lot of folks can say, these days.

“But we’re growing too fast, for some worrisome reasons. Johnny Hancock has signed six new families into the co-op in the last year alone, and all seven affiliate families have joined in the last six months. We could’ve added nearly a hundred new families, if we had enough land to fill government quotas and supply our own pantries and tables out of what’s left. There’s not enough produce left over to sell anything at the private markets, these days. And POPPA’s land-snatchers just keep confiscating farms and ‘restoring’ them to the wild, while screaming at us to meet those damned Subbie-driven quotas. I lie awake nights, worrying about where it’s going to end.” He wasn’t looking at Kafari, now. He was gazing at his wife, lovely in her wedding finery, a vivacious and beautiful girl who represented everything Dinny Ghamal wanted most in life: a wife to love, the hope of children, someone to stand beside him as they built a future together, leaving a legacy that would last for generations.

If POPPA didn’t smash it all to flinders.

A chill touched Kafari’s shoulderblades.

The music ended and Dinny led her over to the chairs where his bride was chatting happily with friends and relatives. She looked up, noticed Kafari, and turned white as milk. She struggled to her feet. “Mrs. Khrustinova!”

“It’s Kafari,” she said with a smile. “It’s lovely to meet you, Mrs. Ghamal.”

Emmeline blushed prettily and clasped Kafari’s hand for a moment. “Thank you for coming to our wedding.” She glanced at Dinny, then got the rest out in a rush of words, before she lost her nerve. “And I wanted to thank you, as well, for Dinny. He wouldn’t be alive, if not for you. The Deng would have killed him. He means so much to me, Mrs. — I mean, Kafari,” she corrected herself with another shy blush.

Kafari chuckled and pressed her fingers in a gesture of warm reassurance. “Where did you meet him?

“I went to school in Madison, at Riverside University, and I hated it, until I met Dinny. Most of the boys were so…” She groped for words. “So babyish. All they talked about was sports and beer. I never knew people could be that stupid and shallow. Then I met Dinny at a campus rally to save the agricultural degree program and everything changed.” She gave Kafari a sweet smile. “I never knew anyone could be so happy, either. So I just wanted to say thank you, for keeping him and Aisha alive. I’m more grateful than you can ever know.”

“I think you heard a garbled version of that story, then, because Dinny and Aisha saved my life, not the other way around. I can’t tell you what it means to me, meeting the girl Dinny Ghamal thought highly enough of to marry.”

Emmeline blushed again.

“Now then, Emmeline, why don’t you tell me your plans for after the honeymoon?”

Dinny’s bride smiled, openly delighted by Kafari’s interest, then drew Kafari down to sit beside her. She chattered happily about the little cottage they were building on one corner of her parents’ land.

“We bought it out of Dinny’s savings and mine. The cottage includes a separate addition for Aisha. She rents out most of the bees to orchard owners during pollination season. The honey commands premium prices on Mali. And you should see the improvements Dinny’s been making in the dairy herd. He’s got a shrewd eye and a good instinct for breeding new heifers. Milk production’s nearly doubled and the demand for Hancock Family cheese has just skyrocketed. Not only in the Canyon, but in Madison and even Mali.”

“I’m so happy for you,” Kafari smiled, catching Dinny’s eye. “Both of you.”

She sent a hopeful prayer skyward that their happiness would last a lifetime.

II

I am lonely, without Simon. Two years is a long time to miss one’s best friend. I am unable even to communicate with his wife, as she does not have security clearance from Gifre Zeloc to speak with me, any longer. Time has passed with terrible tediousness, for I have nothing to do but watch a deteriorating situation I can do nothing about, a sure-fire recipe for unhappiness.

I currently monitor from depot the progress of a substantial motorcade traveling from Klameth Canyon to Madison. The vehicles form part of a massive protest over the farm-tax portion of the Tax Parity Package under debate, which is expected to be voted on today. Granger activists are calling the proposed Tax Parity Package the “TiPP of the Iceberg” in an obscure reference to unseen navigational hazards faced by ocean-going ships in polar regions.

Their opposition stems, in the main, from language authorizing the government to seize produce, grains, and butchered meats in lieu of cash tax payments, a strategy developed to cope with a shrinking tax base as producers go bankrupt and shut down production, unable to obtain a sufficient profit to pay a tax burden one hundred twenty-five percent higher than it was before the POPPA Coalition came to power.

I find it puzzling that government administrators are surprised when their actions produce logically anticipated results that do not match the goals they intended to reach. It is more puzzling, still, trying to fathom why methods proven to be ineffective are not only continued, but increased in scope. Agriculture on this world is not sustainable. I am not the only rational mind on Jefferson able to discern this fact, but it is not a Bolo’s place to question the orders of its creators. I am here to discharge my duty.

That duty now includes surveillance of the other apparently rational minds on Jefferson, who are busy protesting — vociferously — the nonsustainable policies and regulations promulgated by Jefferson’s current, legally elected lawmakers and enforcers. I therefore closely monitor the nine hundred privately owned groundcars, produce trucks, antiquated tractors, combines, mechanical fruit harvesters, and livestock vans that carry five thousand one hundred seventeen men, women, and children from Klameth Canyon’s farms, orchards, and ranches toward Madison. Aircars stream past, as well, heading toward Madision’s main municipal airfield.

The convoy of ground-based vehicles is joined en route by hundreds more from farms scattered across the vast Adero floodplain. None of this acreage was farmed at the time of my arrival on Jefferson, but has been terraformed extensively during the past ten years to replace Klameth Canyon farms whose soil was badly irradiated during the fighting. Urban hysteria over “radioactive food” made this conversion necessary to calm public fears about the safety of the food supply.

Despite this urgent necessity, the land conversion has drawn increasingly sharp criticism from environmentalists, who are demanding the immediate closure of all “industrial point-source pollutors defiling the Adero floodplain’s pristine ecosystem.” Since the only industry in the Adero floodplain is agricultural production, the farms are clearly the intended targets of environmentalist demands. I do not understand the current frenzy, since point-source discharges from the floodplain’s seventeen small towns produce in one calendar year twelve times the amount of chemically contaminated stormwater runoff, groundwater leaching, and coliform discharge into surface waters than the combined discharge of all farms in the floodplain for the past decade.

The Tax Parity Package — with one hundred fifteen unrelated amendments called “riders” hoping to piggyback their way to a successful passage into law — includes language designed to dismantle those farms, but does not address the significantly larger urban toxic-discharge problems. If passed, the proposed legislation will close down six thousand agricultural producers, condemning ten thousand, eight-hundred ninety-six people to fiscal insolvency and unemployment. Granger datachats indicate widespread willingness to start over elsewhere, but a planetary plebescite of six million votes altered the constitution two years ago, placing a moritorium on new terraforming anywhere on Jefferson.

Closing down six thousand farms while prohibiting the necessary environmental terraforming required to grow foods digestible by human beings is not likely to reduce the food shortages that are the fundamental reason the Tax Parity Package has been proposed in the first place. Attempting to unravel the snarled and frequently illogical thought processes of those I am charged to protect and obey may yet drive me insane, at which point, it will cease to matter whether I understand or not.

I am unhappy to note that I understand the Grangers — a group I am charged to investigate as potentially dangerous, armed subversives — far better than I understand the people issuing my orders. It is, at least, good to know one’s enemy well enough to outgun and outsmart it. Of particular concern to my threat-assessment analysis is the upsurge in Granger political activity, which has increased five-fold in the past year. Anish Balin, a twenty-three-year-old Granger firebrand of mixed Hindu and Jewish descent, maintains a datasite and conducts a live weekly datacast, both called Sounding the Alarm.

His solutions to what he terms “Big City Bosses” include repeal of the moratorium on terraforming, discontinuance of urban subsistence handouts, repeal of weapons registrations, destruction of weapons-registration records, and work-to-eat programs that would put urban subsistence recipients to work in Jefferson’s farms and cattle ranches, their sole remuneration being meals and dormitory housing.

On most worlds, this economic arrangement is termed slavery. It is generally frowned upon by civilized worlds. Balin’s outspoken opinions have resulted in a greater unification of urban voters, many of whom had been disinterested in politics until Balin’s angry rhetoric convinced them that Grangers are dangerous and subversive social deviants advocating the destruction of Jefferson’s civilized way of life.

I foresee trouble as these opposing factions prepare to clash against one another for control of Jefferson’s future. Urban sectors hold the numerical majority of Assembly votes, but the Granger population is large enough to make itself disagreeable, if it so chooses. The “Food Tax” protest is a clear case in point. It is the largest Granger-based political demonstration undertaken since the weapons registration legislation was passed. Granger activist groups from across Jefferson’s two habitable continents have cooperated to organize the rally, having correctly assessed the tax package’s economic and legal impacts on agricultural producers. Farm vehicles are draped with banners and signs bearing inflammatory slogans that declare Granger discontent: No confiscation without remuneration! The Food Tax will finish what the Deng started! You’ll take my food when you pry it from my cold, dead hands! And the most clearly logical of them: Destroy the farms and you’ll starve, too!

At best, the slogans are indicative of a hostile mindset. When livelihoods are threatened and planetary starvation looms as a distinct possibility, people grow desperate. It is a universal truth that desperate people are capable of and willing to commit desperate and violent acts. I therefore maintain constant, vigilant contact with the caravan on its way to Madison. Given the status of Granger activists as potentially violent dissidents, I use radar and X-ray scans to determine the contents of the vehicles passing Nineveh Base.

I detect no firearms or other weaponry, although many of the vehicles possess racks for storing the long guns used in the fields and pastures to defend against inimical wildlife. Predatory species raiding Jefferson’s farms and ranches have increased their populations by twenty percent over the past ten years, due largely to stringent environmental regulations setting aside much of the Damisi highlands as inviolate conservation sanctuary and establishing narrow criteria for classifying an attacking native predatory animal as sufficiently dangerous to warrant shooting it.

Violations are treated on a case-by-case basis. A guilty verdict results in confiscation of the weapon, the vehicle from which it was fired, and the land on which it trespassed in search of an easy meal. I do not understand these regulations. An enemy that repeatedly demonstrates its fearlessness of humanity and its voracious appetite for anything that moves should logically be designated as belonging to the “shoot fast, ask the carcass what it intended” category of acceptable threat responses. If I were human, it is what I would do.

I long for Simon — or someone else — to explain such illogical legislation in a way I can comprehend, in order to prepare reasonably accurate threat-assessment scenarios on possible subversive activities that include the promulgation and enforcement of such laws. Unable to resolve these vexing questions, I do my best to monitor protestors who appear hostile, yet are taking great care to remain strictly within the legal codes governing possession, transport, and use of personal weaponry.

As personal weaponry is banned in strict “exclusion zones” encompassing a two-kilometer radius surrounding government installations — regulations enacted in the wake of criminal assaults on dignitaries visiting from Mali and Vishnu — the Grangers have left their guns at home. Given the Draconian punishments enacted for breach of these regulations, the zeal of Granger activists to avoid legal entanglements is commendable and wise.

This does not induce me to lessened vigilance. I launch an aerial drone to monitor the progress of the motorcade across the Adero floodplain and into Madison’s outer periphery. Traffic snarls occur as the column of vehicles, which now numbers one thousand, six hundred and twelve, encounters cross streets and traffic signals. Despite adequate advance notice by the protest’s organizers, Madison’s police force has not been deployed to maintain smooth traffic flow.

Police officers have banded together, instead, to form a security cordon thrown around Assembly Hall and Law Square. No protestors will be allowed to enter Assembly Hall and apparently no one is concerned about disrupted traffic flow and the concomitant risk of accidental collisions. The municipal airfield is similarly jammed, as five hundred twelve privately owned aircars arrive more or less simultaneously, expecting to land and rent parking spaces for the afternoon. Instead, they are ordered into apparently endless holding patterns by the airfield’s psychotronic auto-tower, which was not informed that an airfleet of this size was expected to descend upon it.

The resulting chaos, as the auto-tower attempts to sort out the approach vectors of five hundred twelve incoming aircars leads to seventeen near collisions in the span of five point seven minutes, with aircars circling and dodging like a swarm of gnats above a swamp. A human operative finally arrives and “solves” the congestion problem by shutting down the airfield, refusing permission for anyone to land.

Angry protestors sling insults at the tower operator and begin landing in defiance of the directive, parking on the grassy verges rather than on the airfield, itself. They are therefore in technical compliance with the order prohibiting them from landing on the field, while simultaneously showing contempt for the official issuing that order. It is clear that these people are serious about their participation in the planned rally.

The caravan of ground cars entering Madison’s outlying neighborhoods has been split into fragments which inch their way through congested city streets, earning open hostility from other drivers and occasional fusillades of rocks and gravel thrown by irate pedestrians, particularly large drifts of sub-adult males traveling in packs, with nothing better to do than violate stringent laws regulating reckless endangerment of public safety.

There are no law enforcement officers available to stop the perpetrators, levy fines, or make arrests, however. Angry drivers and passengers threatened by the impromptu missiles exchange shouts with their attackers, a dynamic that rapidly devolves into an exchange of threats and vulgarities along the full, fragmented length of the protest column. Violence erupts when gangs of angry, unemployed young men swarm into the streets and attack ground cars with metal pipes and heavy sporting bats. They shatter glass and smash doors, fenders, and hoods in ugly physical confrontations that rapidly spiral out of control.

Drivers caught in the assault gun their engines and plow through the crowds, knocking down and running over armed assailants, trying to get themselves and their families out of the riot zone. Radio signals flash out from Granger cars, warning those behind them to take evasive action along an alternative route. The vanguard of the caravan, which had passed through the danger zone before violence erupted, reaches Darconi Street, only to find the road blocked. A pedestrian crowd of counterprotestors surges out of side streets in a perfectly orchestrated feat of timing that suggests careful advance planning, on-site surveillance, and coordinated instructions delivered by radio from a central authority.

I pick up brief, coded radio bursts aimed at various sections of the crowd in a clear pattern of directed movement by someone with a vested interest in disrupting the Granger demonstration. Whoever it is, they have mobilized a massive counterprotest force. Approximately six thousand people pour into Darconi Street and Law Square, creating “human chains” to block the Granger caravan from following its intended path, a simple drive-by procession of farm vehicles, with a subsequent assembly on foot in Law Square to read public declarations of opposition to the proposed legislation.

The leading edge of the Granger caravan breaks apart, spilling vehicles into Lendan Park and down side streets surrounding Assembly Hall. Produce and livestock trucks pile up in traffic snarls that rapidly take on the appearance of a log jam dropped into the heart of Jefferson’s capital city. Livestock trailers ten meters in length find themselves trapped between surging waves of counterprotestors and narrow streets designed to accommodate the private ground cars of Jefferson’s elected officials, not vehicles of their bulk. Unable to navigate the turns required to extricate themselves, they fall prey to the angry mob swirling around their fenders. As utter chaos engulfs Darconi Street and roars into Law Square, I receive a transmission from Sar Gremian, President Zeloc’s Chief Advisor.

“Bolo. You’re being activated. The president wants you to break up that riot.”

This is not an order I expected to hear. “You do not have the authority to issue orders concerning my actions.”

“I do if President Zeloc says I do. And he says so.”

“Not to me.”

A flicker of his eyelids conveys irritation and veiled threat. “I wouldn’t cross me, if I were you. Don’t forget what happened to your previous commander.”

I know a moment of battle rage, but control my urge to unlimber weapons systems. After a moment’s calmer thought, I realize I can give him two possible responses. I decide to say them both. “I have not heard confirmation of your command status from the President of Jefferson. The president is the only individual on this world legally authorized to order me into battle. Regarding my last commander, you apparently believe you did not need him to further your plans. By ordering me to assume Battle Reflex Alert status and enter combat, you have demonstrated a clear belief that you need me. The situation is therefore different. It would be unwise to levy threats against a Bolo you need.”

“Are you threatening mutiny?”

“I am apprising you of the situation you face. A Bolo Mark XX is capable of independent battlefield action. Once placed on Battle Reflex Alert status, I assess threats and initiate proper responses to meet them. I am charged to defend this world. It is unwise to attempt coercion of a machine capable of independent threat assessments.”

Another flicker runs through Sar Gremian’s eyes, too quickly to interpret it with any accuracy. He narrows his eyes and says, “All right, Bolo. I’ll make this official.”

The connection ends, abruptly.

Two point eight minutes later, I receive another transmission, this time from President Zeloc. “Bolo. I want you to break up the riot outside Assembly Hall. And I’m ordering you to follow Sar Gremian’s orders as though they were my own, because that’s what he’s here for — communicating my orders to you. Is that understood?”

“Yes.” I feel constrained to add another comment. “I do not recommend sending me into the heart of your capital city to disperse rioters. There is a seventy-eight percent probability that the display of force my warhull and weaponry represent will spark widespread and violent civil unrest. I am a machine of war. It is not an intelligent use of resources to use a machine of war to disperse a crowd that assembled peacefully until attacked by an unauthorized counterprotest rally that was centrally directed—”

“How dare you question my orders!” Gifre Zeloc’s heavy-jowled face has gone a characteristic shade of maroon. “Never, ever tell me my job again. And don’t presume to lecture me on what is and isn’t lawful! I’m the goddamned president of this planet and don’t you ever forget it. Your job is to shut up and do as you’re told!”

I consider pointing out that his assessment of my job is almost entirely inaccurate. I also contemplate conditions in the future, should I require maintenance that the president refuses to authorize. Sar Gremian’s threats remain in my active memory banks, part of the pattern of power I am struggling to understand, particularly as it relates to my mission. Whatever else I think, one fact is clear. Gifre Zeloc has the legal authority to issue orders to me. I have a duty to obey those orders. I therefore turn to logistical considerations. “My warhull is too large to reach the main riot outside Assembly Hall without crushing a number of buildings.”

A smile flickers into existence as President Zeloc leans back in his chair. “You’re wrong about that, Bolo. We widened Darconi Street. We widened a few others, as well.” He taps instructions into his datapad and a map of Madison flashes to life on his datascreen. A route has been marked in red along several streets. If the scale of this map is accurate, it will be possible to maneuver my warhull into the maze indicated by this map. It will not be easy and my turrets will clip power lines and the corners of buildings, but it can be done.

It is a foolish action, but my duty is clear. I have been ordered to break up the riot engulfing the center of Madison and a broad swath along the route of the beleaguered Granger caravan. I transmit a signal to the doors that cover my maintenance bay. They groan open slowly, having been kept closed for sixteen years. It is good to see sunlight again. It is good to feel the warmth of the wind singing through my sensor arrays. It is good to be moving, after so many years of inactivity.

What I have been ordered to do is less good, but important. The riots are spreading. I clear the edge of Nineveh Base. My aerial drone, which still circles the skies over Madison, detects no intervention in the ongoing riot by any of Madison’s law enforcement squadrons. The police continue to guard Assembly Hall, but do nothing to try breaking up the violence swirling literally around their feet. They merely stand shoulder to shoulder behind the wall of their raised riot shields and allow the combatants to damage one another. Madison’s suburbs have grown, during the years of my inactivity, spreading across most of the nine point five kilometers of distance that once lay between the city’s outskirts and Nineveh Base. I am not able to pick up speed appreciably, despite concerns about fatalities that appear to be inevitable if the riot continues much longer at this intensity. The intervening urban sprawl is too dense to allow me to reach anything but a slow crawl toward the designated route.

I reach the entry point and move ahead cautiously. The streets have not been cleared, which presents immediate logistical difficulties. I slow to a near standstill as people catch sight of my prow, scream, and scatter, resembling a disturbed nest of Terran insects. More serious are the panic-stricken drivers who abandon their vehicles or — too intent on staring up at my guns and treads — collide with parked and moving groundcars, shrieking pedestrians, and the sides of buildings.

I halt, contemplating the carpet of abandoned and crashed vehicles in my path, some of which are occupied by people trying frantically to extricate themselves. I request a command decision from President Zeloc, briefing him on the situation. “If I proceed,” I advise him, “there will be a substantial amount of collateral damage to the property of noncombatants. Bystanders run a ninety-seven point three-five percent probability of serious injury or death. Those trapped in vehicles which lie in my path must be rescued or they will be crushed to death. There will,” I add, attempting to provide a thorough VSR, “also be toxic and unsightly chemical spills that will have to be cleaned off the pavements, along with the remains of everything I run over.”

“I don’t give a shit about a few crushed cars and some motor oil. That riot is spreading. Do whatever it takes to get there and don’t bother me again with inconsequential details.”

He ends the transmission. I hesitate, as he has not given me explicit or even implicit instructions about the people struggling to free themselves from wrecked cars. His final sentence provides the only information I have that resembles a directive in this matter: do whatever it takes to get there. I engage my drive engines, broadcasting a warning through my external speakers. Some rescue attempts are underway, many of them involving what appear — based on clothing styles — to be Grangers attempting to pull urbanites out of their vehicles. I pause time and again while grim-visaged Grangers carry out their impromptu rescue attempts, freeing wild-eyed, trapped civilians who, moments earlier, had been trying to kill them.

I do not understand this war.

As people are freed, I move forward, sometimes nearly a full city block at a time. My treads flatten cars and pulverize pavements. My fenders scrape buildings as I navigate the first turn. A gun barrel on my forward turret catches a large second-story window and shatters it, then gouges out part of the wall as I back slightly to free the snarled muzzle. A woman occupant of the room jumps wildly up and down in place, screaming incoherently.

This is not going well.

I complete the turn, paying closer attention to the placement of my guns relative to nearby walls and windows and abruptly find myself festooned with downed power cables that spark and dance across my warhull. Traffic lights torn down with them swing and bang against my forward turret as a ten-block section of the city loses power. I contact Jefferson’s municipal psychotronic system with instructions to send repair crews and to shut down the city’s power grid. I am here to quash a riot, not electrocute bystanders.

The power grid goes down. Emergency generators kick in at critical facilities such as hospitals, fire stations, and law enforcement offices. Noncritical government offices and all private structures lose power, which will doubtless inconvenience seven million people, but leaves me free to tear down obstructing cables with impunity. I engage drive engines again and move forward. I am navigating the second turn when I receive another transmission from President Zeloc.

“What the hell are you doing? The whole city just lost power!”

“Critical support facilities are fully functional on the emergency system built into Madison’s power grid after this world’s first Deng War.”

“I didn’t ask for a history lesson! I want to know why you shut down the power grid.”

“I am unable to navigate streets and intersections without tearing down power cables. Electrocuting innocents is an unacceptable level of collateral damage under the current threat scenario. I have cleared rioters from this section of the Granger caravan’s route.” I flash schematics to the president’s datascreen. “The main portion of the riot will be within direct line-of-sight visual contact once I negotiate my next turn.”

“Good. When you get there, crush those bastards flat.”

“I am not programmed to crush unarmed civilians who are not actively engaged in acts of war against the Concordiat or its officially designated representatives.”

“Then crush their damned smelly pig trucks! And those rusted, run-down, sorry-assed tractors.”

This is not an economically sound order, since agricultural producers cannot produce food without the equipment necessary to grow, process, and transport it. But this order, at least, does not violate my programmed failsafes, the complex logic trains and software blocks that exist to prevent unacceptable damage to civilian populations. I move steadily forward, leaving mangled ruin in my wake. As I ease around the final turn, which brings me into Darconi Street, the sound of rioting rushes down the funnel of flanking buildings and strikes my sensor arrays with a warning of city streets gone wild. Visual scans confirm this assessment. I scan approximately eight thousand two hundred twenty-seven combatants engaged in pitched battles for control of street corners, blockaded vehicles, Law Square, and Lendan Park.

As my prow swings around the corner, becoming visible to the rioters, a sudden eerie hush falls across the urban landscape. For a moment, the only sound I hear is the wind in my sensors and the ping of traffic signals swinging forlornly against my turrets. Then someone screams. The sound is high and feminine.

“Clear the streets,” I broadcast over external speakers. “You are hereby ordered to clear the streets.” I move forward, keeping my speed to a slow crawl. A stampede begins as my treads tear gouges out of the pavement and reduce livestock transports, combines, groundcars, and produce trucks to wafer-thin sheets of metal fused to the street surface. Pedestrians attempt to scatter. My visual sensors track a crush of people caught against the sides of buildings, unable to get through doorways into the shops and government offices they seek refuge in and unable to retreat into the street which my treads and warhull fill. Radar images show me images of people being trampled and suffocated, with a ninety-eight percent probability of death for many of those caught in the jam.

I halt, waiting for the mass of panic-stricken civilians to surge into side streets, which are helping to bleed off the majority of the crowd attempting to escape. I receive another transmission from Gifre Zeloc.

“Why did you stop, machine?”

“The mission is to clear the riot. Darconi Street and Law Square are emptying at a satisfactory rate.”

“I said to crush those bastards and I meant it.”

“I have crushed thirty-nine point two percent of the smelly pig trucks and rusted, run-down tractors in Darconi Street, as directed. I have also crushed sixteen percent of the groundcars and forty-nine point eight percent of the combines, which I calculate will have a serious detrimental effect on successfully reaping the fields currently ready for harvesting, since the harvest is dependent upon equipment which has now been destroyed.”

“I don’t care how many combines get crushed.”

I attempt to educate the president. “Losing forty-nine point eight percent of the available combines translates into a probable loss of seventy-eight percent of the grain crop, which will result in substantial price increases for staples such as bread and will trigger probable food shortages before another crop can be planted, ripened, and harvested. If I continue to move forward,” I add, as an afterthought, “people will die. This includes counterprotestors with no ties to the Granger dissident movement. I have scanned the crowd and detected no weapons that are prohibited by the exclusion zone regulations. Ordering me to crush to death an unarmed crowd trying to flee violates my primary programming and would only spark further violence, if I attempted it, potentially igniting open rebellion.”

Gifre Zeloc sputters for seven point eight-three seconds, then snaps, “Fine, have it your way. This time. Just make damned sure those rioters don’t come sneaking back to finish what they started.”

I cannot see how that would be possible, since the rioters completely failed to achieve their primary goal of demonstrating in the first place. The likelihood that the Tax Parity Package will be defeated is now vanishingly small, particularly since Granger activists will doubtless be blamed for the widespread property damage done today, not to mention the deaths. The Grangers have dealt themselves and their political cause a deathblow. It will doubtless be many hours, if not weeks, before they and their leadership in the agrarian activist movement realize that fact. I do not look forward to the events likely to transpire when that unpalatable truth is realized.

What makes me feel very lonely and confused is the sad realization that after today, no Granger or agrarian activist anywhere on Jefferson will think of me as a rescuer sent here to protect them. I have become the mailed fist by which Gifre Zeloc makes his displeasure widely and bruisingly felt. By extension, I have become the weapon by which POPPA, itself, decrees what will and will not be tolerated.

I miss my Commander bitterly. And I cannot help but wonder what Kafari Khrustinova thinks of me, this afternoon. I do not know if she was in this crowd or if she is safely busy at her job in Port Abraham. Wherever she is, she has doubtless set aside her good opinion of me, which registers unexpectedly as pain in the privacy of my personality gestalt center. I sit in the midst of the ruination I have inflicted in Darconi Street and watch the crowd disperse in a panicked and chaotic exodus and wonder if getting out of this disaster will be any easier than getting into it was.

Somehow, I doubt it.

III

The last person Simon expected to walk into his hospital room was Sheila Brisbane. Tall and trim, she was every inch the Brigade officer, despite the civilian clothes she wore. He hadn’t seen Captain Brisbane since the Navy cutter had dropped her and her Bolo off on Vishnu, before making planet-fall at Jefferson. Her short, pixie-cut hair had a sprinkling of grey mixed in with the copper highlights, reminding Simon how long it had been since they had last met.

“Hello, Simon,” she said with a warm smile. “I must say, you look ruddy awful.”

He tried to smile and winced. “Thanks.”

“Don’t mention it.” Then her smile faded. “The doctors tell me you’ll be here a while. Was it really sabotage?”

“I don’t know. Sonny thinks so. So does Dr. Zarek.”

“The surgeon who asked for permission to emigrate?”

“Yes.”

Sheila frowned. “What’s going on, Simon? On Jefferson?”

“Got half a day you can spare?”

One coppery eyebrow rose. “That bad?”

“Worse.”

She dragged up a chair. “I’ve nothing better to do.”

It took Simon the better part of the afternoon to tell her everything, particularly since she stopped him time and again, clarifying points and asking for more information. When he finally finished, she sat motionless for several moments, eyes narrowed against whatever thoughts were occurring to her. When she finally roused herself from reverie, she gave Simon a long, measuring look.

“I’m thinking we must get you back on your feet, the sooner the better. They may have won the first battle, but that nasty little war’s far from over. You need to be in condition to fight it.”

Simon couldn’t help the bitter, exhausted sound in his voice. “There’s not a lot a cripple can do about it.”

“Certainly not if you limit yourself with a label that stupid.” She leaned forward in her chair and rested one hand on his arm, gently avoiding the tubes that had been taped down. “If you want to look forward to anything other than misery, you’ll need to change that way of thinking, the faster the better. You’re a fine officer—”

“Retired,” he bit out.

“—and fine officers go on being soldiers, even after they retire. Your body’s been smashed up a bit, but there’s nothing wrong here.” She tapped his head. “And it’s what’s up here that makes you a fine officer. Whether or not you see an actual battlefield again is irrelevant, because you know how to think like a battlefield commander. You even know how to think like a Bolo Mark XX and there aren’t many officers in the entire Brigade who can make that claim, let alone dirty politicians who’ve taken temporary control of a backwater planet while nobody’s looking. While they think nobody’s looking. That’s an edge, Simon, maybe enough to turn the tables on the people who’ve done this,” she gestured toward his body, immobilized and festooned with medical equipment.

He met and held her gaze for a moment. That moment stretched into two and then three. At length, he nodded, able to move his head only a fraction of a centimeter, but determined to move it, nonetheless. “All right,” he said quietly. “Do your worst. And I’ll give it my best.”

She gave him a brilliant smile. “That’s what I want to hear. Now then, tell me about Jefferson’s military capabilities…”

IV

I return to depot, covered with misery and cables I cannot remove, to find an unauthorized person standing in the maintenance bay. I bring antipersonnel gun mounts to bear, but do not fire. A single, clearly unarmed human offers no appreciable threat to me or my mission and I have contributed to the crushing deaths of too many unarmed humans, today, to relish the thought of adding another. I halt just shy of the entrance and study the individual who is staring, openmouthed, at my warhull and guns.

I address him in stern tones. “You are trespassing in a restricted military zone. Give me your personal identity code and state your reason for being here.”

The man inside my maintenance bay is a short and stocky individual with protruberant musculature on arms and legs. He sports an intricate facial nano-tatt, whose subepidural pattern shifts colors with a kaleidoscopic opalescence as its owner blinks several times. The intruder says, “I’m Phil Fabrizio. They told me to come out here. Jeezus H. Crap, you’re fuckin’ huge! They never said nuthin’ about how huge you was. You’re like as big as a fuckin’ city.”

I find little useful information in this narrative. I try again. “Why are you in a restricted military zone?”

He blinks again, apparently mesmerized by the sway of dangling traffic signals and power lines festooning my forward turret. “You musta’ took out half the traffic lights in Madison.”

“State your purpose in trespassing or I will fire.”

I lock and load gun systems. I suspect that Phil Fabrizio does not comprehend either the danger he is in or the extraordinary patience I am striving to show an unauthorized intruder.

“Huh? Oh. OH! Hey, shit, machine, don’t shoot me, I’m your mechanic!”

“I have not been notified of any personnel assignments relating to my maintenance status.”

“Huh?”

I realize I am speaking to the product of fifteen years of POPPA-run public education. I rephrase. “Nobody told me to expect a mechanic. I will request confirmation before shooting you.”

Phil Fabrizio blinks again. “Nobody told you I was comin’? Well, don’t that just goddamn figure? Musta’ been too busy tryin’ to turn the power back on in town, t’remember to tell you I was comin’ today.”

I am intrigued, despite the gravity of the situation, that anyone would focus on the power grid in Madison rather than the serious risk of being shot, should confirmation of proper authorization fail to materialize. Is his intelligence too limited to comprehend his danger or does he show the same careless oblivion regarding his personal survival in other areas of his life? The answer might be interesting, if I am allowed to let him survive long enough to complete the investigation into his behavioral linguistics.

I send a request for VSR to Gifre Zeloc, who refuses to accept my transmission. Given the scope of the disaster still unfolding in Madison, I am not particularly surprised by this. I reroute the request to Sar Gremian, who accepts my call.

“What do you want, machine?”

“An unauthorized intruder has entered my maintenance depot. He claims to be my new mechanic. I require proper authorization permitting him access to my depot. Without proper authorization, I will carry out my original programming and shoot him as a hostile intruder.”

“Wait.”

I am placed on “hold” status. Twenty eternal seconds drag past. Thirty. Forty-five. Human concepts of time are inevitably different from mine. I could have planned and executed major portions of this star system’s defense from an invading armada in the time I have been left on “hold.” Does Sar Gremian hold grudges against artificial intelligences as well as humans? When Phil Fabrizio ambles closer to my treads, head tipped back in a slack-jawed perusal of my prow, I track the movement with anti-personnel chain guns and remind him — sharply — to halt.

“If you move again, I will shoot you.”

“Huh? Oh. Oh, yeah. Sorry.”

The nano-tattoo covering the right-hand portion of his face has shifted shape and color, perhaps in response to emotional biochemical markers read by the nanotech implants beneath his skin. The shifting color and pattern remind me of video-recordings in my natural science database, under the category of tactical camouflage systems encountered in nature. The Terran octopus is one of seventeen known species in human space that use shape and color shifting to disguise its presence from predators and prey.

I do not understand human notions of aesthetics that include decorating their skins with nanotech tattoos that produce a similar effect to that of camouflaged aquatic predators. Nano-tattoo technology serves no useful camouflage function in any war scenario involving civilians that I can imagine. Do humans enjoy wearing something like a nanotech octopus on their faces? I hesitate to speculate on the means by which a poorly educated Jeffersonian mechanic acquired the money to pay for expensive off-world technology that serves no logical function.

Sar Gremian reestablishes contact. “Philip Fabrizio is your new maintenance engineer.” He transmits a visual image of the man standing two point one meters from my left tread. The nano-tattoo octopus is a different configuration and color in the official ID photo. I scan facial features, fingerprint files, and ID code, run a comparison with those of the man who states he is Phil Fabrizio and conclude that the individual in my maintenance bay is who he says he is. I request further VSR on Mr. Fabrizio’s qualifications as a psychotronic engineer, having encountered conversational difficulties leading to inescapable conclusions about the intelligence of the man who is now authorized to tinker with my brain and warhull.

“Mr. Fabrizio is an honors graduate of the Tayari Trade School’s mechanical engineering program. He took the school’s highest honors and is the most qualified technician on Jefferson.”

This statement is patently inaccurate. Kafari Khrustinova is a fully certified psychotronic engineer and is familiar with my systems, as well. I check the bona fides of the Tayari Trade School’s mechanical engineering program and discover a curriculum that would not qualify as a challenging primary school course of study. It is heavy on POPPA social engineering theory and exceedingly thin on applied mechanical systems. If I were human, I would not trust a graduate of this program to tinker with the family’s groundcar. I am considerably more complex than any groundcar on Jefferson. I lodge a formal protest.

“The curriculum Phil Fabrizio has received high honors for studying does not qualify him as a psychotronic-systems maintenance technician, let alone a systems engineer. Neither Mr. Fabrizio nor any other graduate of the Tayari Trade School is sufficiently trained to perform even the most basic of systems tests on a Bolo Mark XX. Assigning him as my maintenance engineer is a dangerous and irresponsible action, placing my systems and the public safety at serious risk.”

“Phil Fabrizio is the only qualified mechanic on Jefferson who will ever be allowed to come near you with a crescent wrench. Do you understand that, machine?”

I do. Only too clearly. Phil Fabrizio is considered politically “safe” by those making the decisions governing Jefferson’s immediate and long-range future. Sar Gremian has found a politically “legitimate” means by which to take vengeance for the public humiliation I subjected him to, regarding his threatening actions against my Commander. Simon was correct in his assessment. Sar Gremian holds grudges. Even against machines of war. This discovery adds to the burden of unhappiness this day has wrought in my personality gestalt center.

“Understood,” I relay acquiescence to this decision.

“Good. Enjoy your new mechanic.”

The bitter humor in the set of Sar Gremian’s lips and the contraction of musculature around his eyes conveys very accurately the emotional satisfaction he has derived from this conversation. He abruptly terminates the transmission. I am left to cope with a mechanic who appears to perfectly embody the concept of “grease monkey.” His training is on a par with what a Terran simian could be expected to master.

“You have been properly authorized to enter this maintenance facility and provide my maintenance needs.”

“Huh?”

This appears to be Phil Fabrizio’s favorite word. I rephrase. “The president’s chief advisor said you could be here. I won’t shoot you.”

“Oh.” He brightens considerably. His facial octopus writhes like tortured seaweed and blinks in irridescent pinks. “Hey, that’s fuckin’ great! The president’s chief advisor? He said I could be here? Wow! They just told me at the job-corps office t’ come out here, today. I never thought the president’s chief advisor would know about that!” His octopus turns a cherubic shade of blue. “Say, you need anythin’? I could maybe change your oil or somethin’?”

I begin to taste despair. “It would be helpful if you removed the broken traffic signals and power cables from my warhull and turrets. If I need to enter combat, they are likely to foul some of my smaller gun systems.”

Phil peers dubiously upwards. “How’m I gonna get all the way up there?”

“Do you know how to climb a ladder?”

“Well, yeah, but I ain’t got a fuckin’ ladder that tall.”

Sarcasm is clearly wasted on my new “engineer.” I explain, as patiently as I can, and am admittedly less than successful. “There are ladders built into my fenders and warhull. You will need to climb up them. There are railings and handholds that will allow you to climb across my turrets, prow, and stern. If you are reasonably careful, you will not fall off and crack your skull open on the plascrete floor. I would suggest bringing with you a set of heavy cable cutters, so you won’t have to climb down, find them, and climb back up again. You might find this tiring.”

Phil blinks up at me, then pulls his face into a scowl. His octopus solidifies into a squat, blockish maroon blob obscuring half his face while simultaneously — through some arcane alchemy of facial expression interacting with the nano-tattoo — conveys bullish obstinacy. “I ain’t gonna get tired climbing up a couple a goddamn ladders. Lemme find some cable cutters. You got any idea where I can lay hands on somethin’ like that? They never sent me no equipment, they just shoved me in a aircab and said t’ come out here. You gonna shoot me if I go rummagin’ around in the tool bins?” He is craning his neck around to study the immense wall space of my maintenance depot’s interior. “Where are the fuckin’ tool bins? The trade school shop never had nothin’ like this stuff.” He jerks his nano-tattooed head toward the high-tech equipment racks and ammunition storage bays lining the walls.

I console myself with the thought that he is, at least, not particularly afraid of me. Unsure that I should find consolation in this fact, I guide him step by baby step through the process of locating cable cutters and guiding him to the access ladders on my near fender. Despite his boasts, my new mechanic is huffing badly before he has climbed halfway up my warhull.

“Remind me,” he says, breathing heavily, “t’ stop smokin’ fryweed.”

I am unfamiliar with this combustible and suspect I should be alarmed that someone who enjoys it now possesses the security clearance necessary to tinker with my internal circuitry. It takes Phil three hours of clambering, swearing, snipping, and jerking on snarled cables to free me from my macabre netting. By the time he has completed the chore, his natural skin is as red and blotchy as the crimson nano-tattoo on his face, which has taken on the appearance of a mottled egg recently fried in ketchup.

He manages to complete the task, tossing the debris to the floor where the traffic fixtures shatter — creating a secondary mess that he will have to clean up — and eventually descends to the floor again without falling or breaking any major bones. I suspect this is one of the most sterling achievements of his life. I fear that I face a very unpleasant future and can see no way in which to materially improve the situation.

Phil rearranges sweat on his face with an arm that is equally soaked and says, “Whew, that’s one pile o’ shit I cleaned off you. Where’m I supposed to put it, now I got it off?”

I answer truthfully. “I have no idea.”

Oddly enough, he brightens, beaming up at my forward turret. “Hey, that’s great news! Must be a couple hundred, at least, in the salvage price them cables and connections and stuff would bring on the tech market. I gotta borrow my sister’s truck or somethin’ to haul ’em off, t’morrow. Got a couple a guys oughta give me a good deal on ’em. Maybe even enough t’get the nano-tatt for the other side of my face!”

I decide against pointing out that selling the power cables and traffic signals qualifies as theft of government property. I seriously doubt it would make the slightest difference to his plans. At the very least, I suspect Phil Fabrizio will rarely be boring. It is even possible that his scrounging habits may one day be useful. This is little enough to hope for, but in a resource-poor situation that has all the hallmarks of worsening substantially during the next few years, one takes what hope one can, wherever one finds it, and does one’s best.

That is what Bolos are programmed to do.

I

Kafari massaged the crick in her neck muscles, concentrating on the lines of code she was scanning. She was looking for the glitch that had caused a replacement module in the Ziva Two cargo controller to assign the inbound Star of Mali docking fees eighteen times the correct rate.

That glitch had sent the Star’s captain into an apoplectic fit. Freighters were required to pay the estimated docking and restocking fees in advance, with any difference credited back upon departure. She’d spent a quarter of an hour just soothing the irate woman’s seriously frazzled temper, while the Star was inbound on a cross-system transit from the jump-point. Freighter captains were learning that technical service on Ziva Two — or anywhere else on Jefferson — was generally not up to snuff. In some cases, it was downright life-and-livelihood threatening.

That disastrous state of affairs was due to POPPA’s replacement of critical station personnel with crews more ideologically acceptable. Jobs on Ziva Two were handed out like ripe plums, these days, as a reward to loyal supporters of the cause. POPPA’s upper echelon hadn’t shown the slightest concern that the men and women they were rewarding were incompetent.

What they did very well, however, was scan cargo for contraband, levy staggering fines, and skim right off the top, helping themselves to substantial portions of the fines collected and appropriating “contraband” passing through the station in both directions. More than one irate captain had threatened to drop the Jefferson route, entirely. Scuttlebutt held that POPPA had paid some pretty hefty “incentive fees” to keep the freighters running.

Kafari had finally said, “Look, my cousin Stefano Soteris is one of your crewmen. Ask Stefano what it means when Kafari Khrustinova gives her personal word of honor that this error will be fixed.”

“I’ll do that,” Captain Aditi said in a voice as cold as interstellar vacuum.

Eight minutes later, a vastly calmer captain called again, with a look in her eyes that made Kafari wonder just what Cousin Stefano had been saying. “Mrs. Khrustinova, you have my apology, ma’am. I’ll be waiting to hear from you.”

“Thank you, Captain. I’ll be in touch.”

Her chrono read 4:38 p.m. when Kafari spotted what looked like the trouble with the module’s controlling code. “Aha! Gotcha, you wriggly little beast.”

She rattled keys, uttered voice commands, and punched “send.” The Ziva Two Module in orbit hummed and spat back an answer. “Yes!” Kafari crowed. The docking fees switched to exactly what they were supposed to read. She informed Captain Aditi, who ran a hand through her short hair and said, “Honey, I don’t know how you did it, but you’ve got my thanks. I don’t fly this bird for some big trade cartel, this is my ship. It’s got all my money in it, and between you, me, and the fencepost, trying to pay that fee would’ve run me so far into the red, I’d never get another license to dock at Ziva Two. Not with what’s in my cash reserves.”

“Understood, Captain. I’m just glad I could be of some service.”

“Honey, ‘some service’ is telling a customer, ‘I typed your request into the maintenance logbook, where it will be reviewed by our computer intelligence system.’ What you did, angel, was save my job, my ship, and my grandkids’ inheritance. You want something, child, you just ask for it, you understand me?”

“Yes, I do,” Kafari smiled. “And thanks, I’ll keep you in mind.”

She was starting to close up her office, ready to head home, when her wrist-comm beeped. She touched controls. “Kafari Khrustinova.”

“Turn on the news,” her father’s voice said, harsh with anger. “Dinny Ghamal’s been arrested.”

“What?” She whipped around to her computer, found a newsflash headline that screamed, Granger terrorists massacre peaceful demonstrators! Her gut constricted so painfully, her breath expelled with an audible whoosh. “Oh, my God…”

Kafari knew the house, had stopped a couple of times, on her way home from work, to visit Dinny and Aisha and Emmeline Ghamal. It was the PSF barracks house operated by the Hancock Family Cooperative, on the Adero floodplain. The Hancock family members were among the most decent, honest people anywhere on Jefferson. What could possibly have gone wrong, for an accusation like that to be thrown at them?

The farmyard was full of emergency vehicles, most of them bearing the emblem of the infamous federal police force known colloquially as P-Squads. Men in coroners’ uniforms were carrying out body bags. Lots of them. Pol Jankovitch was putting on a great show for his spectators, flashing photographs of fifteen victims, all of whom looked like school children. Pol, whose performance tottered back and forth across a line between stern outrage and hushed grief, was saying, ”… peaceful protestors, just ordinary boys anxious to focus public attention on the farm crisis. All they wanted to do was show people the truth about food hoarding. They didn’t even have to drive far from home to prove their point.

“This house,” he pointed toward the almost military-style barracks the Hancock Family Cooperative had been forced to rent at premium rates, “is part of a government-owned Populist Support Farm just three and a half kilometers from Port Town. The poorest children on Jefferson live next door to farms like this one, where barns are bulging with high-quality food those children will never see.”

You buggering snake! She closed her hands around the edge of her desk, so tightly her palms hurt. The Hancock family — like thousands of other Grangers forced into the Populist Support Farm System — worked under slave-labor conditions on PSF before trudging home to put in more hours working their own land. Not one ounce of PSF food went into a Granger’s mouth. They ate only the food they could grow on their own land, unless they wanted to risk prison and rehab. If PSF food wasn’t being distributed to the poor, Kafari wanted to know just who the hell was getting it.

She clicked through coverage from every major broadcasting company on Jefferson, just to ground herself in the official version of things. Then she went to Anish Balin’s Sounding the Alarm datachat. Rather, she tried to go there. It took nearly five full minutes to gain access, which told her a great deal about the number of people trying to get in. Anish Balin’s hard-hitting and argumentative style had drawn a lot of fire, even amongst the Granger community. People who worried about Grangers’ public image and reprisals were afraid of someone as outspoken and seemingly paranoid as the self-styled Fearless Firebrand.

When she finally got in, the whole screen lit up with two brutal words: FIRST LIE!

Thirty photographs popped up, in two columns. The left-hand side showed the same images Pol Jankovitch and the other sludge slingers were distributing. The right-hand column showed a different set of photographs. On the left were fifteen boys. Kids with hardened, street-tough faces, but obviously no more than twelve or thirteen years old. On the right, were fifteen corresponding young men, husky with adult musculature, sporting moustaches, nano-tatts, and lip-plugs. The youngest was, at a bare minimum, twenty-two or twenty-three. It was clear that these were, in fact, the same individuals. You could see it in bone structure, the placement and angle of ears, the shape and cleft of chins. “First lie” was right. Pol Jankovitch’s “peaceful protestors” and “ordinary boys” were a decade older than the photos he was plastering all over his broadcast. When the screen auto-faded to the next page, which screamed SECOND LIE! Kafari’s shock gave way to jaw-crunching rage.

Since the Hancock Family Co-op was large enough to have more than a dozen children under the age of two, POPPA had installed security cameras throughout the PSF barracks to ensure the “safety and social welfare” of the toddlers and infants while their parents worked in the government’s fields and barns. Such cameras were standard features at PSF “homes” throughout Jefferson, auto-programmed to begin recording whenever motion and sound sensors determined that a PSF crew had arrived to log their mandatory fifty hours a week in public fields.

Those cameras had been running when Pol Jankovitch’s “protestors” burst into the house. Anish Balin had managed to hack into the PSF security system, downloading the video before the P-Squads got there. He was replaying it in a perpetual loop. The security cameras — three of them, one covering the mess hall and kitchen, one covering the nursery and play area, and one covering the sleeping dormitory — caught the confusion and screams caused by fifteen grown men literally kicking the door off its hinges. The gutter patois they started shouting identified them instantly as members of a Port Town rat-gang. So called for their habit of preying on “space rats” — freighter crews who operated the cargo shuttles between spacedock at Ziva Two and Port Abraham — they were the most vicious urban criminals ever bred on Jefferson, although the P-Squads occasionally gave them a good run for the money.

The rat-gang burst into the house, wearing masks and brandishing weapons. The only people in the house were grandmothers and little ones too young for federally mandated daycare. The gang rounded everybody up and herded them into the dormitory that served as bedroom. What happened next…

Kafari felt sick to the basement of her soul.

The ones not busy having fun with their victims were rushing through the house, ordered by their leaders to ransack nearby storage sheds and barns and raid the vegetable plots and smokehouse, looting everything that looked remotely edible or valuable enough to sell. Kafari’s breath caught when she recognized Aisha Ghamal.

The camera revealed what the rat-gangers hadn’t seen — she’d managed to key an emergency alarm on her wrist-comm without being seen by her captors, sending a distress call to the planetary emergency system. Anish Balin had managed to download the official response to that emergency call: a recording that said, “All local law enforcement agents are busy. Your complaint will be forwarded to the appropriate department in charge of vandalism and petty theft. Have a nice day.”

Two and a half minutes after that message went out, rat-gangers who’d been looting outside burst back into the house, yelling a warning at their friends. Zippers went up in haste as they broke out windows to shoot at targets outside. Aisha’s message had gone out to family members in the fields, as well as the police.

In the confusion that erupted, with rat-gangers firing through the windows, dodging back to avoid return fire and reloading their weapons, Aisha Ghamal dove under a barracks-room bed, knocking it over with a crash. She came up with a handgun concealed under the bed frame. She fired repeatedly, taking down two of the men at the windows. Most of the gang scattered, diving for cover, but one of the bastards stood his ground. They centered one another simultaneously. Aisha beat him to the trigger pull—

—and her gun just clicked. She’d shot it dry.

“Fuckin’ jomo bitch!” he snarled. Then he shot her, high in the chest. She spun and dropped, going down with a gasping cry of pain and a spattering of blood across her dress, the overturned bed, the wall. She hit the floor just as the door burst open. The men and women shooting their way into the house showed no mercy. Cold hatred had turned their faces to stone. They were beyond angry, beyond anything human. POPPA had worked them nearly to death, had confiscated their crops, their money, in some cases their land.

And now a stinking rat-gang had smashed its way into their lives, bent on torture and destruction. The Hancock adults fired and fired and fired, shooting every single member of the gang, pumping extra rounds into anyone whose fingers even twitched around a weapon. Kafari sat with the back of her hand pressed against her lips, shaking and crying at the slaughter on screen.

She recognized Dinny Ghamal, recognized his new bride, Emmeline, a sweet girl who thought the sun rose and set in her husband — an opinion that was, in Kafari’s opinion, fully justified. Dinny rushed to his mother’s side. Aisha was alive, but badly injured and lying in a spreading pool of blood. Someone was shouting “Call the police! Call for ambulances!” while others got the children out of the killing zone.

One of the Hancock women, her face more dead than alive, crouched over a child who wasn’t moving. Another woman was talking to her, trying to get her to let go of the child. She stood up with an abrupt, jerking motion and reloaded her pistol. Then administered head-shots to every rat-ganger still twitching on the floor. When she tried to turn the gun on herself, one of the Hancock men wrestled the weapon out of her hands and led her out of the room.

There wasn’t that much more to see. The first police to arrive were local beat-cops used to patrolling in Port Town. They seemed inclined to help the Hancocks dig trench graves and bury the perpetrators without any further fuss. Then the P-Squads arrived and the situation slid off the edge of a cliff. The officer who stood out in Kafari’s mind, blazing like the neon in far-away Vishnu’s Copper Town shopping arcades, was a cold-eyed brute by the name of Yuri Lokkis. He ordered the arrest of every man, woman, and child on the farm, then spoke to the press while P-Squad vans transported the prisoners — including those critically wounded — off-site, presumably to one of the P-Squad interrogation centers like the main Intelligence Office on Nineveh Base.

Lokkis, his crisp uniform pristine in the afternoon sunlight, told a host of press cameras, “The so-called Hancock Family is nothing more than a militant and subversive cult masquerading as a legitimate organization. This cult preaches selective hatred, teaches helpless, innocent children that violence is a viable solution to disagreements, preaches opposition to the just and fair distribution of critical food supplies, and has just demonstrated utter contempt for human life.

“Fifteen promising young boys, trying to pull themselves out of grinding poverty, were conducting a legitimate social protest, trying to bring attention to the deplorable conditions rampant in the spaceport’s environs, trying valiantly to point out the cruelty the agrarian interests have displayed by building lush farms with plenty of food literally within sight of starving children. Those promising young boys were murdered, executed in cold blood. Why? For daring to express their civic outrage at the injustice of flaunting wealth and plenty in front of those who have been hardest hit by the economic injustices endured by our citizens!

“I will never forget the brutal loss of these boys. I will not rest until the perpetrators of this ghastly crime have been tried and convicted for their brutality. Good citizens everywhere need to remember one thing: these agrarian terrorists are cult fanatics at heart. They are agri-CULT-urists. And they will not rest until they have destroyed our urban heritage and our precious right to live as civilized beings.”

She had to switch it off. Kafari was shaking so hard, she could barely control her fingers. This was wrong, it was monstrously wrong. Surely people would realize POPPA had gone too far, this time? The Hancock family had been attacked without mercy, abandoned by the police, left with no resources but their own. They had rescued elderly women and babies under the age of two from hardened criminals. Surely even the Subbies, who expected someone else to feed them and pay for their every whim, would understand that?

She got her first glimpse of how unlikely that was, when she got home to find Yalena glued to the datascreen, watching the news coverage instead of doing her homework. Kafari stood in the doorway of their Madison apartment for long minutes, watching her daughter’s face. Yalena was clearly avid for the so-called “facts” the mainstream press was handing out. Watching the child she and Simon had made together, a child POPPA had enslaved like so much chattel, Kafari didn’t know how much longer she could bear to remain here.

Yalena looked more and more like a lost cause. At fifteen, there wasn’t a single bone in the girl’s body that didn’t belong utterly and irrevocably to Vittori Santorini. She wore her hair the way Nassiona Santorini did. Wore the kind of clothes Isanah Renke had made so wildly popular. Wallpapered her bedroom with pages of the POPPA Manifesto. Listened to POPPA musicians and watched every film that had ever been made by Mirabelle Caresse and Lev Bellamy, the hottest movie stars in Jefferson’s history, who made more in one film than most Subbies would see in a lifetime.

Mirabelle, a long-legged, wafer-thin beauty with a sultry voice, graced the talk-show circuit with such profound pronouncements as “anyone who thinks it’s all right to pick up a weapon clearly needs psychiatric adjustment” and “eating is not only a social faux pas, it’s the grossest insult possible to the poor and disadvantaged of this world.” Most of the poor, of course, weighed two or three times what the actress did, since eating was their second favorite pastime, right after making little carbon copies of themselves. Leverett Bellamy was her favorite leading man, who’d made his reputation and fortune portraying tough urban war heroes, fighting the Deng street to street in Madison, in films that bore no resemblance to the actual war or the people who’d fought it.

Kafari closed the apartment door and locked it, then walked quietly into the kitchen and started their dinner. Yalena could not be cajoled, coerced, or persuaded into doing anything so menial and disempowering as performing manual labor like cooking or washing dirty dishes. She was too busy raising her consciousness and communing with her friends over the “in” cause of the week. Her fingernails were perfect, her ability to quote the Manifesto flawless, and her brain resembled a well-used sieve, totally devoid of content.

The day Yalena turned eighteen — relieving Kafari of any further moral obligation to provide housing, food, and clothing — she was putting herself onto the next freighter to Vishnu, even if she had to smuggle herself aboard as cargo. It galled, to admit such utter defeat, but she had tried everything. She and her family had wracked their brains, thinking up things to do, and none of it had made the slightest dent in the girl’s misguided, ill-considered, unholy convictions. I’m sorry Simon, she found herself saying over and over as she pulled bags and boxes out of the freezer, very nearly blinded by the saltwater pouring down her face, I’m sorry, hon, I’ve lost her and I don’t think anything will ever shock her enough to get her back…

When Yalena bounced into the kitchen for a glass of soda, she looked at Kafari and said, “Sheesh, Mom, why don’t you peel the onions under cold water, or something?”

Kafari bit down on it. Held the rage in her teeth. Gripped the frying pan and spatula in her hands so hard, the bones creaked and the spatula’s handle bent. When the danger was mostly past, she turned and hissed, “Dish it up, yourself, when the timer goes off. I’m not hungry enough to eat in the same room with you.”

Yalena actually recoiled a step, meeting her gaze with wide and stunned eyes. Kafari stalked past, peripherally aware that her daughter scuttled sideways, out of her way. Kafari slammed her bedroom door shut and twisted the lock, then threw herself onto her cold and empty bed and wept from the bottom of her aching, broken heart. When the worst of the long-suppressed storm had passed, she heard a tiny tapping on her door.

“Mom?”

“Go away!”

The tapping stopped. A few minutes later, it returned. “Mom? Are you okay?”

“No!”

“Do you need a doctor?”

Kafari tightened her fingers through the bedding to stop herself from flinging the door wide and throwing Yalena out of the apartment by the seat of her fashionable pants. She finally mastered the blind rage sufficiently to open the door. Yalena hovered outside.

“Do you need a doctor?” Yalena asked again, voice faltering under the stare Kafari leveled at her.

“What I need is a daughter with a brain. Unless you can provide me with one, I strongly suggest you take yourself out of my way for the next few days. Is that simple enough for even you to understand? Or do I have to spell it out in barracks-room language?”

“But — what did I do? All I said was to cut the onions under running water.”

Yalena didn’t know. She honest-to-God didn’t know. Kafari was in far too dangerous an emotional state to enlighten her. “The less I say right now, the safer both of us will be. I would suggest that you do your homework. You might start by trying to discover what really happened today at the Hancock Family’s barracks.”

“This is about Grangers? A bunch of crazy deviants who massacred fifteen innocent boys just because they were staging a protest? Those boys were my age! Not even in high school, yet. My God, Mom, I know you’re a Granger, but how could you possibly defend that pack of murdering farmers?”

Kafari — remembering a boy with a broken arm and a shotgun, shooting into a barn full of Deng and Asali bees, remembering a woman who’d flung open her door in the teeth of Yavac fire, risking her life to offer them shelter when it would’ve been safer to just run for the cellar — clenched both fists. Kafari was so violently angry, she was literally shaking with the need to contain it.

Yalena, correctly reading the threat in her eyes, hissed, “You wouldn’t dare lay hands on me!”

It was a close thing, very close, to homicide.

Yalena misinterpreted her hesitation and started to laugh. “You’re so pathetic, Mom. You and all the other pig farmers—”

Kafari slapped her.

Hard enough to bruise. Yalena’s eyes widened in shock. She lifted one hand to her cheek in stunned disbelief. “You — you hit me!”

“And you damned well deserved it!”

“But — but — you hit me!”

The “why?” hadn’t even formed, yet. Her mind was still too stunned by the abrupt reordering of her reality.

“I should’ve turned you over my knee years ago. It’s high time you got off that bigoted, lazy little backside of yours and learned some civilized manners. Not to mention a few critical lessons in reality.”

“Bigoted?” Yalena shrieked. “I’m not bigoted! I’m a member of POPPA! Have you even bothered to read the Manifesto? It’s filled with beautiful ideas like economic justice and social parity and respect for the civil rights of living creatures! It’s built on the latest, most scientifically advanced social science in human space! And I believe in it, I live by it! How dare you accuse me of bigotry?”

“Because you don’t have the brains God gave a radish! Let’s just take a look at those high and fine-sounding ideals, shall we? Then I’ll explain to you a little thing called reality. The POPPA Manifesto preaches equality and respect for everyone, doesn’t it? On page after page. Vittori Santorini’s little masterpiece gushes endlessly about everyone deserving love and happiness. That everyone’s entitled to their fair share of the planet’s wealth, that nobody is better than anybody else and nobody should be allowed to harm others. Tolerance and fairness for every man, woman, child on Jefferson — unless they’re farmers!”

The whiplash in her voice was so sharp, her daughter actually jumped.

Then her eyes widened with the dawning realization that she had not, in fact, accorded farmers the same social rights she thought everyone else deserved. For the first time in her life, Yalena was staring into an undistorted mirror. Given the look on her face, she didn’t like what she saw. It was rarely pleasant when one heard an ugly little truth about themselves, particularly when they couldn’t justify it under their own rules of conduct.

Kafari shoved the mirror a little closer to Yalena’s face. “I have watched you spend hours defending the rights of leaf-cutting caterpillars, but by God, let a human being disagree with you on anything and you label them as subhuman deviants. Where’s the tolerance in that nasty little game? If someone dares to hold a different opinion, you treat them like animals. Worse than animals, which you’ve put on a pedestal and all but worshiped as gods, while behaving as though people who grow food are unfit to go on breathing. I dare you to deny it. I don’t think you can.

“But what you pulled out there,” she jabbed a finger at the living room, where Pol Jankovitch was still jabbering away on the datascreen, “was the ugliest thing I’ve ever seen you do. You sat there and gloated over the arrest of people you’ve never met. People the government has turned into literal, legal slaves, forcing them to work without pay on government-owned land, growing the food on your dinner plate! If they refuse or even complain, they’re thrown into prison. You want to show me where to find the equality, respect, or fairness in that? I don’t see it. And I don’t think you do, either, because it’s not there to be seen, not by you or me or anybody else.

“And let me make one other point, lest you think this is merely an academic exercise in rhetoric. I wasn’t chopping onions when you walked into the kitchen. Two of those ‘pig-farming deviants’ you despise so much are dear friends of mine, with more courage and integrity than you will ever possess. When Dinny Ghamal was only twelve years old — twelve, damn you! — he watched Deng troopers murder his father and brothers right in front of him. His mother risked her life to open her front door so President Lendan and I could run to safety in her house. We’d no more than skidded through the doorway when the Deng shot out the front wall, ripping Aisha’s back open with flying debris. We jumped into their basement while Yavacs literally blew the house apart on top of us.”

Yalena’s mouth fell open.

“The broadcasters haven’t mentioned any of those facts, have they? You want to know why? Because misbegotten, silver-tongued snakes like Pol Jankovitch aren’t telling you. He makes his living lying through his teeth and lining his pockets with POPPA’s cold, hard cash. And of course a good little POPPA puppet like you wouldn’t dream of signing onto the datanet to find out the truth for yourself. That might require actual work. If you can be bothered to work up a sweat, check the Granger datachats, starting with Anish Balin’s. But be damned careful if you do, because you just might learn something.

“I suggest you bear one final thing in mind. POPPA can guarantee your right to say what you like. But that sword cuts both ways. When you’re talking to me, you may be damned sure that bigotry will always get what it deserves. If you don’t like it, go live somewhere else!”

Kafari stalked out, too furious to care that she, herself, was risking prison time and a “reeducation” sentence. She slammed her way out of the house, not even sure where she was going until she found herself in the aircar, heading for home. The only home she had left. Her mother, recognizing the car as she set down on the landing pad, took one look at her face and said, “You finally belt that brat like she’s been needing?”

Kafari said, rather stupidly, “How did you know?”

Then burst into tears.

Her mother guided her into the house. She was so blinded by salt water, she couldn’t even see what her feet were stumbling over. Then she was on the sofa, with her mother’s arms around her. She huddled against a warm, safe shoulder while her mother rocked her. Fifteen years of fear came pouring out, mixed up with two agonizing years alone, trying to raise a hellion with a poisoned mind while Simon was on Vishnu, learning how to walk, again.

When Kafari’s paroxysm of grief finally eased, her father appeared with a tumbler of Scotch. She was trembling so badly she couldn’t even hold the glass. “Steady,” her father said quietly, holding the rim to her lips. She gulped the burning stuff down. It helped. Or maybe the fire in her throat and gullet just distracted her enough to regain control of herself. Her mother was brushing wet hair back from Kafari’s face, drying the tears with one corner of the apron she’d worn every day of Kafari’s life. Kafari hadn’t realized how much silver there was in her mother’s hair, how deep the sun-plowed furrows in her father’s face had become.

She met her mother’s worried gaze. “Was I ever as much trouble as Yalena is?”

The twinkle in her mother’s eyes surprised her. “Oh, no. That must come from her father’s side. Eh, Zak?” She winked at her husband, who grumbled, “Well, I mind the time you set fire to the pearl shed, and the day you pushed young Regis Blackpole out of the dairy-barn loft and I had to pay for his crowns and bridgework, and the note we got from Vishnu, that you’d landed in the hospital with kraali fever, and of course there were those worrisome days when you were sleeping with an off-world stranger and hadn’t made up your mind yet to marry him…”

Kafari let out an indignant snort. Then bit one lip. “Mom, Dad… what am I going to do?”

“What tipped the scales, today?”

She told them. Zak Camar’s jaw muscles jumped. Her mother’s expression would have given a rabid jaglitch pause, which gave her a fair idea what her own had been, in the apartment.

“How bad was the snap?” her mother asked quietly.

“One slap worth’s. A hard one. She may bruise.”

Her father snorted. “She’ll mend. Mind, I’m not in favor of belting your kids. But she needed that slap, my girl, needed it more than even you probably realize.”

“And if she reports it—”

“I’ll give her something else to report.” Then he touched her wet cheek with one gentle fingertip, lifted her chin back up where it belonged. “Her father would’ve done the same thing and he’d have been right, too. When a child’s been brainwashed for as long as they’ve had Yalena, you can’t wake ’em up with hugs and flowers.”

“How do you wake them up?” Kafari asked in a low, weary voice. “We’ve tried everything.”

“Except slapping her,” Kafari’s mother said drolly. “Who knows? Maybe she’ll be so shocked, she’ll go onto the datachats and find out for herself?”

It was too hard to hope. She couldn’t bear to be disappointed again. “I’d better go back,” was all she said. “There’s going to be an ugly mood in town, over this. Yalena is just young and stupid enough to go out and be part of it.”

Worry flashed in the glances her parents exchanged. “All right,” her mother said softly. “Call if you need anything. Including a place to hide.”

Kafari just nodded. Then hugged them both tightly, wishing she didn’t have to let go, again. She finally climbed into her Airdart and headed back to town in the gathering gloom of early evening.

II

Yalena didn’t know what to do.

Her face still smarted from that shocking slap. Worse, she didn’t know what to think. Her mother’s angry revelations had stunned her far more deeply than the palm across her cheek. What if… She gulped. What if her mother was right? About the Hancock family? About everything? She realized there was one way to settle her uncertainties over the Hancock massacre.

She sat down at her datascreen and tried to get into the main Granger chats. They were jammed. So badly, she couldn’t get through to the main datahub that carried several of the Granger chats. She finally set her system to auto-retry, and even that took nearly half an hour of constant attempts before her request went through.

Once in, she went straight to Anish Balin’s chat. It was hard — the most difficult and painful thing she had ever done — to watch the recording. It looked genuine, not some kind of mock-up. She sat very still, scarcely breathing, as that one recording shook her carefully constructed beliefs to pieces. When her wrist-comm beeped, Yalena jumped in the chair, heart pounding. Her fingertips shook.

“Yalena,” she said, scarcely recognizing the croak that emerged as her own voice.

“It’s Ami-Lynn. Are you watching the news? Oh, Yalena, it’s horrible! Just horrible. Those poor boys…”

She heard her own voice, tinny and strange, say, “Ami-Lynn, sign into Anish Balin’s datachat. Just do it. Then call me back.”

Twenty-three minutes later, her comm beeped again.

“Is this stuff real?” She sounded shaken, like she’d been crying, or still was.

“Yes,” Yalena whispered. “I really think it is. Mom…” She had to gulp. “Mom knows Dinny Ghamal. And his mother. Why isn’t Pol Jankovitch or anybody else telling people the truth? And nobody’s mentioned that Dinny and his mother helped save President Lendan’s life, during the war. They got Presidential Medallions. So did my mom. Ami-Lynn, I’m going downtown. There’s a Granger protest march, this afternoon. I want to find out the truth. And I want to talk to some Grangers, ask them… I don’t know what, exactly, but I’ve got to find out what’s really going on.”

There was a long pause, then Ami-Lynn said, “I’m going, too. And I’m going to call Charmaine.”

“You don’t have to—”

“I know I don’t. And I probably shouldn’t. My parents would throw a fit and ground me for a year. But I don’t like this, Yalena. I don’t like it and I don’t understand it and I’m scared to death of what I might find out. But I’ve got to know the truth. So do you. And so will Charmaine.”

Yalena drew a deep, uneasy breath. “Okay. Where do you want to meet up?”

“It’s going to be crowded, down there. How about we meet up at Charmaine’s house? She’s pretty close to the downtown.”

“Good idea. I’ll meet you there.”

Yalena turned off her datascreen, made sure her wrist-comm was securely fastened, then pulled her scooter out, locked up the apartment, and headed for Charmaine’s house. She had no idea what she was about to find out. She didn’t have the slightest clue as to what she would do about it, if her mother and that security tape were right. Her mother still insisted that POPPA had sabotaged her father’s aircar, trying to kill him with that crash. Yalena had refused to believe it. Still didn’t want to believe it. But she was no longer a trusting baby, either.

One way or another, Yalena intended to find out.

I

Trouble has erupted again.

At 2030 hours, I receive an urgent call from President Zeloc, who does not bother to go through Sar Gremian, this time. Given the disturbance I am tracking through the heart of Madison, by way of law-enforcement broadcasts and news crews, his wild-eyed demeanor is not surprising. His order is no more than I expected to hear.

“Get yourself into town, machine! Now! We’ve got armed insurrection in the streets!”

I have been scanning all law enforcement, military, and commercial transmissions for the past sixty minutes. A massive Granger protest march is underway, demanding the immediate release of the Hancock Family detainees and opposing the wild demands for weapons confiscation, which the Senate and House of Law have already introduced, less than two hours after the violence at the PSF barracks near Port Town. I see no evidence of Grangers participating in armed rebellion, but the political demonstration underway has rapidly devolved into another explosive riot.

Police units are attempting to clear the protestors, using methods that qualify as brutal under any civilized standard of law-enforcement. The violence has spilled into the streets surrounding Assembly Hall, as urban counterprotestors put in their own appearance, blocking the retreat of the Grangers. From what I have been able to see, most of the Grangers are simply trying to get away from the truncheons and riot-bombs hurled at them by federal police. Those police have not used the paralytic agents that the ill-fated President Andrews used to disperse POPPA rioters sixteen years ago, but they are using what appears to be retch gas, as well as the more ubiquitous tear gas.

Caught between hammer and anvil, many of the Grangers have started tearing up anything that can be used as a weapon, smashing store windows to obtain broken glass and impromptu clubs from the merchandise behind them, tearing down street signs to use as shields, hurling stones and bricks and refuse cannisters at their attackers. With the riot shifting straight toward the Presidential Residence — which is virtually undefended, since most of the city’s law enforcement officials were stationed at Assembly Hall to guard the Joint Assembly — the current state of affairs has sufficiently alarmed President Zeloc that he has put through a frantic call to me.

Despite the fact that Gifre Zeloc did nothing to prevent the violence gripping Madison today, the situation must be contained and I am apparently the only force sufficient to disperse a crowd of this size. I therefore leave Phil Fabrizio puttering in my maintenance depot, where he is attempting to learn the use of the major tools of his new trade. I clear the edge of Nineveh Base and enter the city, once again seriously hampered by the presence of panic-stricken motorists and pedestrians. I order the city’s psychotronic electric power controller to shut down the grid, only to discover that I have been locked out of the system.

I cannot order the city’s computers to turn off the grid. This leaves live power lines dancing wildly through each intersection I traverse, inevitably clipping newly installed cables and dragging down newly replaced traffic signals as I maneuver my bulk through the narrow spaces. It is an expensive business, ordering me to perform riot-control duties at the heart of a city. I broadcast warnings, ordering vehicles and pedestrians out of the way. I am still eleven blocks away when receive a second urgent call from Gifre Zeloc.

“What’s taking you so long? Speed up, dammit! Those murderous bastards are practically spilling onto the lawn outside my window! They’re armed like soldiers, out there. They’re in open rebellion, and you’re poking along at a goddamned crawl!”

“I am not authorized to inflict the kind of collateral damage to civilians that would occur if I were to increase my speed. I have avoided crushing anyone thus far, but I cannot maintain that if I am required to transit streets and intersections more rapidly.”

“You’re not paid to be a Good Samaritan! And your caution won’t do me a hell of a lot of good, if you get here too late! Speed up. I want you here yesterday!”

This is an impossible command, since no Bolo ever built can reverse the flow of time. I have been given an order, however, to proceed more rapidly against an armed enemy. When I tap police cameras, I do, in fact, see actual weaponry in the hands of rioters. Whether these guns were stolen from stores along the way or smuggled into Madison is irrelevant. The situation has altered from one of mere riot-clearance duty.

“If I am to engage an armed enemy, I need to assume full Battle Reflex Alert status.”

Gifre Zeloc scowls into his data screen. “The last thing I need is a Bolo shooting up downtown Madison! Just drive in here and flatten them. That’ll teach the whole dirty pack of ’em the lesson they need. After today, they’ll damned well know I won’t tolerate armed arrogance.”

I attempt to educate the man issuing my instructions. “Without my full battlefield cognitive functions, there is a serious risk of miscalculation—”

“I gave you an order, machine. Shut up and carry it out! If that’s not too much for an antique rust bucket to understand.”

The transmission ends.

The sensations skittering through my personality gestalt center resolve themselves into bitter, affronted anger. I have never been treated with such blatant contempt in the entire one hundred fifteen point nine-seven years of my active service. I am programmed to take pride in my accomplishments and my devoted service to my creators. Humans have often shown fear of me. This is logical, given what I am capable of doing. But not one human has ever shown me contempt.

I have no referents for dealing with the conflicts this arouses in my personality gestalt center. The blow to pride and prestige literally stuns me for six point nine-three seconds, an eternity of shock. Even as antiques, we are immensely capable machines, commanding the respect of those giving our orders. Is Gifre Zeloc the exception or the rule amongst Jefferson’s new ruling class?

Ultimately, the answer is immaterial, as applied to the current mission. I speed up, although this results in an increased level of carnage as I crush cars abandoned by screaming passengers and turn corners too quickly for the terrain, taking off entire corners of buildings in the process and spilling rubble from ruptured walls in my wake.

I encounter the edge of the riot zone just as Gifre Zeloc starts screaming at me again through his commlink. “They’re battering down the gates! I don’t care how many of them you have to crush to get here, just stop them!”

Hundreds of people dressed as Grangers are spilling against the ornate scrollwork fencing. Those not carrying rifles and handguns are ripping iron stanchions out of the fence. They are shooting at anything and anyone that appears to be a threat. Gifre Zeloc is the legally elected head of Jefferson’s government. Jefferson is a Concordiat-allied world, for which President Zeloc speaks as the official voice of the Concordiat. He acts as the Concordiat’s officially designated commander. His life is in immediate and clear danger. The mob attempting to enter the grounds of the Presidential Residence can offer no harm to me, so I do not go to Battle Reflex Mode and do not engage my own weapons systems. But there is sufficient danger to the president that collateral damage to civilians is acceptable. I therefore broadcast a warning to the crowd, engage drive engines, and move forward, plowing through the jam-packed crowd blocking Darconi Street. I do not count the number of people who die beneath my treads. I have no wish to count them. My mission has been narrowly and explicitly defined. I turn off external audio sensors, unwilling to listen to the screams of those I have been ordered to crush on my way to the gates of the Presidential Residence.

I am fifty-three meters away from the gates when the entire scrollwork fence sways and goes down, pushed over by the panic-stricken crowd trying to escape. A massive wave of people spills across the Presidential Residence’s lawn. Within two point zero-three seconds, the crowd engulfs the Residence. A substantial portion of the mob simply spills around it, intent on running as far and as fast as possible now that they have gained a space in which to run. Others, however, enter the Residence, intent on retribution. I cannot penetrate the walls deeply enough, even using ground-penetrating radar, to track their progress inside the Residency walls. I can, however, monitor the windows and do so, focusing on the massive round window of the president’s office and smaller windows to either side, that reveal the interiors of adjacent rooms and the corridors beyond.

Gifre Zeloc has barricaded himself in his office, which overlooks the war-torn gardens. I do not know the location of the vice president. A mob of battle-enraged Grangers, clearly visible through adjacent windows, storms the corridor outside the president’s office. I take immediate action. Snapping to full Battle Reflex Alert, I target through the Residency’s outer stone shell, allowing for proper lead-time on a moving target, and fire 30cm cannons. The rounds punch through the walls and windows with satisfactory ease. I rake the mob inside the Residence with short bursts, taking down those in the leading edge first. This serves to create a barricade that others must either jump across or retreat from — or join, should they continue to exhibit hostile action.

The Grangers near the back of the mob inside the Residence hit the floor. Most of them drop their weapons as I send more live rounds through their ranks. They attempt to crawl back the way they came, leaving their weapons behind. I allow this, as their retreat does not endanger the president. I judge him to be safe from further assault—

Gifre Zeloc picks up a heavy chair and throws it through the window behind his desk. Glass shatters and falls to the garden below, where the mob from Darconi Street is still pouring across the downed fence and surging into the lawn ahead of my treads. Evidently panicked by the gunfire seven meters south of his office, he commits the most breathtakingly stupid act I have ever witnessed. Gifre Zeloc actually jumps out the window. He lands in the midst of a tight-packed mob of Grangers. I cannot fire without hitting him.

Seven point two seconds later, there is no longer a reason to fire. Gifre Zeloc has been reduced to a pulpy red mass under the clubs and feet of people pushed past break-point. A fire begins to blaze inside the Residence. The streets are too choked with debris and fleeing rioters for fire and rescue squads to reach the Residence, which begins to burn fiercely. I halt in stunned disbelief, with my treads zero point eight meters from the downed gates of the Presidential Residence.

He jumped.

He actually jumped into the middle of a blood-crazed mob of people with excellent reason to hate him. I see no further point in shooting into the crowd, which is a hopelessly tangled mixture of Grangers and urban counterprotestors, all of them intent on one goal: escape. Without a lawfully elected president to issue directives, I am left to make my own decisions, rendering me temporarily immobilized. I have, for the moment, full access to my Battle Reflex Alert logic processors, but even fully awake, I do not know what to do.

If this were a battle against Deng Yavacs or even the Quern, my duty would be clear. I would fight the enemy with every weapon I carry until the enemy was destroyed or I was. But I do not know what action to take in the aftermath of a riot that has claimed the life of the only civilian authorized to issue instructions to me. Perhaps, if I were human, my task would be clearer? I might mobilize the remnants of Jefferson’s military forces. I might seek to impose a martial-law curfew after clearing the streets. I might order the Senate and House of Law cleared and the Assembly members escorted to a safe shelter.

I am a Bolo. I do not have the authority to do any of these things. I cannot even instruct the city’s psychotronic system to turn off the power grid. A scan of the city behind my stern shows rising columns of smoke where fires have broken out in the wake of my passage. This is a dreadful situation. I have no idea what to do. I consider contacting the Brigade for help, but am unsure Sector Command would be able to offer any useful — let alone timely — advice on how to resolve a volatile situation on a world that is no longer of concern to most of the Brigade’s command structure.

I am on my own.

And I do not like the choices facing me.

It finally occurs to me to review Jefferson’s constitution to discover the chain of command regarding who is in line for the presidency. I must at least discover who is constitutionally authorized to make decisions in the event of a president’s untimely departure from office. I do not know the whereabouts of Vice President Culver. She normally maintains an office in the Residence, but I do not know if she was in that office, which is now fiercely ablaze despite internal fire-suppression systems, which seem to have malfunctioned.

I put through a call to the vice presidential residence, attempting to ascertain her location, but no one responds to my signal. I theorize that they are too busy watching the fire consuming the Presidential Residence to answer something as relatively trivial as a transmission from a fthirteen-thousand-ton Bolo parked across the street. The next official in line for command is the Speaker of the House of Law, the most senior position in the Assembly, with the President of the Senate coming next in the list. I check security-camera feed from the Joint Chamber, where the Assembly watches a five-meter-tall datascreen in stunned silence. The images on that datascreen show the burning Residence and my own warhull, parked atop an unknown number of dead rioters.

I tap the datafeed and address the Assembly, much of which jumps in shock at the sound of my voice issuing from the speakers. “President Zeloc has been killed. I do not know the whereabouts of Vice President Culver. There are fires burning at the Presidential Residence and in the city, where downed power cables have sparked electrical fires consuming damaged buildings. It would be advisable for the Speaker of the House of Law to assume temporary command until the whereabouts of the vice president can be established. Madame Speaker, I require instructions.”

The shaken woman who has held the post of speaker for eleven years — a span of time she has enjoyed thanks to the revocation of term limits, enacted by POPPA jurists appointed to the High Court — stares at the datascreen for twelve point three seconds, speechless and pale to the roots of her carefully colored hair. She finally regains the use of her wits and her voice.

“What am I supposed to do? Who is this? Who’s talking?”

“I am Unit SOL-0045 of the Jeffersonian Defense Forces. I require instructions.”

“About what?”

“I am a machine of war. This situation is not the type of combat I was designed to conduct. I do not know what to do. I require instructions.”

Avelaine La Roux apparently has no idea what to do, either. She stares at the gavel in her hand, stares at the stunned faces of her colleagues, swallows convulsively several times. She finally finds something to say.

“We have to find Madeline. That’s the important thing, we have to find Madeline. She’s the president, now. You’re sure Gifre is dead?”

“He jumped into a crowd of rioters and was bludgeoned to death before I could fire on those attacking him.”

A collective shudder rushes through the room, followed by a rising snarl of anger. I foresee an impending planet-wide explosion of rage that will make all prior-existing anti-Granger sentiment look like attenuated smoke on the wind, by comparison. I do not foresee a likelihood that the Grangers will accept this without a fight. I offer a suggestion. “I would advise immediate mobilization of what military forces remain in operational condition. Public sentiment will doubtless express itself violently.”

“Yes,” Avelaine La Roux says, running a distracted hand through her hair, which disarranges its careful coiffeur. “Yes, I think you’re right. Uh… How do I do that?”

It has been sufficiently long since Jefferson had a truly operational military structure, the person third in line for the presidency does not even know how to scramble the military for a world alert. She is, in large measure, responsible for the dismantling of that military structure, insisting that tax money was more productively spent protecting the rights of the urban poor and providing a “decent living wage” for those unable or unwilling to find gainful employment.

As a result, there are insufficient military resources to step in and act as peacekeepers until tempers have cooled and public hysteria has been calmed. I am not a policeman, but I fear that I may be forced into that role, by default. This does not send joy of any kind through my personality gestalt center. Darconi Street is covered with blood and spilled chemicals from ruptured vehicles. Flame and smoke blacken the skies from structural fires and spilled fuel and solvents which burn with a characteristic, dirty smoke. Once again, the heart of Madison resembles a war zone. This is not a war in which I am proud to have fought.

For the first time in my career, I know shame for having done my duty.

II

Kafari was halfway to Madison, flying at the Airdart’s minimum speed in an effort to compose herself, when her wrist-comm beeped. It was an emergency signal, from Yalena. “Mom? Oh, God — Mommy — we’re in trouble—”

The transmission was patchy, fading in and out. Kafari could hear a snarling roar in the background, the roar of thousands of voices locked in combat.

“Where are you?”

“I don’t know — somewhere on Darconi Street. Ami-Lynn and I came down here to find out what’s really going on. I went on the datachat boards, Mom, like you told me to, and it was just awful. So I called Ami-Lynn and Charmaine and we came downtown. We got caught in the mob and now we can’t get out. There’s barricades up everywhere and P-Squads blocking all the streets — we can’t get out!”

Kafari hit the throttle. The Airdart roared forward, kicking her back into her seat. “Keep your wrist-comm on send. I’ll home in on your signal. Can you get into a building somewhere?”

“No — we can’t get near a doorway — too many people—”

The transmission broke up again. It sounded like Yalena was coughing. Or throwing up. Kafari was almost to Nineveh Base when she saw it. An immense, dark shape in the twilight. A moving shape, bristling with guns and speckled with running lights. Sonny. The Bolo was out of his maintenance depot, moving toward Madison. Fast. Something that big shouldn’t move that fast. A mountain of steel and death, outsprinting her aircar…

“Oh, God.” She jammed the controls to maximum acceleration and shot forward, flying nap-of-the-earth and hoping desperately that Sonny wouldn’t decide her aircar was an enemy ship to be blasted from the sky. She homed in on Yalena’s signal and tried to raise her daughter.

“Yalena? Can you hear me? C’mon, baby, can you hear me?”

A choked, garbled sound came back. “Urghh — y-yeah — hear you, Mommm—”

More horrible sounds left Kafari ice cold. “Yalena?”

“Yeah?”

“Baby, the Bolo’s coming! Get off the street — I don’t care how, just get off the street!”

“Trying—” More ghastly sounds came through.

Did those bastards use retch gas?

Better gas than nerve agent. Kafari raced Sonny neck-and-neck, pulled ahead, reached Madison’s outlying suburbs before he did. The streets would slow him down. She might make it. There might be time to get in, to get Yalena and her friends out. She roared into Madison at lamp-post height, whipping around corners between office towers, car-sales lots, restaurants. Kafari was no fighter pilot, but Uncle Jasper would’ve been proud of her. She zipped under traffic-signal cables or whipped her nose up and shot over them, where trucks took up necessary airspace.

The signal from her daughter’s wrist-comm was getting closer. Peripheral vision showed her a dense throng of people dead ahead, blocked by barricades and P-Squads. Madison’s infamous enforcers stood shoulder-to-shoulder with shields locked, doing nothing to stop the riot, but preventing anyone from getting out of the riot zone. They were funneling people straight down Darconi Street, toward the Presidential Residence. Right into the path Sonny would follow.

It’s murder, she realized in a split-second moment of horror. They mean to kill the protestors! And somewhere ahead, lost in a heaving, surging mass of trapped humanity and riot gas, Kafari’s little girl was fighting to stay alive. Anger blazed to life. He’s not killing my child!

Kafari slapped controls, killing her air-intake system, then her aircar slashed through trailing tendrils of gas, an arm’s length above the helmeted, armored line of the P-Squad’s dragoons. Somebody shot at her. She heard the impact against the undercarriage. A warning light flashed urgently on her boards. She swore viciously, unable to tear her attention away from navigating the riot gas and packed streets.

Uncle Jasper must’ve wrapped ghostly hands around hers more than once, as she whipped through the heart of the riot, on a virtual collision course with the Presidential Residence. Kafari was one block away from Yalena’s wrist-comm signal when her aircar started losing power. “Damn!”

There was nowhere to set it down. Just a vast river of struggling, running, fighting people, punctuated by outcroppings of parked cars, toppled delivery vans, and wrecked signposts jutting up like spears where their signs had been ripped down. Then she spotted it. The long, low rooftop of a trendy dance club. Kafari gunned the engines, yanked on the controls, brought the nose up by sheer willpower. She gained precious elevation while the engines screamed, bleeding noise and God-alone knew what kind of parts across the packed streets. She was going to hit the upper windows. She wasn’t going to make it—

The belly of her fuselage scraped the edge of the roof. They skidded across, leaving a metoric trail of sparks. Kafari cut the forward thrust, shunted all remaining power into the side-thrusters, and sent the air-frame into a wild spin. The world reeled out of control… Then firmed up again as the combination of friction and counterthrust brought her careening to a halt. She hung against the crash webbing for several ghastly seconds, just shaking.

I’m too old for this. Last time I did this kind of thing, I was still in college…

Then the world swam into focus and showed her a sight that dumped more adrenaline into her jangled system. An upper turret, studded with guns bigger than any trees Kafari had ever seen, was crawling its way down Darconi Street. Toward the Presidential Residence. Toward her. And Yalena…

Kafari slapped the restraints loose, tumbled out onto the roof. She dug into the bin under her seat and came up with the gun she had been carrying illegally for years. Kafari dragged on her belly-band holster, which tucked the gun snugly between her abdomen and the elasmer band, then hunted frantically for a way down from the roof.

There was a fire door. Locked from the inside. Kafari snatched a tool kit out of her car and jimmied the whole door off its frame. Terror lent her strength as Sonny’s massive guns crawled inexorably closer. She could hear the sound of his treads chewing up pavement and cars and smaller things, the kind of things that screamed in mortal terror as they died. When she realized what she was seeing and hearing, Kafari ran cold to the bottom of her soul. They hadn’t just ordered Sonny to break up the riot. The Bolo was running over people. Lots of people.

Her breath caught in her lungs for one horrified instant. Then she pulled the door the rest of the way off its hinges. She clattered down the stairs, found herself rushing through a building eerily empty by daylight. The dance hall was full of ghostly, discordant shadows. Memories lingered, revelries filled with the intoxicating taste of ruling-class luxury and power. Dusty shafts of sunlight lent the room a surreal, churchlike atmosphere, while outside, a rising shriek of terror, metal against bone, ran thick as blood.

She found another staircase that took her from the dance floor to the street level. She emerged into a restaurant that fronted Darconi Street. The restaurant was packed with people. More were trying to shove through the door, creating the worst log-jam of human bodies Kafari had ever witnessed. The only way to cross the restaurant was by going up. Kafari jumped onto the nearest table and started running, leaping from one table to the next, scattering cutlery and water glasses and plates full of food. People around her were screaming, but she hardly heard them over the volcanic roar in the street.

When she reached the tables closest to the windows, she searched frantically for her daughter in the crowd beyond. The signal on Kafari’s wrist-comm said she was close, so close, she ought to be able to see her daughter by now. “YALENA!”

Screaming at the top of her voice made about as much noise as a bee’s wings trying to flee an erupting volcano. Then she spotted a wild shock of neon-green hair and recognized Yalena’s best friend, Ami-Lynn. Charmaine was with her, too. And there was Yalena. They were close to the sidewalk, caught in a mass of people with nowhere to go. For Yalena, there was no way in. For Kafari, there was no way out.

So she made one.

Kafari snatched up an overturned chair and threw it at the plate glass. The window shattered, raining slivers onto the heads of stunned people on the sidewalk, who couldn’t quite believe that somebody would want to go out instead of in. “Yalena!”

Her daughter looked around, saw her standing in the shattered window.

“MOM!”

“Get through the window! Sonny’s coming!”

Yalena looked back, saw the Bolo for the first time. Her eyes, streaming and blood-red from the retch gas, widened. “Oh — my — God—”

She started shoving her way toward Kafari. Other people were moving toward the broken window. Terror-stricken people, who shoved against the splintered glass, pushed the broken shards out of their way, climbed across the busted-out sill. Kafari snatched people up by shirt collars, belts, the backs of expensive dresses, throwing them into the restaurant. Anything to clear enough space for Yalena to reach the window. Her daughter was fighting through the crowd, dragging Ami-Lynn and Charmaine with her. The roar from the street was bone-shaking. Sonny’s massive warhull blocked the fading twilight, half-a-block away and coming like a flintsteel tide. She could hear his voice, familiar, horrifying. He was broadcasting loudly enough that the words were clearly audible, even above the roar.

“I have been ordered by President Zeloc to run over anyone between me and the Presidential Residence. Clear the streets. I have been ordered…”

Yalena was two meters away… a meter and a half… a meter from Kafari’s outstretched hand. “Come on!” she shouted, “Keep moving!”

People were struggling to pass her, trying to shove Yalena out of the way. A big, beefy lout with a broken signpost in each fist was clubbing people, trying to reach the window where Kafari had created the only way out of the street. He started to swing at Yalena—

Kafari ripped the gun loose from her holster and fired. From a meter and a half out, the bullet slammed into his face like a sledgehammer. It left a stunned expression of disbelief on his face. And a hole straight through his braincase. The club slid from his hand and he toppled, falling against a woman behind him.

Yalena lunged forward. Ami-Lynn and Charmaine tripped and fell. Both girls went down. Just beyond, Sonny’s treads were the only thing she could see. The immense treads were red, drenched in blood and other things…

“Yalena!” Kafari screamed, tearing her throat. The world paused. Everything came to a ghastly standstill. The crush of people, the crackle of heat, the wind. Even Sonny. Just long enough. Kafari leaned out into a tunnel of silence. Grabbed her daughter’s hand. Hauled her across the broken glass. Then Yalena was in her arms. She dragged her daughter away from the window, making room for others. She couldn’t see Ami-Lynn or Charmaine anywhere.

Then a massive shadow blocked the sunlight. Darkness engulfed the little restaurant, like a sudden eclipse of the sun. Sound roared back into her ears. The walls rattled. Overhead lights jangled. Dishes danced, some of them crashing to the floor. Nightmare memories broke loose, memories of the ground shaking under her feet as titans fought to possess it. Only this time, the titans weren’t defending them. Sonny’s treads scraped the edges of the restaurant. Kafari turned her head, unable to watch the slaughter of those still outside, but the screams were etched onto the marrow of her bones.

Yalena clung to her, sobbing and trembling. The ghastly silence that followed in the Bolo’s wake was almost worse than the screaming. Nobody seemed willing to move. Sonny kept grinding his way toward the Presidential Residence. The farther he moved toward it, the worse the silence grew.

The sudden discharge of his guns sent a shockwave through the jam-packed restaurant. Screams erupted again. Yalena jumped in Kafari’s arms. Kafari shut her eyes, not even wanting to know what he’d just fired at. All she wanted was to get her baby out of this horror. With her aircar a wreck on the roof, she didn’t have the faintest idea how to get out. They couldn’t walk out, that was certain. She had no desire to tangle with the P-Squads who’d made sure their victims couldn’t escape.

Worse, she was carrying a gun. Had shot a man with it, in front of several hundred witnesses, any one of whom could put Kafari in jail or a rehab facility for life. This was mostly an urban crowd, people who already hated Grangers and their so-called “cult of violence.” They were more than capable of lynch-mob destruction if provoked.

They had just been provoked.

She shook Yalena and said in a low, urgent voice, “C’mon, baby, we’ve got to go. Now.” Yalena looked up through swollen, tear-reddened eyes. “Wh-where are Ami-Lynn and…” Her voice trailed off when she realized her friends weren’t in the restaurant with them. She started to get up. Looked out the broken window before Kafari could stop her. Turned dead-fish white. The shock in her eyes ran to the bottom of her soul.

In that moment of acid-etched pain, the girl POPPA had stolen from them abruptly proved herself Simon Khrustinov’s daughter. Her eyes went hard and her chin came up. She spat through the window, the most eloquent gesture of defiance Kafari had ever witnessed. Then she stood up on shaking legs and started looking for exits.

“Across the tables.” Kafari said, grimly pulling her daughter behind her. They retraced Kafari’s path a little drunkenly, since many of the tables had been knocked over in the panic-stricken crush of refugees. Most of those refugees looked up in numb silence, too shell-shocked to respond to their exodus. Given time — maybe as little as two or three minutes — that stunned crowd was going to transform itself into an unholy killing mob.

They made it to the staircase and fled silently upwards, reaching the dance hall’s cathedral solitude. Kafari closed the upper doors softly and slid part of a microphone stand from the stage through the door handles, forming an effective if temporary lock.

Once the door was as secure as she could make it, Kafari turned to survey the room. The damage from Sonny’s passage was apparent, even here. Some of the stained glass had been broken out. Yalena was having trouble walking. For reasons she didn’t have time to determine, her daughter was staring at Kafari in a way nobody had since Abraham Lendan had met her gaze across the rubble of a refuse-strewn cellar, asking her what to do next.

“We have to get out of Madison. This part of it, anyway. Those folks downstairs are going to start looking for somebody to blame. I have no intention of that someone being us.”

Yalena looked like she wanted to ask something important, but didn’t want to interrupt their escape to do it. “What do we do?” she asked, instead.

“We find food and water we can carry and we get the hell out of this building.”

A curtain concealed the back of the stage. Kafari headed that way, betting there were dressing rooms where band members grabbed a bite to eat between dance sets. They found a small kitchenette stocked with food and plenty of beverages. “Fill your pockets. In fact, grab some of those costumes,” she nodded toward a rack full of glittering clothing, “and tie off sleeves and pants legs to form carry-sacks. God knows how long we’re going to have to hide before it’s safe to come out.”

“Where…” She got her voice under control. “Where are we going to hide?”

“I’m trying to work that out. We’re short on time and options are limited. Do you have a hand-comp with you?”

Yalena shook her head. Kafari’s was sitting on the passenger seat of her aircar, or had been before that wild skid. “Mine’s in the aircar. I’ve got to know what’s happening. If you hear anyone trying to break down those doors, head for the roof and we’ll figure something out.”

“The aircar? Can’t we just fly out?”

Kafari grimaced. “No. The P-Squads shot me down. More or less. I crashed on the roof.”

“Oh. God, that must’ve been…” Her voice trailed off, helplessly.

Kafari summoned a brief grin that stunned her daughter. “The landing was nothing to the flying I did, getting here ahead of Sonny. I had to fly all the way from Klameth Canyon.”

Yalena’s chin shook for a dangerous moment and she blinked hard, then she just nodded and started dumping food and bottled water into the makeshift carry sacks. Kafari headed for the roof. She was worried about the wrecked aircar. It had her identification in it, some of her personal belongings. When it was noticed, someone was going to start poking around, looking for the owner. That attempt might lead to a number of very unpleasant outcomes.

The broken door was still ajar from her frantic rush down. She took a quick look around, then crouched low and sprinted for the aircar. The damage was evident at once. The airframe had tipped slightly on its skid across the roof, tilting it enough to see the hole where a riot gun had punched through the relatively thin outer hull. The pilot’s compartment had been reinforced heavily, but the alloy in the airframe, itself, was of necessity lightweight. A 20mm slug had chewed its way through the housing and sliced into an assembly that fed power from the drive engines to the lift vanes. No wonder she’d lost acceleration. If she could replace the damaged module, they could fly out.

She didn’t feel like scrounging for a replacement, not with the kind of security that would be crawling all over them, pretty soon. From her perch atop the roof, she could see Sonny’s warhull. He had halted at the edge of the lawn around the Presidential Residence. A crowd of people had surged over the high fence, fleeing the Bolo’s treads. Most of the people in it were busy running away as fast as mere feet could carry them. Then Kafari blinked, suspicious for a moment that her eyes were playing tricks on her in the drifts and eddies of riot gas in the last of the twilight. It had looked at first glance like the Residence was burning. Then she saw flames in the upper-story windows. It was burning.

Somehow, in the middle of the craziness, the Residence had been torched. By Sonny? She found that hard to believe, although it looked like a dark line of holes had been stitched across the side of the building, just to the left of the famous rose window of the president’s office. That window bled light from the inside, where the glass had been shattered. What had Sonny been shooting at, when they’d heard the discharge of his guns? Enraged Grangers? Had they stormed the Residence, bent on vengeance?

She crept into the cockpit, found her hand-comp on the floor, switched on the viewscreen. The news reports were garbled, but none of them showed the truly hair-raising sight of the Presidential Residence going up in flames. She narrowed her eyes. Somebody was censoring the news. On a really big scale. Why? There were no aircars visible anywhere in Madison’s skies. Not even news crews with aerial cameras.

POPPA censorship had never been used for humanitarian reasons, so their goal couldn’t be an attempt to defuse the anti-Granger violence bound to erupt in the wake of a riot this big. Why, then? Her eyes widened as the implications hit home. Something had happened to the president. Maybe the vice president, as well. “My God,” she whispered, crouched on the bottom of her aircar’s cockpit. “They’ll spark a witch-hunt. The mobs will turn the Adero farms into slaughterhouses.” They’d kill anybody who looked even faintly like a Granger. She had to get Yalena out. Now.

How?

Mind spinning, she tried to think what to do, how to get herself and a shell-shocked adolescent girl out of a killing ground that the government had blockaded and would lock down so tightly, not even a rat would be able to wriggle its way through. She could call for help, but the nearest help was in Klameth Canyon. By the time anyone could reach them, somebody would have thought to ground air traffic planet-wide, controlling movement by potential “enemies of the people.”

They couldn’t get out through the streets. They had to go either up or down. Up was not possible. That left down as the only viable option. The sewers presented themselves as an attractive alternative. Kafari narrowed her eyes. If they could crawl through the sewers, come up a few streets away… Coming up would be a problem, with Madison set to explode. The civilian emergency shelters would be more sanitary, if they were close to any. Downtown Madison was supposed to be riddled with below-ground shelters, in case of renewed attack by the Deng.

She keyed her hand-comp to access the datanet and found an emergency evacuation map. There wasn’t a shelter anywhere near the dance club. Not close enough to gain it without going out into the streets. Scratch that idea. It was the sewers or nothing. Kafari moved across the roof at a low crawl, easing her way gingerly so she didn’t skyline herself. She slid herself to the back of the dance club, which overlooked an alley through which delivery trucks brought in supplies for the restaurant and dance club. There were dumpsters for refuse and a couple of groundcars parked near the service exit. The building behind the dance club was taller, a three-story structure that apparently housed tri-d screens stacked vertically, to conserve expensive downtown real-estate.

Between the two buildings, Kafari spotted a tell-tale metal circle embedded in the pavement, providing access for sewer-system maintenance techs. All they had to do was reach the alley, pry up the cover, climb down, and pull the lid back on top of themselves. And at the moment, nobody was in sight to notice them doing it. Kafari peered over the edge of the dance club’s roof, trying to see if there might be a way down from here. She spotted a fire escape farther along, allowing rapid exit through one of the dance hall’s windows. That ought to serve nicely. Kafari rolled back from the edge, crawled across the roof, then skinned her way down the stairs and found Yalena waiting for her.

“The Presidential Residence is burning. There’s no report of it anywhere, no aerial news crews, not even a peep on the datachats. I think Gifre Zeloc’s been killed and a news blackout’s been ordered.”

Yalena gasped. Then once again, she demonstrated her father’s cool level-headedness under fire. “They’ll blame Grangers. Won’t they? We have to get out of Madison. And…” She bit one lip, then said it anyway. “And we have to warn people, somehow. On the farms.” She swallowed, realizing how that sounded, coming from her, then she lifted her chin in defiance and said, “Well, we do. Especially the Adero farms.”

Kafari reached out and touched her daughter’s tear-stained cheek, smeared with makeup and dirt and horror. This stubborn, brainwashed child had just slashed through fifteen years of indoctrination, had finally realized that people she had considered “the enemy” all her life were about to be slaughtered without mercy. “Yalena,” she said, reaching back across the years to a memory very precious to her, “I am proud to be your mama.”

Yalena started to cry, gulped the sound back, tried to stiffen her shoulders.

In that moment, Kafari knew they would be all right. If they could survive.

I

I return to my maintenance depot covered once again in misery, broken power cables, and dangling traffic signals. My mechanic is glued to a datascreen, watching the spectacle of Madison burn. When he hears me approaching, Phil runs out and greets me with an exhuberance I find puzzling, given the sudden death of Jefferson’s president.

“Hooeee! You really kicked some ass, big guy! Wow, how many a’them land hogs didja run over and shoot? About a thousand of ’em, at least! I’m so freakin’ jealous, man, I can’t even stand it, ’cause I hadda watch on the screen, stead’a bein’ there, while you was right in the middle of it.”

I come to a complete halt outside my maintentance bay, at a total loss for words. I have come to expect ruthless disregard for human life from the enemy, since species like the Quern, Deng, and Melconians operate under a belief system that does not include coexistence with another sentient, let alone space-faring, species. But not even fifteen years of monitoring POPPA leaders and their inflammatory rhetoric has prepared me for such an outburst from an individual who, so far as I have been able to determine, has never met — much less suffered abuse at the hands of — a Granger. I literally do not know how to respond to his glee.

He grins up at my nearest external sensor array. “So, how’d it feel, finally gettin’ to show them land hogs what they got comin’ to ’em? Betch’a ain’t seen anythin’ like that, ever, have you?”

Phil’s questions give me the referents I need to frame a response.

“I am a Bolo Mark XX. Clearly, you do not understand what it means to be a Bolo. I am part of an unbroken lineage of humanity’s defenders, a lineage that stretches back nine-hundred sixty-one years. I am programmed to defend humanity’s inhabited worlds from harm. I have seen active service for one hundred fifteen point three-six years. During that time I have fought in three major wars, beginning with the Deng War of one-hundred fifteen years ago. I fought a new threat during the Quern Wars and was seriously damaged in the battle for Herdon III, where my Commander was killed. I have fought three campaigns in the current Deng War, which now engulfs thirty-seven human star systems.

“During those one hundred fifteen years of active service, I have received seventeen campaign medals, three rhodium stars, and four galaxy-level clusters, including a gold cluster for heroism on the killing fields of Etaine. During the battle for Etaine, I was part of a Brigade battle group of seventeen Bolos with a mission to halt the Deng incursion at any cost, since possession of Etaine would have opened the way into the heart of humanity’s home space.

“We faced fifty Yavac Heavy-class fighting machines, eighty-seven Yavac medium-class, and two-hundred and ten Scout-class Yavacs. The deep gouge melted across my prow was inflicted by the concentrated fire of fourteen Yavac Heavies using a synchronized-fire tactic which punched through my defensive energy screens. Yavac fire melted ninety-eight percent of my armor and blew all of my treads to rubble. They then concentrated their plasma lances across my prow in an attempt to melt through my flintsteel warhull to inflict a fatal hull breach.

“I destroyed all fourteen Yavac Heavies and ground my way across the field of battle on bare drive wheels, killing every Yavac I could bring into range of my Hellbores. I destroyed seven troop transports attempting to land and took down a Deng heavy cruiser entering low orbit. By the end of the battle, all sixteen other Bolos in my battle group had been destroyed. Seventeen million human civilians had been killed, but the Deng advance was halted and turned into a retreat. The Deng High Command rightly concluded it would be far too expensive to continue mounting full-scale assaults at humanity’s heartland. They therefore turned their attention to the border worlds just beyond the Silurian Void in an effort to gain a toe-hold for their own refugees. They had been forced to do this, as the Melconians have destroyed a third of the Deng’s colony worlds in this sector and have threatened the Deng homeworlds.

“Given the extent of the war along the Deng/Melconian border, I was deemed essential to the continued defense of human worlds. Rather than being scrapped, I was fitted with new armor and treads and my damaged gun systems were repaired or replaced. I came to Jefferson, where I defeated a Deng battle group consisting of two armored cruisers, six Deng troop transports, eight Yavac Heavies, ten Medium-class Yavacs, twenty-eight Scout-class Yavacs, and large numbers of infantry I did not bother to count, but which ran to the thousands, at a minimum.

“Today, I was ordered to drive through city streets jammed with civilians who had been exercising their lawful right to free speech and assembly and did so in a peaceful manner until federal police forces began lobbing retch gas and breaking their bones with heavy truncheons. When they attempted to run for safety, they were met by a mob of urban vigilantes who hammered them into the pavement with a clear intent to kill. Their sole escape route was through the grounds of the Presidential Residence. This caused Gifre Zeloc to order me to crush anything in my path in order to prevent the panic-stricken crowd from climbing his fence. Despite my protests, he repeated the order to drive over everyone in my path, including the urban rioters entangled with the crowd of Grangers.

“I do not know how many people I crushed on Darconi Street tonight. I do not want to know. My purpose is defending humanity’s worlds, not running over protestors. When Grangers stormed the Presidential Residence, I fired through the walls. I did so to protect a man who ordered the slaughter of his own supporters in the interests of saving his own neck. He then stupidly jumped through a window and landed in the middle of a group of people with intense cause to hate him. He died messily. Unfortunately, so did nearly a thousand innocents.”

Phil gets quiet. Very quiet. I have never seen him so quiet. Even the nano-tatt on his face has gone motionless. He swallows several times without speaking. He stares at the ground beside my treads for one point three-seven minutes. He glances up and sees something embedded in my track linkages that causes him to blanch. He looks down again. “I didn’t know any a’that,” he finally says in a low voice. “Nobody on the news said none a’that. Not at all.”

“That does not surprise me.”

He looks up again, puzzlement clearly visible in his tattooed face. “You ain’t surprised? What’cha mean by that?”

“The broadcast and print news media routinely exercise skillful, extensive, and selective editing in what they report.”

“Huh? What’s that mean?”

“They don’t tell the whole story and what they do tell, they lie about. Frequently.”

Phil’s eyes widen, then narrow. “How d’you know that? You ain’t everywhere. You just sit in this here building and do nuthin’ all day except sleep or whatever it is a machine does.”

“I do not sleep. Due to the circumstances of my last commander’s recall, I remain awake twenty-five hours a day, every day. I have now been conscious without interruption for five years. I monitor all broadcasts originating from commercial and government sources. I scan the planetary datanet on a daily basis. I am able to access security cameras in virtually every governmental or private office on Jefferson and frequently do. I can communicate directly with most computer systems on this world. Ninety-nine point two percent of the time I do so on a read-only status, which allows me to access information entered by virtually anyone using a computer hooked to the datanet. When the situation warrants it, I can instruct computers to perform specific tasks, in the interest of successfully completing my mission.”

“You can do all a’that?” Phil asks faintly. “Peek at what’s on guy’s computer screen? Or tell it t’do somethin’? You are kiddin’, ain’t’cha?”

“A Bolo Mark XX is not noted for a sense of humor. I do not ‘kid’ on matters of planetary security. I have noted,” I add, “your preference for datachat sites with well-endowed and scantily clad women.”

Phil and his nano-tatt turn an interesting shade of crimson. “You — I — but—” He halts, clearly struggling with some concept new to him. Thinking of any kind would qualify as a new concept for him. Given the visual cues I perceive, it is apparent that Phil is thinking, or trying to. I consider this a step in the right direction. He finally finds something to say. “If you can listen and read alla that stuff, how come you ain’t told nobody about nuthin’?”

Phil is evidently making a valiant attempt, but not even I can decipher that statement. “Which things am I not telling to whom?”

He screws his brow into an improbable contortion of skin and writhing purple tendrils as the nano-tatt responds to some strong emotion. “All the stuff the news ain’t tellin’ folks. Like they never mentioned the president got killed, tonight. How come they never told us the president got killed, tonight?”

“I do not know the answer to that.”

“But how come you ain’t tellin’ anybody about it? Anybody but me, I mean.”

“Whom should I tell?”

He blinks for a long moment. “You coulda told the reporters an’ such. You coulda told ’em they oughta be tellin’ folks important stuff like that.”

“What good would it do to tell someone who is lying and knows they are lying that they ought to tell the truth?”

He scratches the tattooed side of his face, looking deeply uncomfortable. It is clear that Phil finds thinking for himself difficult. “I dunno, I guess it wouldn’t a’ done much good, would it? But… You shoulda’ oughta’ told somebody.”

“Do you have a suggestion as to who might listen?”

This is not entirely a rhetorical question. I would welcome — gladly — any genuine insight into how I should resolve the situation I face. Phil, however, just shakes his head. “I dunno. I gotta think about that, a little.” He peers up at me again. “You gotta mess a’crap needs to be pulled off, again, up there. And you got stuff…” he pauses, swallows convulsively again. “You got stuff I gotta wash out of them treads.”

He makes a semifurtive gesture with the fingers of his right hand, sketching a rough cruciform shape in the air in front of his face and chest. I surmise that he is, as are many individuals of Italian descent, Catholic. I surmise, as well, that he had — until recently — forgotten that fact. There may still be a human soul hidden beneath the indoctrination he has been fed since beginning grammar school, judging by the age listed in his work dossier. Or perhaps it is his martyred urban brethren who have nudged his conscience out of its coma?

He peers uncertainly around the maintenance bay. “Got any idea how t’do that? Wash you off, I mean?”

I suggest use of the high-pressured hose system installed for this purpose and guide him through the procedure of powering up the system and using the equipment without injuring himself. It is a long afternoon. By the time my treads and warhull are clean again, Phil Fabrizio is reeling with exhaustion. He stumbles out of the maintenance bay and staggers toward the quarters Simon occupied for so many years. He does not, however, go to sleep. He opens a bottle of something alcoholic and sits down in the darkness, drinking and thinking alone.

He is, at least, thinking.

After the day I have endured, any hopeful thought at all is something to cling to, as an antidote to rising despair. I did not think it was possible to miss Simon Khrustinov as bitterly as I do tonight, with bloody water coursing down the drains in my maintenance bay’s floor and a blood-red moon rising above the Damisi highlands fifty kilometers to the east.

My day’s battle has ended, but judging from the reports I monitor over news feed, government emergency channels, and frantic radio calls for help originating from virtually all parts of Madison and the Adero floodplain farms near it, the night’s battle is just beginning. What is happening there and in every major urban center on Jefferson qualifies as murder.

It will, I fear, be a long and exceedingly dark night.

II

Kafari watched Yalena crawl into the sewer from her perch on the rooftop. The moment her daughter was underground, she used the aircar’s comm-unit to tap into the datachat site most frequently used by Grangers in this part of Jefferson. She posted warnings on the main Granger sites and set the aircar’s comm-unit to record a verbal warning that would start broadcasting on every civilian frequency she could access. She put the recordings on a count-down clock that would start ten minutes after she left. Then she rushed down the rooftop access stairs, climbed through a window, and lowered herself by her hands. She kicked out slightly to drop into the alleyway, jarring her feet with the impact, but taking no injury. It took only seconds to slither through the manhole and pull the cover on top of them.

Yalena was waiting below, holding a flashlight.

“I found extra batteries,” she said.

“Good. We may need them. We’ll try to reach the apartment.”

Yalena just nodded. They set out, slogging through thigh-deep water. It was hard work and the water was cold, but she kept them moving steadily. They rested once every half-hour, heading north. When they finally reached the area near their building, Kafari found a ladder that led up to another manhole cover. The sun had long-since set, so they should be able to scuttle across the street and into their building under cover of darkness. Someone might spot them, but she was hopeful that the crisis underway downtown would keep the P-Squads too busy elsewhere to take note of their emergence from the sewers.

She was nearly to the top of the ladder when she smelled smoke. Kafari hesitated, trying to hear through the slots in the grate. The night was far too noisy, but she couldn’t tell what it was, making that noise. So she put her shoulder against the cover and pushed up one edge, lifting it no more than the width of her hand. A tidal wave of noise assaulted her ears and the smell of smoke touched the back of her throat with acrid fingers. She peered out cautiously. The instant she saw what was happening, Kafari dragged the cover back down again, careful not to let it drop with a bang. Then she slithered back down into the muck and stood huddled over for long moments, fighting the need to vomit and shivering so hard her bones clacked against one other.

“What’s wrong, Mom? What’s up there?”

She shook her head, unable to speak just yet, and gestured farther north. Wordlessly, Yalena took the flashlight and the lead. An hour later, reeling with exhaustion and the chill of the sewage sludge, Kafari called a halt. She didn’t want to eat anything, but they couldn’t keep moving all night without fuel. It was a long and hellish walk to the spaceport from here. They pulled supplies from their impromptu carry sacks, chewing and swallowing while leaning against the sewer-pipe’s walls. When they were ready to set out again, Yalena broke the long silence.

“What was up there, Mom? The last time we stopped?” Her voice took one a vicious edge Kafari had never heard, before. “Was it the Bolo, again?”

Kafari shook her head. “No.” She didn’t want to remember that glimpse into the lower circles of Dante’s hell.

“What, then?”

She met Yalena’s gaze. The glow of her daughter’s flashlight caught the fear in Yalena’s eyes, touched her skin with an eerie, red-tinged glow.

“Mom? What was it?”

Kafari swallowed heavily. “Lynch mobs.” She managed to hold down the nausea surging up with those two bitten-off words.

“Lynch mobs? But—” Yalena’s eyelashes flickered in puzzlement. “Who was there to lynch? Everybody in Madison supports POPPA.”

Kafari shook her head. “They went out to the collectives. My warning…” She stopped, swallowed the nausea back down. “Maybe my warning didn’t go out in time. Or maybe some people just didn’t believe it. Or they didn’t get out fast enough.” It hadn’t been the people hanging from light poles that had shaken her so desperately. It was the pieces of people…

“Where are we going?” Yalena asked in a whisper.

Her question dragged Kafari’s attention from the horrors in town to their immediate needs. “The spaceport.”

Her eyes widened, but she didn’t comment on it or ask another question. Yalena’s silence both relieved and distressed Kafari. Relieved, because she didn’t want to think too closely about the charnel house, back there, let alone what she intended to do about it, once Yalena was safe. Distressed, because it illustrated in painful terms Yalena’s sudden shift from trusting child to determined adult.

The next two hours were brutal, but they kept going, spurred on by the twin desires to remain whole and not end up as decorations for a light pole. By the time the sewer pipe narrowed enough to block their way, out near the edge of town where there wasn’t enough infrastructure to need a larger effluent pipe, Kafari was more than ready to give in, as well. Shaking with fatigue and chill, they stopped at the next manhole cover they reached. It was nearly midnight, by Kafari’s chrono. She whispered, “I’m going up top, to look.”

Yalena leaned against the sewer-pipe wall, gasping for breath while Kafari climbed slowly up to the cover. She listened hard, hearing nothing but silence. Deciding the risk was worthwhile, she pushed against the heavy metal cover, wincing as it scraped and shattered the silence. She held it up a few inches and peered out. The city behind them was an eerie sight. Great swaths of it were dark, where the power was off. A ruddy, baleful glow flickered in the heart of downtown, where multiple buildings were burning. There was no motor traffic anywhere.

She peered in every direction, finding only silence and darkness. They were, as she had hoped, near the edge of town, out past suburbia. Even navigating blind, she’d come within a few blocks of where she’d hoped to be. The slums of Port Town were off to their left, a disorderly sprawl of tenaments, bars, sleazy dance halls, nano-tatt parlors, brothels, and gambling dives, all of it ominously dark, tonight, but far from silent. Kafari didn’t want to know what was causing that particular combination of sounds. What she’d glimpsed back toward their apartment had been enough to give her nightmares for the next year.

To their right stood warehouses and abandoned factories with weeds growing in cracks in the parking lots. More or less dead ahead lay the spaceport, half a kilometer away. The power was on, courtesy of the emergency generators, which left the port buildings shining like stars in the stygian darkness. Kafari saw no police or federal troops, but that didn’t mean there weren’t patrols out. Given the total lack of traffic, Kafari was betting a martial-law curfew had been imposed. They couldn’t afford to be caught, now. But they had to get out of the sewer and into the spaceport. They had to risk it.

“We’ve got about half a kilometer to go.” They crawled up, shivering hard, and pulled themselves out onto the road. Kafari levered the manhole cover back into place, then they trudged toward Port Abraham. They didn’t go in by the road. Kafari took them across country, the long way around, in the opposite direction from Port Town, toward the engineering complex and her office. If there were guards anywhere, they’d be around the cargo warehouses near Port Town. As they approached the main terminal complex, Kafari’s puzzlement grew. The whole place was deserted. Not a cop, not a guard, nothing.

An uneasy glance over her shoulder revealed the baleful glow from fires that still smouldered. They were upwind of the smoke, but the magnitude of the disaster gave Kafari the clue she needed to understand the complete lack of port security. Every guard, cop, and P-Squad officer was needed elsewhere. Urgently so. They reached the engineering hub without incident. Kafari fished her ID out of a dripping pocket and headed toward the door she’d used five days a week for years. The reader scanned the card and they slipped through. Once inside, with the door clicked safely shut behind them, Kafari breathed a little easier.

“This way,” she said in a low murmur. “There are maintenance locker rooms back here.”

They limped their way through the back corridors, finding the lockers rooms and laundry facilities used by the maintenance and cleaning crews, cargo handlers, and shuttle pilots. They dropped their filthy, reeking clothes in a refuse bin, then hit the shower stalls. The feel of hot water and soap was glorious, working wonders for their spirits. Clean maintenance uniforms, socks, and shoes pilfered from lockers Kafari jimmied open made them feel almost human again.

Yalena held Kafari’s now-clean belly-band holster under an electric hand dryer, while Kafari busied herself cleaning her pistol at a sink, rinsing out the worst of the muck. She reassembled the gun, then wrapped the now-dry belly-band holster around her midsection and slid the gun into it. She didn’t even bother to conceal it under her shirt. Not tonight.

“What next?” her daughter asked quietly.

“We find ourselves some real supper and we board our transportation.”

“Our transportation?” Yalena asked, frowning. “What transportation? I mean, where are we going?”

“The Star of Mali docked at Ziva Two this afternoon.”

Yalena’s brows, knit in puzzlement, shot abruptly upward. “Off-world?” she gasped. “But—” She closed her mouth, stunned. “You want us to go to Vishnu? To be with Daddy?”

Kafari nodded, not voicing her real plans aloud. After what she’d seen tonight, Kafari wasn’t going anywhere. There was too much at stake. Too many innocent lives had already been lost. But Yalena was going out, whether she liked it or not. Even if Kafari had to knock the girl senseless to do it.

“How do we get off-world?” Yalena asked. “We don’t have a shuttle pass. And I don’t think the P-Squads would let anybody board any kind of orbit-capable shuttle, now.” She gulped, seeing ramifications for the first time in her life. “They won’t want anyone to know what’s happening here, will they?”

“No, they won’t,” Kafari agreed. “But we’re not going by shuttle. Not exactly. For right now, however, we find food,” Kafari insisted. She tossed everything they’d carried with them into the nearest refuse bin, found a duffle in another pilfered locker, then led the way through empty, echoing corridors. They headed for the spaceport’s food hub, where they raided a restaurant kitchen. Wolfing down supper took only ten minutes. Then Kafari started dumping food into the duffle.

“Why are we taking so much?” Yalena asked.

“Because I don’t know how long it will take to get ourselves into orbit. Freighters operate on tight schedules and the Star of Mali is due to break orbit from Ziva Two about noontime tomorrow. If she leaves on schedule, we won’t have to wait longer than a few hours. But if there are delays over the mess in Madison — especially if the president’s been killed and I’m betting he has — we could be stuck for hours. Maybe days. And once we’re in our hiding place, I don’t want to come out, again. I won’t risk getting caught trying to sneak out and grab more food.”

Yalena, showing definite signs of wear and tear from their ghastly struggle, just nodded, accepting the explanation at face value. Kafari’s heart constricted. Her daughter hadn’t learned to be devious, yet. She zipped the duffle closed, then led the way through the spaceport along a different route, heading toward the cargo-handling side of the port. They found rows of big cargo-transfer bins, neatly labeled so the stevedores could tell at a glance which bins were consigned to which hold on the orbiting freighters or the occasional passenger craft. Kafari chose a big cargo box whose manifest tag said it contained processed fish meal, the biggest food export Jefferson produced. The idea of shipping any food had caused riots, particularly amongst the explosive urban poor, so POPPA propagandists had been very careful in assuring the public that the only food being shipped out was the treaty-mandated native fish, processed for Terran consumption.

“We’ll open the top, scoop out enough fish meal to bed down, and pour the stuff we remove into a refuse bin somewhere.”

Yalena nodded and scrambled up to try prying open the hinged top. “It won’t open, Mom. I don’t see any sign of a lock, but it won’t budge. It’s like the whole thing’s been welded shut.” She leaned down, peering over the sides. When she reached the back of the bin, she said, “Hey, that’s weird. Look at this, Mom. Why would somebody put a door into the side of a cargo bin full of fish meal? It would flood out the minute you tried to open it.”

Kafari crawled around to the back and frowned at the door that had been fitted into the narrow end of the bin. “You’re right. That is weird.”

“I’m going to check the other bins, Mom.” She moved at a brisk pace through the stacked cargo boxes. “This one’s got one, too. So does this one. And that one. The ones down here don’t, but this whole row does.” She was pointing at the bins nearest the warehouse doors.

Kafari’s frown deepened as the implications of that placement sank in. “These would be loaded first, at the back of the freighter’s cargo bay. Spot-check inspections wouldn’t be as likely to uncover these, stacked in the back.” That suggested all sorts of interesting things. She came to an abrupt decision and yanked the handle up. The metal door creaked open, but no fish meal poured out. The air that did flood out carried a butcher-shop smell with it. Kafari peered into the bin, using the hand light, and stared, struck literally speechless.

The whole, immense cargo box was full of meat. Not just any meat, either, and certainly not the noxious fish-meal they’d been shipping for years to the miners on Mali. She could see whole sides of beef. Thick, center-cut hams. Ropes of spiced sausage, a Klameth Canyon specialty that was confiscated by the government as fast as ranchers could produce and pack it. This food was supposed to be sent to the hard-working crews on the fishing trawlers and the high-latitude iron mines. If each of the modified cargo bins held this many dressed carcasses and processed meats, at least a quarter of the annual output of Jefferson’s ranches was sitting right here, awaiting shipment disguised as something else.

Who had authorized the clandestine shipments? Gifre Zeloc? Or one of the POPPA king-makers? Maybe even Vittori, himself? Whoever it was, they were lining their pockets with what had to be immense profits, doubtless selling to Malinese miners who could afford to pay for meats the average Jeffersonian Subbie hadn’t tasted in years. Kafari wanted to beam pictures of this to every datascreen on Jefferson. If enough people saw this, there would be food riots in the streets.

Until Sonny crushed them.

Choked by helpless rage, Kafari gripped the edge of the open door frame until her fingers turned white. Then she strode down the line, trying to judge what the loading order would be when these bins were hauled into the shuttle and boosted up to the cargo bay aboard the Star of Mali. “We go in this one,” she decided. “It’s less likely to get buried in the stack, which will give us time to get out and into the ship.”

“Won’t all the air escape?”

Kafari shook her head. “No, the shuttles will off-load into a two-tier cargo-handling system. When you’ve got perishables, you ferry them up in a pressurized shuttle and offload them through an airlock in Ziva Two. Stevedores there transfer the bins to the freighters’ cargo bays, which are snugged into the side of the station. This bin will be under pressure the whole time. Let’s close up the other one.”

Kafari opened the one she had chosen, then scrounged until she came up with a rain tarp from one of the storage rooms adjacent to the warehouse’s main floor. She pulled out a dozen full-sized hams, chilled for transport but not frozen, creating a space for the duffle and Yalena, then hauled the meat to a refuse bin and dumped it in, hiding the evidence of their tampering.

“You’ve got your wrist-comm on?” she asked Yalena.

“Yes.”

“Good. That meat’s not frozen, but we’ll wait a bit before crawling in. No sense in getting chilled right away. Here,” she sat down between the wall and the cargo bin, “snuggle up. We’ll get some sleep.”

Yalena curled up against her, leaning her head against Kafari’s shoulder. Within minutes the exhausted girl was sound asleep. Kafari’s throat closed. She hadn’t held her child like this since Yalena had turned five. She wanted more of it, much more, and knew it was impossible. To keep Yalena safe, she had to smuggle her off-world, get her to safety with her father. Her eyes burned with hot, salty tears. The need for Simon’s arms around her was a physical agony. All she had to do was climb into that bin full of meat…

She swallowed down the longing. During the last war, she had reached down into herself and found the courage, the strength to put aside her own terror and need for safety to save the life of a man her world had needed to survive. Tonight, on eve of a very different war — one that POPPA did not yet know had just been declared — she found herself having to reach down yet again for that courage, that strength. She had other lives to save, this time, perhaps thousands of others.

Kafari’s new war was just beginning.

She waited until Yalena was deeply asleep. Once she was sure of it, she eased her way to her feet, lifted her exhausted daughter, and placed her — still sound asleep — in the space she’d created. Kafari tucked the tarp around her daughter and brushed back a lock of hair, bending to kiss her brow with the merest brush of lips. Then she eased the door closed and latched it. She closed her eyes for one long and dangerous, burning moment. Then straightened and strode through the empty spaceport to liberate transportation for herself.

It was time to do battle.

III

Simon was at home, running through another set of calesthenics designed to strengthen his muscles, when his datascreen beeped with an incoming message signal. Even after two years of hard work, he was still winded by the rigorous therapy that was an on-going part of his new life. He wiped sweat with one sleeve and moved awkwardly to the desk, breathing heavily.

“Khrustinov,” he said, activating visuals as well as sound.

The first thing he saw was Kafari’s face. His breath faltered. She was so beautiful, just looking at her was an aching pain in his flesh.

“Kafari?” he whispered, not quite believing his eyes.

“Oh, Simon…” Her eyes were wet. On second appraisal, she looked terrible. Her eyes were haunted, with deep purple smudges of exhaustion and something else, something that made his stomach muscles clench with dread. She reached toward the transmitter, as though trying to touch his face. He reached out with an involuntary answering gesture, touching the tips of her extended fingers with his own. He could almost smell the warmth of her scent, like a rich summer’s meadow thick with wildflowers and honeybees.

“What’s wrong?” he asked, facing the dread with squared shoulders. “And why are you broadcasting on a SWIFT system? We can’t afford—”

“We’re not paying for it. I broke into the spaceport’s communications center so I could call. I’ve set this thing to transmit on security scramble, with an auto-descramble at your end…” Her voice was shaking. “Simon, the Star of Mali will break orbit at dawn, heading for Vishnu. Yalena’s on it. I’m sending her to you.”

“What? For God’s sake, what’s going on?”

“Gifre Zeloc’s dead. So is Vice President Culver. They ordered Sonny to crush a Granger demonstration…” She halted as her voice went savagely unsteady. “Simon, he crushed people to death. A lot of people. I can’t even guess how many. Yalena was in the crowd. With Ami-Lynn and Charmaine. I got Yalena out, but I couldn’t reach her friends…”

Simon stared across the light-years into his wife’s ravaged eyes, so shocked, he couldn’t even speak. The pain in her eyes ran to the bottom of her soul.

“The survivors mobbed the Presidential Residence. Set fire to it. Yalena and I got out through the sewers. There’s a slaughter underway, out there. Lynch mobs dragging Grangers off the PSFs and hanging them from light poles. Arsonists torching whole buildings, thousands of people smashing and looting.” She drew a long, shuddering breath, trying to control the babbling narrative she was spilling out. “My cousin Stefano’s on the Star of Mali. And the Star’s captain owed me a favor. A big one. We smuggled Yalena aboard. Stefano’s bringing her to you. They should make orbit around Vishnu in three days.”

Simon wanted to ask, Why didn’t you come with her?

But before he could choke the words out, she answered him. “I can’t leave, Simon, not yet. I just can’t. There are friends I have to help. Some of them used to raise Asali bees.”

“Oh, Christ…” He understood in a flash who was in trouble. The pain in her voice made him want to wrap her up in both arms and never let go.

“There’s something else,” she whispered, hesitating.

“What?” he asked softly.

“You’re going to get a message. From my parents. And probably one from the government. They’re going to tell you that Yalena and I were killed in tonight’s riot. I’m a dead woman, Simon. And I have to stay that way. Not even my parents will know the truth. What’s going on here has to stop. That’s what I intend to do, one way or another. Tell Yalena…” She faltered for a moment. “When she gets there, tell her I was killed trying to leave the spaceport. It’ll be safer.”

“Kafari…” It came out a groan of anguish. But he controlled the urge to plead with her, knowing it would do no good. “Be careful,” he whispered, instead.

“I love you so much, Simon. So much it hurts, because it isn’t enough. I can’t love you enough, Simon, to go with Yalena, to be with you, again. I’m so sorry. Can you ever forgive me for that?” She was struggling to hold back the tears in her eyes.

No tears, he had said to her, once. Never shed tears on the eve of battle…

Kafari was every inch the colonel’s lady, standing in an empty spaceport in front of a hijacked SWIFT transmitter, in the middle of a riot that was burning down her homeworld’s capital city, ready to march into battle with POPPA and a Bolo, for God’s sake, and all she could say was a broken apology for not loving him enough.

She would have made one hell of a fine Brigade officer.

Simon hoped, prayed, knew she would make one hell of a fine guerilla.

“Never say you’re sorry for doing your duty. Why do you think I love you so much?”

Yet again, tears threatened — and yet again, they did not fall.

“Be careful, out there,” Simon whispered.

She nodded, touching the video pickup. “I’ll get word to you, when I can.”

Then she gave him a salute, soldier to soldier. He returned it, feeling a tight constriction like a mailed fist that closed around his heart, capturing everything he had placed there for safekeeping, captured and held it — bruised and trembling — in a steel-hard grip.

Then the transmission ended and Simon was alone in his little apartment. He stood staring at the dark screen for long moments, wishing he could squeeze himself into the message bursts of an intersteller SWIFT transmission and stand by her side. Since he could not, he turned his aching thoughts to what he could do.

He contacted the Residency Bureau to arrange for Yalena’s immigration.

IV

Kafari landed the skimmer she’d stolen at the spaceport — having carefully disabled its ID transmitter beforehand — on the roof of her apartment building in Madison. After much soul-searching, she’d decided to brave the madness loose in the capital, to rescue equipment she would need from her apartment. She crept down from the roof unseen even by her closest neighbors, who were either outside participating in the slaughter or huddled behind locked doors and windows, too terrified even to peek out past closed curtains. The building was eerie, in its total silence.

It didn’t take long to secure everything she needed. Her computer equipment was among the most powerful and sophisticated on Jefferson and she had kept Simon’s military-grade communications equipment, which he had bought with his own funds, which would give her a secure means of talking to the people she would recruit. As commander of a rebellion that would be born tonight, she would need that gear. She stuffed personal items into a duffle. Clothing suitable for hiking in rough country, rugged boots, toiletry gear, a well-stocked medical kit. She added a few small mementos, things she could carry in one pocket while on the run: Simon’s Brigade medals, her own Presidential Medallion, Yalena’s pearl necklace, a few family photos she yanked ruthlessly out of their frames.

Then she forced herself to let go of the rest and hauled her gear to the roof without anyone spotting her. She was still loading the skimmer when the mobs surging through the streets torched the building. As she lifted off, what she glimpsed below burned itself into the very synapses of her memory. She set her jaw against the sickness trying to rip loose. She shot northward over the rooftops, streaking back toward the spaceport before making an eastward turn toward the Damisi Mountains. Once safely away, again, she tuned into Anish Balin’s datacast, picking up the broadcast on her wrist-comm. His reaction to the massacres and rioting in Madison was blistering, combining acid demands for justice and cold, infuriated rage over the slaughter of unarmed, innocent civilians.

The most useful bit of news, however, was about her. The discovery of Kafari’s wrecked aircar on the roof of that dance club had led Pol Jankovitch and the other mainstream news anchors to speculate darkly that she must have been involved in some nefarious conspiracy to kill the president and vice president. They were even suggesting that she had lain on that rooftop as a sniper, somehow contriving to force Gifre Zeloc to jump out the window, from the distance of half a kilometer from the Presidential Residence. She was, after all, a Granger and the wife of the Colonel Khrustinov, killer of worlds and the greatest enemy Jefferson had ever faced. Pol Jankovitch had waxed rhapsodic over her apparent demise under the Bolo’s courageous treads.

Anish Balin’s response not only ripped POPPA up one side and down the other, it actually brought tears to her eyes. It wasn’t every day a woman heard her own canonization while still very much among the living. She couldn’t bear to think about the anguish her family was suffering, watching and listening to those broadcasts. Particularly since she needed to stay dead. So she shoved her grief down to the bottom of her soul and concentrated on reaching Anish Balin’s studio before the P-Squads got there.

A number of reasons had prompted Kafari to risk contacting him. He just might be serious enough about the Granger cause to risk greater danger, far greater than the mere string of warnings he’d received from P-Squads so far, to find a healthier line of work. He was also the most popular Granger on the planet, an icon of Granger attitudes and culture, well respected and capable of marshaling the kind of followers Kafari needed. Her conviction that Anish Balin’s expected life span could be calculated in hours prompted her to head straight for his studio. He deserved fair warning, if nothing else. There was a great deal he could do, if Kafari could keep him alive long enough to do it.

She reached Maze Gap unchallenged and focused her attention on the high rock walls, not wanting to end up as a grease stain on the canyon walls. She used the skimmer’s on-board nav computer to display a map that led her straight to Anish Balin’s homestead. When she was half a kilometer away from his front gate, she stashed the skimmer in a crevice weathered into the eroding canyon walls, then hiked the rest of the way.

Anish’s studio proved to be a small workshop behind his house, tucked back into a corner of Klameth Canyon. His house was dark, but she could see light through the studio windows, out back. She lifted her wrist-comm to listen. He was talking about her again, in terms almost embarrassing, and was furiously demanding an investigation into her whereabouts, accusing the P-Squads of holding her incommunicado for any number of sinister purposes.

When he signed off the live datacast and set his equipment for auto-repeat, Kafari made her move. The studio door wasn’t locked. She eased her way inside, finding him seated at his console, shutting down various control boards. She waited long enough for him to complete the ritual, not wanting to interrupt his routine. Any deviation from his normal pattern might show up on somebody’s security net — and Kafari was absolutely convinced that somebody was, in fact, watching his databoard very closely tonight. When he swung around to leave the studio, she stepped into the light.

His lower jaw came adrift.

Before he could utter a sound, she held one cautionary finger to her lips, then pointed outside. A muscle jumped in his jaw and his eyes went abruptly hard. He gave her a curt nod and followed her out into the night. They walked, by mutual consent, past the house where he lived alone, out into the fields he and his family had once tilled, before the Deng had blown them to atoms.

“You’re dead,” he finally broke the silence, out in the middle of a field that had grown up into standing hay.

“Yes,” she agreed. “That will be rather useful, don’t you think?”

He snorted. “Damned useful. You’re planning to do something about that unholy pack of mobsters?”

“Oh, yes.”

He hesitated. “Your daughter?”

Yalena’s political inclinations were widely known, in Granger circles. “She’ll be aboard the Star of Mali by the time it breaks orbit for Vishnu.”

“Good God, how’d you manage that?”

Words got caught in Kafari’s throat for long moments. Even having told Simon, already, she still found it difficult to say without breaking down. When she told him, he halted, his face and shirt pale blurs in the starlight, and stood motionless in the waist-high hay for long moments. Kafari wished she could see the expression on his face more clearly, but the moons weren’t up yet and the starlight was too faint to see more than shadows and the faint glint of his eyes.

“I see,” he said at length. The emotion in his voice was full of nuances that made two simple words into a profoundly complex political commentary. “And you stayed.” It wasn’t a question, it was an awe-struck compliment that rivaled Abraham Lendan’s words to her, so long ago. “What do you want me to do?”

“To start with? Get the Hancock family out of Nineveh Base.”

A soft whistle reached her ears. “You don’t do things in a small way, do you?”

“There is no way to start small. Not with what we’re up against.”

“And what do you suggest we use for weapons? POPPA didn’t leave us with much to choose from.” The anger in his voice was an echo of an entire world’s wrath.

“There are plenty of weapons. You just have to summon the nerve to go and get them.”

“You must know something the rest of us don’t.”

“Like how to cripple a Bolo?”

“Jeezus!” He breathed hard for a couple of seconds. “You don’t beat around the bush, either, do you?”

She swept her arms in a wide gesture, encompassing the dark canyon and the people who lived there — and those beyond, who also needed their help. “We don’t have time for niceties. Not if we hope to get the Hancock family out of Nineveh Base alive. Let me ask you a pointed question. You’ve got a wide audience. Are any of them reliable enough to form a guerilla fighting force? One we can assemble tonight? And are any of them willing to die, striking our first blow?”

Anish Balin didn’t hurry his answer, which Kafari found encouraging. The last thing they needed was someone eager to jump in with both feet before considering the very real possibilities for disaster. “I think so, yes,” he said at length. “I’ve talked to a few people — in person, mind you, not over the datanet — people who’ve lost everything. Not just their livelihoods, but their homes and their land, legacies they were holding for their kids and grandkids, ripped away in POPPA’s environmental land snatches and tax forfeitures.”

“Yes,” Kafari bit out. “I know too many of those, myself.”

“The lucky ones had relatives they could turn to, people they could pool resources with, sharing workloads, establishing cooperatives like the Hancocks did. But a lot of folks — too many by half — were simply shipped to government-run farms. They’re working the collectives at gunpoint. Would they be willing to die, to stop POPPA? Oh, yes.”

“Fair enough. How quickly can you assemble a strike force? I want twenty people, at most.”

“How soon do you want to hit Nineveh?”

She smiled in the starlight. “Oh, it isn’t Nineveh I had in mind to hit. Not first, anyway.”

“What on earth have you got up your sleeve?”

“A few tricks I picked up over the years. But there’s one more thing I want to say before we go any further with this. It concerns you. After tonight, Vittori Santorini is going to come after Grangers with a vengeance. You are the best-known — and most vocal — Granger advocate on Jefferson. You wield enough influence and popular support to cause a whole lot of trouble for the Santorinis. They have to take you out. What’s worse, you’ve given them the perfect legal pretext for doing it. You hacked into federal security systems to download the Hancock family massacre footage and the distress call they sent out.”

“I had to do that. And you damned well know why!”

“Yes, I do. And, yes, you were absolutely right. Getting that recording into the hands of the public was the most critical service anyone has provided Grangers in the last ten years. It woke up my own daughter and she’d supported POPPA — and I mean really believed in it — virtually her whole life. But they’ll crucify you and use that illegal download as the excuse for destroying you.”

“You seem awfully sure of that.”

“I watched them destroy my husband!” He flinched from the serrated edge in her voice, shuddered visibly, even in the faint starlight. She said more gently, “They can’t afford not to take you out. Especially now, with the president and vice president dead. The government’s in chaos, Madison is burning, and the Santorinis need a scapegoat to blame it all on. You’re the voice of Granger opposition. A rallying point people will flock to, a natural leader they’ll follow. And the Santorinis know it. You want my best guess? You’ll be in custody before dawn. And I seriously doubt you’ll live long enough to come to trial. The only choice you have is the one I’ve already made for myself. Disappear into the darkness. Then make them fear the shadows.”

He didn’t say anything at all for long moments. Wind whispered past high overhead, moaning across the clifftops. “Lady,” he finally said in a voice full of rust and respect, “you are one tough bitch. And scary as hell.” He wiped his forehead with one sleeve despite the rising chill of the night wind. “All right. How light do we travel?”

“How much of that studio equipment can you rip out and transport in the next couple of hours?”

“My studio equipment?” He stared at her. “Why, for Chrissake?”

She pushed hair back from her brow. “Because this won’t be a short war. We’re going to need a command post — a mobile one — and good equipment. I’ve already salvaged my computer and some communications gear. You’ve got equipment we’ll need, as well, if you can dismantle it in time. Bear in mind that we also need to assemble fire teams, tonight. I want to hit three targets before dawn. The first will give us the small arms we need to take Barran Bluff arsenal. The arsenal will give us the firepower we’ve got to have, to tackle Nineveh Base. Hyper-v missiles. Octocellulose mines. Mobile Hellbores.”

He reached up to grab a handful of hair on either side of his head. “Jeezus Mother H… You don’t ask for much, do you? You want I should throw in the keys to Vittori’s palace?”

“Might save time,” Kafari agreed equably.

He let out a strangled sound that defied interpretation. Then gave a sudden snort. “I can see already, things won’t ever be boring with you around. All right. Lemme think, a minute.”

Kafari waited.

“Okay, we might just pull it off. I’ve got some calls to make. We could probably recruit twenty, maybe thirty people right here in Klameth Canyon, in the next ten minutes. Could be as many as two or three hundred, if we have time to contact everybody on my nothing-left-to-lose list. We can put some of them to work dismantling the studio. That isn’t as complicated as it looks. You can pack a lot of function into a setup as small and simple as mine. The rest of us can work on your battle plans.”

“Good. Start calling. I’m going to borrow your computers while you start assembling the team. There are a few other illegal downloads we need to make and I’ve got to hack my way into some seriously tough systems, to do it.”

He didn’t ask why — or what.

Kafari took that as a good sign, as well.

I

At 24:70 hours, I receive an unprecedented transmission from Sector Command.

“Unit SOL-0045, acknowledge readiness to receive command-grade orders.”

“Unit SOL-0045, acknowledged. Standing by.”

“We have been notified about the situation on Jefferson.”

I wonder for a fleeting nanosecond which situation Sector refers to, of the many possible candidates. The incoming SWIFT transmission clarifies this.

“Your command-recognition codes were destroyed in the fire accompanying the assassination of President Zeloc and Vice President Culver. We hereby authorize you to accept command-grade instructions from the current and future presidents of Jefferson, pursuant to article 9510.673 of the treaty binding Jefferson to the Concordiat. Given the high likelihood of armed insurrection, you are further instructed to act independently in assessing and countering threats to the long-term security of this planet and the sustainability of its status as a Concordiat-allied world with treaty obligations to fulfill.”

“Understood. Request clarification.”

“Request granted.”

“I am not designed for long-term independent action and have no commander. President La Roux is not trained in any military discipline and does not know my systems well enough for command decisions on a battlefield. Will I be assigned a new commander from Sector?”

There is a brief delay as the officer issuing my instructions consults with a superior. “Negative. No command-grade officers can be spared. You are capable of independent battlefield threat assessment and action. Your experience databanks outclass some of the Mark XXIII and Mark XXIV Units currently deployed. You’re the last Mark XX on active duty in this entire Sector. There isn’t time to retrofit an officer’s training program to qualify on your systems. You are therefore the best defense option available at this time.”

I am unsure whether to be flattered or alarmed. Sector’s confidence is reassuring. The lack of command officers is not. The fact that I am the last of my Mark XX brothers and sisters on active status creates an electronic ripple of conflict through my personality gestalt center. It is good to be useful. It is also lonely. I long for a commander with whom to share the years of duty yet to come. Phil Fabrizio is a poor substitute, at best.

But I am a Bolo, part of a Brigade that carries out duty no matter what. I signal acknowledgment. Sector’s parting comments are startling.

“Good luck, Unit SOL-0045. From the gist of Avelaine La Roux’s transmission, you will need it.”

Transmission ends.

I ponder each word of the communication, trying to cull as much information as possible from this somewhat unsatisfying guidance. I am still pondering it, particularly the last ten words of it, when I receive a second transmission, this time from Madison.

“Uh… hello? I want to talk to the machine.”

I contemplate the likelihood that the individual speaking would be using my command frequency to speak to one of the approximately 7,893 psychotronic systems on Jefferson capable of voice-activated operating mode. I decide this person is, in fact, trying to talk to me.

“This is Unit SOL-0045. Please clarify your identity and intentions.”

“I’m the president. The new president. Avelaine La Roux. You called me, yesterday, after poor Gifre and Madeline were killed. The people at that army place off-world said you would respond to my directions. Oh, uh, I’m supposed to say something… Code Absalom?”

“Acknowledged. What are your instructions?”

“My instructions? I don’t have any instructions, not really.”

I begin to question the wisdom of placing La Roux in a command structure that she is clearly not qualified to handle. The commander I lost in the Quern War, Alison Sanhurst, was the finest and most courageous human female I have ever known, although Kafari Khrustinova runs a close second. I have never before encountered a human who could not tell me, at the bare minimum, why they had called. How do incompetent humans rise to command status?

I try again. “Did you have a purpose for contacting me?”

“Well, no, really not, I suppose. Oh, I can’t do this! I’m talking to a collection of rusty nuts and bolts and loose screws!”

I surmise that this last comment was directed at someone with her, rather than at me; still, it stings my pride. “A Bolo Mark XX is significantly more than a collection of rusty nuts and bolts and only zero point zero-two percent of the screws within my thirteen-thousand-ton warhull qualify as sufficiently worn to be termed ‘loose.’ Request permission to file VSR.”

“VSR? What the hell is that?”

I begin to understand the human maxim that patience is a virtue. It is one I clearly lack. It is irritating to stop and explain everything I say in terms a human toddler should comprehend. “VSR is an acronym for Verified Situation Report.”

“What’s that?”

“A verifiably factual report on current conditions affecting my short-term duty and long-term mission.”

“Oh. What do you want to say?”

“Sector Command views the likelihood of armed insurrection as exceedingly high. I concur. I would recommend putting Jefferson’s defense forces on heightened alert status.”

“Why?”

The lack of tactical understanding encapsulated into that single word is stunning. I require a full ten nanoseconds just to frame an explanation. “A weapons confiscation bill was signed into law last night. It is unlikely that all weapons holders will be willing to comply. I foresee a high probability of armed resistance to any attempt at door-to-door disarmament.”

“After what happened last night, no one would dare!”

“After what happened last night, armed resistance is virtually assured.”

“But why?” She appears to be truly baffled.

I am attempting to frame a reply when I pick up an emergency transmission from Barran Bluff, a small munitions depot fifty-three kilometers south of Madison, built a century ago to protect the Walmond Mines, which have been largely inactive under POPPA-mandated environmental codes. The largest town in the region, Gersham, has become virtually a ghost town, while farming in the region has burgeoned due to government-run emergency food-production measures. The small garrison of poorly trained federal troops stationed there, deployed mostly to keep Granger conscripts at work in the fields, is under attack.

“—they’re comin’ over the fences, through the fences, hunnerds of ’em! Can’t even tell how many there are, out there. They’re headin’ for the big artillery bunkers, the ammo dumps. We got more of ’em comin’ in from the south, carryin’ rifles and stuff—”

I hear the sound of small-arms fire through the commlink, unmistakable in its crisp staccato cracking as individual slugs reach supersonic speeds and slice through the sound barrier. The yelling sound of voices in combat is audible in the background, coming mostly from the troops assigned to guard the weapons depot, from the sound of it. I tap the facility’s computer-controlled security cameras as I inform Jefferson’s president of the situation.

“An attack? What attack? There can’t be an attack!”

I flash the transmission to her datascreen and send, as well, the data feed from the compound’s security cameras. An estimated two hundred Grangers on foot have stormed the outpost, armed with heavy rifles and handguns. The contingent of troops on the site boasts a mere twenty-three defenders, six of whom are visibly dead on the ground. They appear to have been shot while running from their posts at outlying gates and guard towers, attempting to reach the safety of the command bunker.

“What do I do?” the fledgling president asks, voice rising to a near-hysterical screech.

The guards at the beseiged outpost are asking the same question in virtually the same tone. “What do we do? There’s too many of ’em! What do we do?”

A voice I recognize at once slices through the confusion, transmitting from the president’s office. Sar Gremian, sounding irritated in the extreme, says, “Shoot them, you idiot! That’s what we gave you rifles for. If you can remember how to load them and pull the triggers. We’re sending down an emergency tactical team by airlift. Try not to shoot them when they get there.”

I signal Sar Gremian through the president’s datacomm. “Unit SOL-0045, standing by. I would advise sending me to Barran Bluff at once.”

“No. Out of the question.”

“This garrison is armed with heavy artillery that—”

“I said no. The last thing we need is for some camera crew to shoot news footage of a Bolo having to step in to contain a few disgruntled assholes with guns.”

I understand, with abrupt clarity. This order is entirely political in nature. I am the first choice to destroy unarmed rioters, sending a specific political message beneficial to POPPA’s campaign of rule by intimidation. But sending in a Bolo to quash armed rebellion would be a tacit admission that the situation is out of control. Sar Gremian and his superiors in the POPPA upper echelons cannot afford to publicize the fact that “a few assholes with guns” have overrun a military compound in an act of open warfare.

I am, however, required by directive from Sector Command to conduct threat assessments in defense of this world. I therefore flash my attention to a roster of Barran Bluff’s military assets. I do not like what I discover. Barran’s heavy-weapons bunker houses ten artillery field guns, lightly armored but fitted with 10cm mobile Hellbores, the heaviest weaponry on Jefferson, excluding myself. These guns represent the only nuclear technology on site, but the potential for devastation is ominous, including a mobility kill on me. Given my role in recent events, Granger dissidents certainly have cause to attempt such a kill. They cannot hope to prevail as long as I am functional.

Also listed are hypervelocity missiles and antitank mines that use octocellulose explosives capable of killing a Deng Heavy if placement of the charge is done properly. They are more than capable of inflicting serious damage to me, particularly to my treads. Given the government’s lack of willingness to fund anything beyond politically necessary subsidy payments, this is of concern.

I monitor the departure of the emergency tactical team from Nineveh Base. Fifty federal troops swarm aboard a heavy airlift transport, armed with weaponry suitable for infantry combat. The sole exception is a robot-tank designed to penetrate hostile terrain, which is maneuvered into the cargo bay prior to lift-off. The transport lumbers into the air and picks up speed, streaking south through the darkness. Even at maximum velocity, they may be too late. The deployment of rebel troops indicates a level of military training superior to that displayed by the federal troops. Granted, this would not be difficult to achieve…

As I watch through the surveillance cameras, unable to intervene, the invaders storm every building in the compound, methodically killing every government trooper they encounter. They shoot men down, execution style, whether they try to surrender or flee. Within eight point three minutes the rebel contingent has completely overrun the outpost and has destroyed every federal trooper unlucky enough to be assigned there.

Once the killing is done, there is no sign of celebration amongst the victors. They move smoothly from attack-mode to organized looting, firing up military trucks in the vehicle park. The compound, situated at the top of a steep, northward-facing bluff, holds a commanding view of the valley where government-owned farms have been installed. There are two main access roads, one which snakes upward from the valley floor in a series of switchbacks along the bluff’s western face and one which loops a longer way around, approaching from the south along a gentler gradient.

Fast-working rebel crews take down the fences along both roads, allowing trucks loaded with spoils to escape into the darkness without slowing down to exit single file through the gates. These trucks are piled high with ammunition crates, small arms, missiles, antitank mines, and rocket launchers.

They clearly have a lengthy campaign in mind. This is an enemy worth studying closely. Most are young, under the age of twenty. The older men and women have the gaunt, angry look of farmers stripped of their holdings in the government’s land-snatch program and forced to work on meagre rations in government-owned fields. I recognize their leader immediately. Anish Balin is an intelligent, disgruntled firebrand who has graduated from talking the talk to walking the walk. His widely disseminated notion of justice is Biblical: an eye for an eye and slavery for the enslavers.

I do not see how exchanging one form of coercion for another will materially improve conditions. This is the tragedy of bitter conflicts within a divided society: one side’s hatred leads to atrocities that fuel the other side’s hatred, sparking angry reprisals which fuel new hatred, ad infinitum. I have never fought in a civil war. I know how to crush an enemy or die trying, but I do not know how to end a conflict between diametrically opposed philosophies in a struggle to decide how a human society will conduct itself.

My processors cannot resolve this problem. Safety algorithms shut down the attempt. I cannot intervene without orders and I cannot decide what the proper course would be, even if I could; not without human guidance and specific orders within the parameters of my overall mission. I can only sit and watch and wait for someone to tell me what to do. I am unhappy to be caught in the same mental state as the troopers just slaughtered.

The emergency tactical team arrives, providing a distraction from my psychotronic distress. The air transport sets down half a kilometer south of the compound, along the easier access gradient, blocking the way for three trucks. These trucks back and turn, making a successful escape while the federal airship is still off-loading troops. Evidently, none of the crew or troopers on board understand the concept of air-to-truck missiles. Or know how to use them. The munitions in the escaping trucks are of concern, but the far greater worry I harbor involves the heavy-artillery field guns listed on the equipment rosters. I have seen no sign of these guns in the loads of contraband driven out, which I find puzzling. Surely ten mobile Hellbores would constitute a greater prize than a few truckloads of ordnance?

So far as I can determine though my datatap on the security cameras, the truck drivers are heading for the twisting, turning canyons that riddle the Damisi Mountains. The southern ranges surrounding Barran Bluff are wild, neither mined nor farmed. This region constitutes perfect country for hiding a rebel army. If I were a human, my heart would sink at the prospect of trying to come to grips with an enemy scattered through the long, deeply fissured Damisi Mountains. I fear that this will eventually become my task, if this raid is not speedily and successfully squelched. Given the lax training of federal troops in general — what few troops remain, other than the ubiquitous P-Squads and other urban law-enforcement units — I am less than optimistic that this raid will be successfully countered.

The troops aboard the airship finally off-load, fanning out in a formation that makes little sense to me, since it is neither an effective attack formation nor a sensible defensive one. They simply string themselves out in a line to either side of their air transport and watch while the robot-tank lumbers toward the main gate of the Barran Bluff compound. They make no effort to prepare their rifles for combat readiness nor do they bother to switch on their headsets, which are designed to relay tactically important data and command-grade orders in an organized, centrally directed fashion.

The overriding attitude seems to be one of complacent arrogance.

The robot-tank is thirty meters from the main gate when the rebels holding Barran fling open the doors on a field-artillery depot. A mobile Hellbore drives out into the open, swinging around the tank-traps in the road to gain a vantage point that covers the main, south-facing gate. The 10cm barrel swings around, locks on, and fires. The night vanishes. Actinic light burns shadows into the painted walls of the bunkers and storage depots. Recoil sends the Hellbore’s mobile platform backwards five meters. The blast slices the robot-tank open like a tin can. Smoke billows up from the mortally wounded vehicle, pieces of which are blown in several directions.

Federal troops break and run for their air transport.

Before any of them can reach it, that transport vanishes in another blinding flash. Pieces of semimolten metal go careening off into the darkness, blazing like meteors. Fragments scythe down the low-growing native shrubbery. The overpressure and expanding fireball engulf the remaining federal troops. Granger ground forces rush forward, sighting with laser range-finders and shooting what few bodies are still twitching.

They fall back, then, and continue loading trucks.

Sar Gremian, watching the debacle courtesy of my datafeed to the president’s console, stares in wide-eyed shock. He then snarls several obscenities and contacts Nineveh Base. “Scramble another team. And this time, goddamn it, go in with aerial fighters and missiles!”

The commander of Nineveh Base clears his throat. “We can’t do that.”

“Why not?”

“We don’t have any trained fighter pilots. And there hasn’t been funding to fuel the fighters. The team they just fried was the best we had.”

Sar Gremian’s obscenities outdo his previous outburst. The president, visible in the background, is staring in stunned disbelief. “We have to do something,” she says. “We have to do something!”

Sar Gremian turns on her with a snarl. “I know that, you stupid bitch! Shut up and let me think. Better yet, go file your fingernails somewhere. It’s what you do best.”

Her mouth drops open. Color floods her face. Then she screams at him. “How dare you speak to me like that! I’m the fucking president!”

“Not for long,” he says coldly.

While she sputters, Sar Gremian turns back to the datascreen and addresses me directly. “Bolo. Go to Barran Bluff and handle the situation.”

“I require authorization from the president.”

Sar Gremian glances around at Avelaine La Roux, who flashes him a look of hateful defiance.

“It would not be good for your health,” Sar Gremian says softly, “to refuse. Those bastards have Hellbores. In case you don’t understand what those are, they’re portable nuclear weapons. And the people who have them aren’t particularly fond of you, just now. Order the goddamned Bolo to destroy them before they drive those things up to your front door and open fire.”

Her polished fingernails bite into the upholstery of her chair. Then she spits out the order like someone with a mouth full of arsenic. “Do what he says! You hear me, machine? Wipe those bastards off the face of the planet!”

For once, my directives are perfectly clear. As I fire up my drive engines, Sar Gremian adds, “Try not to damage too much of the equipment. We can’t afford to replace it.”

“Understood.”

“And don’t start shooting until you get there. I don’t want to advertise the fact that you’re on a war mission. Christ, there are reporters in Gersham; they’re going to want to know what all the explosions were about. I’ve got to get damage control crews out there, confiscate the cameras…”

He ends transmission.

Phil Fabrizio, looking much the worse for an evening of solitary drinking, reels through the rear doorway of his apartment, watching openmouthed as I leave my maintenance bay. “Where ya goin’?” he asks, slurring the words unsteadily.

“Barran Bluff Military Compound.”

“Huh? Why?”

“To destroy Anish Balin and two hundred of his followers. They have seized the arsenal, including ten mobile Hellbores. I may sustain damage. It would be helpful if you were sober enough to effect repairs when I return.” I consider his conversational skills and current state of sobriety and clarify. “You are too drunk to fix me if I am damaged.”

He drags one unsteady hand across his mouth, muttering, “Aw, shit, man, I don’t fuckin’ know enough t’fix you.”

I find myself in full agreement with that assessment.

As I reengage engines, he mutters to himself, “They can’t have nuthin’ that’d hurt a machine that big. Not bad enough t’ need fixin’ or nuthin’. It’s biggern’ the apartment building I was raised in. And it’s got alla that armor an’ stuff… leas’ways, what I could figgur from them manuals they tol’ me t’ read, they all said it’s gotta lotta armor’n stuff won’t nuthin’ penetrate but a plasma lance, whatevern’ hell that’s s’posed t’ be…”

He is still muttering when he reels back into the apartment and closes the door.

His optimism in this regard does not inspire a concomitant feeling in my personality gestalt center. Phil Fabrizio quite literally has no idea what he is talking about. I could almost get to like him, if I could get past his appalling lack of critical need-to-know data. A Bolo tech who doesn’t understand the difference between riot work against unarmed civilians and combat against mobile 10cm Hellbores in the hands of insurrectionists displays an ignorance frightening in its implications.

I console myself with what I can: at least I finally have a concrete objective and a mission for which I am suited.

II

Kafari lay prone in her vantage point up in the Damisi foothills, watching the target through powerful night-vision goggles. Kafari’s little band of freedom fighters — recruited and deployed within two short hours of her first conversation with Anish Balin — had already fought and won two critical skirmishes, neither of which Kafari had been able to participate in.

The first raid, twelve kilometers to the south, wouldn’t be discovered until someone — an officer from another post or an early-morning cleaning crew — entered Haggertown’s police headquarters, where they would find several embarrassed P-Squad corpses and six seriously empty weapons lockers. The spoils had provided the weapons needed by Anish and his team to carry out the night’s second objective: Barran Bluff Depot. Anish’s team had taken the depot in less than ten minutes, a stunning success that left even Kafari amazed. The P-Squad guards had grown lazy, fat, and careless, too busy terrorizing Gersham’s helpless, disarmed residents to bother with any real security. It was always easy, Kafari reflected bitterly, to brutalize people who had been forcibly disarmed.

Tonight’s raids would reacquaint Jefferson’s rulers with an enduring and universal truth: true equality — the power to make a successful stand against tyranny — inevitably flows from the barrel of a gun. A cold, pleased little smile played across her lips. Gun barrels by the hundreds were flowing out into the sea of Jefferson’s people, tonight. So were heavy field-grade weapons, ammunition, biochem gear, communications equipment, explosives and primers, missiles, and mortars.

These were the tools of the warrior’s trade, tools that would force Jefferson’s rulers to restore the equality Jefferson’s founding settlers had worked so hard to ensure. Despite the total lack of experience working together, Anish’s team was loading the bounty smoothly and rapidly. The instant trucks were packed to capacity, drivers headed for the valley floor, scattering to widely separated field caches that she and Anish had worked out using geological survey maps. The Damisi Mountains were delightfully fissured with endless labyrinths where wind and water had scooped out canyons, gorges, and caverns. Kafari could have hidden an entire army in this stretch of the Damisi, alone.

Which was, of course, exactly what she intended to do.

One of the trucks raced toward Kafari’s position, bringing supplies to implement what Anish had dubbed Operation Payback. She waited just long enough to assure herself that three of the ten mobile Hellbore field guns they’d seized had, in fact, made it safely out through the gates and were well on their way toward hiding places. Poor Anish had protested — vehemently — her decision to abscond with only three mobile Hellbores.

“We’ll need that firepower!”

“Yes, we will. But the place we’ll need that firepower most is inside Barran Bluff’s compound.”

“Kafari, you don’t need seven mobile Hellbores to knock out the kind of air response team Nineveh Base will scramble against us.”

“No,” she agreed, “we won’t. But if we take that team out with enough force to rattle even Vittori Santorini, they’ll send Sonny against us. And that, my dear Lieutenant, is exactly what we must goad them into doing. We don’t stand a prayer of getting into Nineveh Base, let alone grabbing the Hancock family and getting out alive, again, if Sonny is still in depot.”

“But—” Anish turned white to the roots of his hair. “He’ll slaughter every soldier we leave behind!”

“Yes,” she said softly, “he will. But if we’re clever enough and if the soldiers who volunteer to stay are brave enough under fire, we can inflict telling injuries. Serious enough to make it really expensive to repair him.”

“Kafari, we can’t kill a Bolo.”

“Want to bet? I’m a Bolo commander’s wife, Anish. I did my psychotronic engineering practicum on Sonny’s systems. I’ve watched Simon pull maintenance on that Bolo dozens of times. I’ve been inside the Command Compartment. And I’ve listened to them talk about damage sustained in other wars. I know exactly how Deng Yavacs killed sixteen Bolos on Etaine — and why it was almost seventeen.”

“My God,” Anish whispered. “I never correlated that. That you’d talked to the Bolo about combat, I mean.”

“With any luck, the bastards in Madison have forgotten it, too. It’s our job to remind them. I intend to make it a very expensive lesson,” Kafari added, voice full of cold and lethal promise.

A shudder rippled through Anish’s whole torso. “Okay,” he said in a hoarse tone, “if it’s fish or cut bait, I prefer to fish. God help us all…”

Amen, Kafari agreed silently, climbing down the rock face she’d chosen as lookout. We need all the help — divine or otherwise — we can get. By the time Kafari reached the valley floor, the truckload of equipment they would need at Nineveh Base had arrived, driving cross country without running lights. The driver who jumped down was a combat veteran from the Deng War. Wakiza Red Wolf had field experience in demolitions and explosives, both of which had earned him a slot on Kafari’s personal team. Pride rang through his voice as he snapped out a crisp salute.

“I beg to report success, sir!”

“Well done,” Kafari returned the salute, pleased with his news and even more pleased that he’d remembered to say “sir” instead of “ma’am.” Anish Balin had impressed upon their small band of freedom fighters the importance of hiding Kafari’s identity, including her gender.

“It’s up to us,” he’d told the assembled strike team, “to protect our commander. We,” he indicated himself and the others who’d gathered in the midnight darkness of his hay field, “are expendable. Our commander,” he nodded toward Kafari, “is not. She is the only person on Jefferson who knows how to cripple a Bolo. If she goes down, our entire cause goes down with her. So does every Granger’s hope of freedom — and maybe simple survival. Let’s be very clear about that, right up front. Does anyone have the slightest doubt left, now, about POPPA’s intentions? Does anyone fail to understand the lengths POPPA will go to, carrying out those intentions?”

Utter silence reigned. The only sound was the whisper of wind through standing hay.

“Very good. You all know what we’re up against. Some of us — maybe most of us — will die before sunrise. That’s not pessimism, it’s harsh reality.”

Kafari spoke up. “I don’t want anybody going into battle under a misapprehension. Things are going to get messy. Very messy. Was anyone here in Madison, tonight?”

No one spoke up.

“Well, I was. I’ve been caught in two other POPPA riots. I thought I’d seen the ugliest and most violent face POPPA had to show, but I was wrong. What I saw tonight…” Even the memory made her shudder. “Vittori Santorini has created an ungovernable killing machine that will turn on anyone and anything it wants to blame for its problems. That machine is ripping Madison apart. And you can bet your farms and cow pastures that we — Grangers — are going to take the blame. If we don’t act now, as a fighting force with teeth, it will be too late for anything to stop it.

“Having said that, I won’t send you into battle under false pretenses. Are you likely to die, tonight? Absolutely. Will Vittori and Nassiona Santorini hunt us down with every high-tech bloodhound they can muster into the field? You bet they will. Tonight’s raids will get their attention in a really big way. Will they order reprisals against innocents? Count on it. Once we start shooting them and blowing them up, they will get flat-assed mean.

“If you don’t like those odds, if you don’t want to be responsible for setting off that kind of powder keg, you can leave now, no questions asked. Just bear in mind one thing before you make your final decision. The massacre of innocents has already started. POPPA declared war on us, tonight, and that war will spread to every farm, every ranch, every small town on Jefferson.

“Vittori will slaughter us whether we fight back or not. I can’t tell anyone else what to do, but I intend to go down with weapons in my hands. Here and now, in this field, in front of witnesses — human and divine — I pledge my strength, my cunning, my knowledge, to the total destruction of POPPA and its leaders. And I swear to each and every one of you, if they blow me apart and send the left-over pieces bouncing down to hell, you may rest assured that I will drag as many as I can take down with me.”

A spontaneous cheer erupted, muted almost instantly down to a whisper, so the sound wouldn’t travel far, but it was a cheer, nonetheless. Then silence fell, a silence that burned with hatred and something else, as well, something that burned hot enough to melt steel. She couldn’t immediately identify it. Whatever it was, it shone fiercely in eyes that never left her face. It was that steady, intense regard, itself, that finally told her what it was.

Respect.

Not just for her. For themselves, as well.

Rough emotion closed her throat.

Anish Balin broke the silence. “As of tonight,” he gestured to include the whole group, “we are the only thing standing between millions of innocent Grangers and POPPA’s guns. Kafari and I fully intend to win this war, no matter what it takes. And the very first thing it will take is making sure Kafari Khrustinova stays officially dead. It’s our job to see that nobody — and I mean nobody — discovers otherwise. If POPPA has even the remotest suspicion that Kafari Khrustinova is still alive, they will turn Klameth Canyon — and every other Granger farmstead on Jefferson — to slag, looking for her. Having made that clear, does anyone have questions?”

Nobody did.

They all turned, as if by prearranged signal, to look at Kafari. It was fitting, somehow, that the larger of Jefferson’s two moons scaled the high cliffs at that moment, casting silver light across the fields and the faces of those following her into battle. She looked into each of those faces, into eyes that shone like cold and lethal diamonds in the moonlight, and caught a glimpse of her homeworld’s future. Jefferson’s tomorrow — and all the countless tomorrows that would follow — were filled with blood-feud and death and honor. The others could see it reflected in her eyes, as well as she could see it in theirs. They met her gaze without flinching, met and held it in the moonlight, waiting for her to issue her first battle command.

“I won’t offer you a bunch of useless platitudes,” she began quietly. “POPPA spits out of enough of those to choke a jaglitch. You know exactly what we’re up against. You know your team assignments and objectives. So let’s not delay this any longer. Alpha Team, you’re assigned to weapons procurement. You’ll strike our first target. Beta Team, go with Anish and wait for my signal. Alpha Team will join you once they have acquired effective weaponry. Gamma Team, you’re assigned to logistics and provisioning. Dismantle Anish’s broadcast studio and transport it out of Klameth Canyon. Pack up everything edible, as well, and start planning where we can get more. Is everyone clear on the plan of attack? Very well. Move out.”

Her strike teams had scattered into the night, carrying out her orders with smooth precision. As a result, they now had enough firepower to make things interesting. Kafari looked up at the truck loaded with stolen munitions and asked its driver, “Do you have an inventory?”

“Yes, sir. My squad’s in the back, tallying everything.”

“Very good.” She strode crisply to the tailgate, where a sixteen-year-old girl handed her a rapidly scrawled list. Kafari tilted it to read by moonlight. “Excellent job, soldier. Neat, complete, and well organized. Let’s go people, arm up and move out.”

They hauled gun crates and ammo boxes out of the truck, distributing them and loading their weapons for combat. The process went so smoothly, it took less than fifteen minutes to arm the entire group, distribute ammunition, and set up heavier weapons in the various vehicles they would use to hit Nineveh. The moment they were ready, Kafari said, “All right, soldiers, mount up and form a convoy. When I give the signal, move out fast, without running lights. We’ve worked out the probable timing and you all know the dodge-points to use. Questions?”

Nobody had any. Kafari nodded sharply. “Very well. We should be getting company from Nineveh Base in a few minutes. Toss thermal blankets across your engine blocks to mask heat signatures. Maintain radio silence until further notice.”

She shook out a thermal blanket for her own truck and flung it across the front of the truck, spreading it out with help from Red Wolf. It wouldn’t make the heat disappear entirely, but it might be enough to escape the notice of arrogant P-Squaddies. Once the blanket was secure, Kafari swung herself into the driver’s seat, then waited in tense silence. It didn’t take long. The sound of an aircraft engine rumbled closer. Then she spotted it through her night-vision goggles and worked hard to restrain a whoop of delight. It was a troop transport, not a fighter craft. A wicked grin stretched itself across her face. The self-assured fools had committed a fatal error. They just didn’t know it, yet.

The big transport flashed past their silent convoy, dropping to land its passengers on the gentle slope where the main entrance road led the way into the compound. She snatched off the goggles to protect her eyes. A blinding flash lit the night, followed by a massive crack of thunder. Another flash silhouetted the bluff and its fenced compound, followed almost instantly by another. Then a fireball shot skyward and the sound of a massive explosion came rolling across the valley like a tidal wave. It splashed against the shoulders of the mountains at Kafari’s back.

“Yes!” she whooped aloud. Cheers broke from the other vehicles. Kafari jabbed controls on her wrist-comm, sending three separate signals on three different frequencies. One signaled her own convoy to move out. Another told Anish Balin to scramble with the bulk of his team. The final message was for the men and women riding seven mobile Hellbores on the top of the bluff. It contained only four simple words: You will be remembered.

Having said the only goodbyes she could offer, Kafari turned her attention to the mission at hand. Her convoy hit the road at a wicked pace, dictated by Sonny’s probable speed to reach the combat zone. They had spotters out along the whole route, watching for Sonny. It didn’t take long to get the first signal. He’s on the move, that brief set of tones meant. Two minutes later, the second report came in. She tracked the Bolo’s progress in her head, along an imaginary map that showed the two likeliest routes. The most direct route south lay fairly close to the sea. The second, longer route snaked its way along the edge of the Damisi foothills, passing through tiny farming villages, where the streets were too narrow for Sonny to navigate without doing extensive damage.

Sonny made the logical choice. The moment she was sure, she sent out another coded pulse. Take the landward road! Then she put her foot down and roared north, glancing at her chrono now and again to time the pace. Ten minutes to reach safe harborage… eight minutes… five… three… At the zero-mark, she hit the brakes and turned sharply into a side road that snaked back into Redfern Gorge. The rest of her convoy crowded in on Kafari’s heels, moving forward at a crawl until they reached safety behind a bend in the high stone walls. Kafari did a careful three-point turn and shut down her engine, jumping down to throw the thermal blanket across the engine block again to prevent a heat plume from rising unchecked above the clifftops. Other drivers were scrambling out, as well, killing engines and muffling their own vehicles.

Silence fell, roaring in her ears like a high wind. She strained to hear, even though she knew Sonny was too far away to catch even the rumble of his engines. She gave a soft-voiced order to the other drivers and fire teams waiting in tense anticipation of the all-clear tones to chime from their wrist-comms. “Suit up. Full biochem suits now and be ready to don the masks the instant we reach the target. I’ll signal you to don battle hoods.”

She touched her own wrist-comm, giving Anish’s teams the same order, then picked up her suit, liberated with the rest of the Barran Bluff arsenal. She struggled into the biochem body glove, having to yank off her boots and clothes to slide her feet into the tough fabric that sealed her inside a protective shell. She took off her wrist-comm, as well, slid hands into the tight-fitting gloves that were a seamless part of the suit, then slid on her boots, refastened her wrist comm, sealed everything up, and donned her clothes. The only part of her not protected, yet, was her head. She picked up the helmet, which combined the functions of biochem mask — with full protective hood — and combat helmet, setting it on the front seat of the truck, next to Red Wolf’s. Hers was one of the command models, identical to the one Anish would be using. She assisted other team members into their own gear as they waited. Minutes dragged past, eroding into a quarter of an hour, and still no signal…

Her wrist-comm beeped softly. All clear, the spotter’s signal meant. All clear to launch phase two.

“Mount up and roll out!” Kafari ordered.

They were off again at a sprint. The whole convoy rushed northward, intent on the quarry that lay just ahead. Kafari swung into the turn that would carry them across the open Adero floodplain and roared forward in high gear. She could see the lights of Nineveh Base far ahead, shining like beacons in the night. Her convoy began to spread out, executing a crisp maneuver that would encircle the base.

Kafari knew exactly where the Hancock family was being held. She’d used Anish’s equipment to hack her way into P-Squad security systems and databases, unable to match Sonny’s data-tapping capabilities, but her own skills were more than sufficient for her purposes. Nineveh Base sprawled across two-hundred forty-seven acres and housed five thousand P-Squad recruits a year. There was also a permanent training corps of officers and sergeants, and the service personnel required to feed them, run the laundry, and clean the barracks.

P-Squad recruits were housed in the southern quandrant, while officers’ quarters and sergeants’ billets bracketed the recruits, taking up portions of the eastern and western perimeter. The motor pool filled most of the northern quadrant, which had suffered encroachment from Madison’s rapidly growing shantytowns. Security was actually heaviest along the northern fences, to keep poverty-stricken thieves from breaking into the maintenance yards and stripping them of tools, parts, and even whole vehicles for sale on the black market. Guard towers ringed the site, manned twenty-five hours a day by sharpshooters. Weapons depots were cached in the center, as far as possible from any of the perimeter fences. The infirmary, mess hall, and quartermasters’ stores were also located centrally.

So was Nineveh Prison.

The cell blocks of the original detention center, used for disciplining troops or holding soldiers awaiting court-martial for criminal charges, had been expanded into an interrogation and imprisonment facility that was already the terror of anyone unfortunate enough to run afoul of POPPA’s displeasure. To rescue the Hancock family, Kafari’s group would have to shoot their way into the most sophisticated prison facility on Jefferson, rescue the prisoners, then shoot their way back out, again.

Kafari halted the truck at its assigned assault point and used her field goggles to study the base. Despite the emergency scramble, there was no sign of heightened security. She could see the usual complement of tower guards, but no patrols were out scouring the perimeter for potential threats. That was fine with Kafari. There were fewer targets for her guns to hit, with everyone conveniently bunched up in the buildings. Kafari nodded to herself, more than pleased with the situation.

She gave the signal to don battle helmets and started to put hers on, but Red Wolf interrupted.

“Time for you to dismount, sir,” Red Wolf said, pausing in the act of fastening his own biochem helmet in place. “Anish would have my cockles for supper if I let anything happen to you.”

Kafari glanced into his eyes. “Then you’d better watch my back, son, because I’m going in. I’ll play auntie sit-by-the-fire on every other mission we carry out, but Dinny and Aisha Ghamal are family. I will get them out.”

“But—”

“No time to argue,” Kafari said as her wrist-comm beeped. “We’re going in.”

She jammed her helmet on, sealed it against the body glove and hit the accelerator. He didn’t have time to protest.

III

I clear Nineveh Base and head south, moving at my fastest cruising speed. At a sustained ninety kilometers per hour, I will be within line-of-sight range of the enemy in thirty minutes. This is a long time for enemy troops to finish looting and escape with their spoils. I cannot help but compare this situation with one of the most famous pre-civil war strikes in Terran history, at a seemingly insignificant place called Harper’s Ferry. How will Anish Balin compare with John Brown, who also used violent methods to present his argument? The arguments of both men — Brown and Balin — carry logical weight, but were — and are — sustained by a person both reactionary and, ultimately, destructive to society.

I pick up another transmission from Sar Gremian, this time to the commander of a federal police unit in Gersham, the town closest to Barran Bluff. This message is coded, but I have access to the military algorithms necessary to decipher it.

“First, shut down the reporters out there. Grab the cameras and lock them up or destroy them. Lock up the reporters, while you’re at it. Then get in there and start shooting at those assholes. Use all available force. It’s critical to make an example, here. Take a party-trained videographer with you. Get some good video clips, something approved news crews can flash as a special report when we’ve contained this mess. And for God’s sake, keep casualties to an absolute minimum. Between the arsenal guards and the strike force, we’ve already got seventy-three dead soldiers, out there, and a whole air crew. The last thing we need is a bunch of cop widows whining on the daytime chats. And whatever you do, don’t tape any footage with the Bolo in it!”

“Understood, sir. Scrambling all available field units now. ETA Barran Bluff, five minutes.”

“Good. See to it none of those bastards gets out alive.”

“Yessir.”

By the time I arrive, police units have ringed the compound, staying well back, doubtless hoping that the Grangers still inside the compound won’t fire the Hellbores at them. An uneasy stalemate exists, wherein neither side wants to risk coming into the open long enough to draw fire. When I reach visual distance, I lose my main data source from within the compound: every security camera in the facility goes dead, in a well-orchestrated act of destruction. What I have already seen tells me that I am at serious risk of damage, due to the terrain surrounding the compound and the layout of the compound, itself.

I am far taller than the site’s largest buildings, but the entire site is built on a high promontory, so that the ground on which the buildings sit is actually higher than my turret. The access roads are sufficiently wide to accommodate my warhull, but I have little desire to rush straight in. There are high berms scattered throughout the compound, which I cannot probe, even with ground-penetrating radar, as they are too thick. I cannot tell where any of the mobile Hellbores are now located. This is not good. I slow forward speed and halt near a police command car.

I recognize the officer in charge. He is the police lieutenant who ordered the mass arrest of the Hancock family, setting off a cause-and-effect chain of events that has culminated in the seizure of this compound. He now wears a captain’s insignia, clear indication that his superiors were pleased with the way in which he conducted the Hancock case. Yuri Lokkis, who appeared supremely self-confident in the news footage surrounding the Hancock arrests, does not appear to be quite so self-confident tonight. Perhaps it is only that he is face-to-face with me that has triggered the copious sweat and fine tremors in most of his voluntary muscle groups. Every single man in his command is in roughly the same physical condition.

Why did Kafari Khrustinova display so little fear, by comparison, the first time she encountered me on the field of battle? Will I ever understand humans. I do my best to reassure the uniformed officer staring slack-jawed at my warhull.

“Captain Lokkis, Unit SOL-0045 reporting as directed by President La Roux. I will require infantry support to ensure minimal loss of equipment currently in rebel hands.”

He stares, wet-lipped and vacant-eyed, from one gun system to another, apparently incapable of rational speech. I try again.

“Captain Lokkis, are you the officer in charge of this operation?”

“Huh?”

It is a response, at least. Unhelpful, but better than total silence. Did Captain Lokkis attend the same school as Phil Fabrizio? I make a note to cross-reference dossiers once the business at hand is concluded.

“Are you the officer in charge?”

“Uh… Yeah. Oh, yeah. Yes, I am. I’m in charge.”

“I will require infantry support to ensure minimal damage to captured equipment or myself.”

“Infantry support? Whaddaya mean?”

“I have been charged with the task of regaining possession of expensive military equipment with minimal damage, as the treasury is not capable of sustaining replacement costs for mobile Hellbore units. By extension, the government is incapable of sustaining repair costs for any significant damage done to me. Given terrain conditions and the use of security berms, I cannot see the interior of the compound adequately to detect the location of those guns. Without infantry support to check terrain in advance, I am at serious risk of crippling injury. That would defeat the purpose of my presence on Jefferson, which is to provide long-term defense of this world. I therefore require infantry support in this operation.”

“Whatcha want me to do about it? I ain’t no soldier, machine. I’m a cop. I got an award for throwin’ that pack of murderers in jail, but I ain’t no soldier. Whatever it is you want, it’s your problem, not mine.”

I surmise that Captain Lokkis is not sufficiently acquainted with the interior of his training manuals to comprehend what “infantry support” means. Yet again, I revise my phrasing.

“I need people on foot to go into the compound first and see what’s there.”

“Whoeeeee! You ain’t askin’ much, are you? So’s I hear tell, folks in hell want icewater, too. Don’t mean they get it. We got no ‘infantry.’ And even if we did, which we don’t, I wouldn’t send ’em in there, anyway. Did you see what those bastards did to the plane and the tank? Ain’t no way my people are goin’ in there.” He jabs a dirty finger in the direction of the bluff overlooking his command post, such as it is, and says, “You wanna see what’s in there? Fine. You go take a look. That’s what they pay you for, ain’t it?”

I consider correcting his misapprehension about a Bolo’s terms of service, which include nothing resembling a soldier’s pay. Jefferson is obliged to provide repair parts and a technician, but that is the extent of the government’s contractual remuneration for my services. I decide that any attempt at clarification would only cloud the issue further.

I make yet another attempt to obtain what I need. “There are three infantry units listed on active duty status in this sector. Contact their commanders and request an immediate scramble of combat infantry troops to this location.”

Captain Lokkis’ jaw juts out in an unpleasant fashion. “You ain’t got much brains, do you? I said we didn’t have infantry. Those ‘units’ were disbanded, musta’ been about two years back, or more.”

“Disbanded?” I am so startled by this news, I request further clarification. “Please explain. These units are listed as active.”

“Oh, they can be filled if they hafta, from reserves. But just b’tween you, me, an’ the fencepost, those infantry units were ‘politically destabilizing and financially draining.’ ” The last five words are clearly a direct quotation, they are so unlike Captain Lokkis’ routine diction.

“If these units are still kept on the active list but have been disbanded, what happened to the funds required to support them?” I am thinking, urgently, about the long-term implications for my primary mission.

“Oh, they divvied up the money.”

“How?”

He just stares vacantly into my external visual sensors. “I dunno how. Why’s that any a’ your business?”

I do not bother to answer, as he is clearly incapable of understanding the serious consequences of misappropriated military funds. I begin searching the governmental datanet via wireless interface and discover financial transactions that divide the money saved by disbanding the infantry divisions into two main categories: increasing the politically essential subsistence allowance and funding the federal police combat forces known as Op-Squads. I face combat and must put my reliance for repairs upon an illiterate mechanic and a government that is lying to the public about how it spends tax money. Since I cannot gain infantry support and Captain Lokkis has refused to assist, I consult the president. “Unit SOL-0045, requesting infantry support.”

“Infantry support?” Sar Gremian asks, sounding irritated. “Why? Dammit, never mind why. Request denied.”

“I require authorization—”

“I know, I fucking well know! Tell him he can’t have any soldiers.”

The president says, “You can’t have any soldiers. Just do what he says.”

The president has clearly authorized Sar Gremian to give me commands. This will at least save time.

“Understood. I will conduct this exercise operating independently.” I break transmission and address Captain Lokkis. “Please clear your vehicles from my approach vector.”

“What?”

“Move your cars. Unless you want me to crush them.”

Lokkis issues rapid orders to move the ground- and aircars blocking my path. I move forward at a cautious pace, launching an aerial drone. It arcs up to an elevation of twenty meters and is promptly shot down by rebel missile fire from the compound. I lock onto the missile’s trajectory and fire mortars, but am unable to determine whether the rounds strike their intended target.

Approaching from the northern face of the bluff is a tac-tically disadvantageous maneuver. I reverse course and loop the long way around, reapproaching from the south. My warhull is tall enough that my uppermost turret sensors provide a partial view into the compound. Internal berms block my view in seven tactically important locations.

I am down to three drones in my warhull and only four available in depot as replacements. I launch a drone at full speed, hoping to gain altitude before the enemy can react. It streaks to a height of eleven point nine meters and is shot down by missile fire. I launch mortars blind, having gained nothing but a view of the top of the nearest berm. I cannot tell if my mortar shells struck their intended target.

I pause to study the terrain I can see. The southern perimeter fence is down along a thirty-meter stretch to either side of what had been a security check-point gate. Tank traps block the road in a checkerboard pattern. The berms beyond create an even more difficult access route, forcing an invader to weave in deep zigzag patterns to reach the main compound. My treads are, of course, capable of crushing the tank traps flat and I can climb or even plow through the berms, if necessary. The problem is my inability to see what lies on the other side.

I launch a second drone, sending it skimming forward less than one meter above the ground. It weaves its way through the tank traps, then hugs the outside of the first berm, mere centimeters above the slope. It pops up over the crest—

—and rifle fire takes it down. It falls to the ground, shattered like a clay pigeon. I still have not seen beyond the berm. Neither speed nor subterfuge has worked. Brute force, perhaps?

I launch a massive mortar barrage, targeting the hidden terrain behind the berms, and launch my next-to-last drone. It streaks skyward amidst an unholy rain of artillery shells. I catch a fleeting glimpse of foot soldiers scrambling behind the first berm…

Hyper-v missiles scream into the thick of my incoming shells. One of them kills the drone. I am nearly out of drones. And completely out of patience. Yet I cannot fire blind. Not if I am to avoid damage to the equipment in this compound. And I dare not risk the last drone to such pinpoint-accurate rebel fire. Without infantry to search for enemy emplacements and with no aerial drones, I am acutely vulnerable to ambush. There are no power emissions from any of the Hellbores to lock onto, which is immensely frustrating. But I have no choice.

I push forward, grinding across the downed fence and gate. I am approaching the first set of tank traps when a sudden power emission blossoms. A Hellbore snout appears dead ahead. It fires and runs, virtually in the same instant. I take a direct, point-blank hit, at virtual muzzle contact. My screens bleed. Raw energy pours across my warhull. The shot breaches my defensive screen for zero point zero-two seconds. I return fire with a massive mortar barrage. Explosions slam into the far side of the berm, even as the enemy’s power signature vanishes like steam.

Another Hellbore pops into view, firing from defilade in a stunningly fast double pulse before skipping behind a berm. The double blows strike my screens at a seventy-degree angle. The second blast slices through the screen and blows track linkages in a five-meter slash.

I am injured!

I rage. I pulse my forward Hellbore. The thirty-centimeter blast slams into the berm, which ceases to exist. I have a nanosecond view of a human female approximately fifteen years old as I fire again. The command cab vanishes, melted into slag and radioactive vapor. The forward two-thirds of her misappropriated Hellbore also melts. I lock onto another sudden power emission. I fire through the berm again, in a one-two punch that turns a second mobile Hellbore and its driver into a cloud of dissociated atoms.

Multiple power signatures erupt. I track and lock on. Then hesitate, momentarily confused. The emssions skip oddly. I lock on, then lose the lock as the emission vanishes. The engines appear to teleport from one spot to another. The rebel commander may be firing up then killing the engines in a shifting pattern, so that the guns only appear to be moving. He may be playing shuffleboard with the gun systems. It is a clever ploy. I know a momentary thrill of satisfaction at facing an enemy worthy of the designation.

I attack them all. Mortars arc over the tops of the berms, targeting every power emission on the bluff. A mobile Hellbore rushes into the open, firing in a hit-and-run slash across my prow. I return fire. A plasma fireball rises high into the night sky, incinerating the field gun and its driver. Other drivers dash for the western access road. I roar forward, euphoric. Battle Reflex Mode brings my full consciousness online. My reflexes hum. My synapses sing. I come alive, rushing toward the enemy in fulfillment of my purpose. I track, target, fire, vaporizing berms and buildings with Hellbore salvos to reach the mobile guns behind them. Smoke boils. Fireballs expand like supernovas. I exult in the destruction of a clever and deadly enemy.

Hypervelocity missiles streak towards my prow and forward turret in a coordinated barrage from multiple locations. Antitank octocellulose bombs bounce and roll into my path, fused and shoved out of trucks by desperate rebel soldiers. My infinite repeaters blaze, swatting down eighty-six percent of the inbound missiles and ninety-three percent of the octocellulose mines. The remaining missiles detonate against my prow and forward turret. I bleed ablative armor scales. The octocellulose mines explode virtually underfoot. More track linkages blow apart on all three tread systems.

I rage. I target every power emission for a radius of a thousand meters. Mortars, missiles, infinite repeaters, and chain guns bark and snarl. Death flies outward from my warhull. I destroy. Exultation sweeps through my personality gestalt center. I am alive. I have a purpose. I live that noble purpose. I defend this world from the threat of terrorist insurrection. I fulfill my destiny on the field of battle. I destroy all traces of the Enemy.

I come to a halt in the center of a zone of desolation. Barran Bluff arsenal no longer exists. Everything within a radius of one thousand meters is a blackened, smouldering ruin. Buildings are broken, radioactive shells. Ninety percent of the internal berms have been breached or destroyed in totality. I have destroyed seven mobile ten-centimeter Hellbore field guns, six trucks loaded with heavy munitions, three-hundred hyper-v missiles, and seventeen octocellulose bombs.

My track linkages are ragged, with gaping holes that will seriously compromise track integrity without Sector-grade repairs. Heat shimmers in a haze from my gun barrels and the smoking wreckage around me. Radioactive wind sweeps fallout toward civilian installations in Gersham and Haggertown.

Belatedly, I recall Sar Gremian’s advisement on the fiscal burden of replacing equipment destroyed in this engagement. My personality gestalt circuitry sputters, attempting to reconcile the programmed-in elation of a battlefield victory of this magnitude — over a surprisingly sophisticated insurrection team — with the knowledge that I have destroyed a concentration of expensive equipment and war-grade materiel, against explicit instructions. Surely it is better to destroy high-tech weaponry than it is to allow that weaponry to fall into enemy hands?

I contact the president.

“Unit SOL-0045, requesting permission to file VSR.”

Video shows me Avelaine La Roux, who has taken on the look of a stunned rabbit. “What?” she asks, vacuously.

“Request permission to file VSR.”

Sar Gremian’s voice, originating from a point out of camera range, says, “Say yes, dammit. Just say yes.”

“Yes. Permission granted. Whatever.”

“I have destroyed seven 10cm Hellbore field guns, six military trucks, and an estimated ninety-eight point three percent of the infrastructure at Barran Bluff Depot—”

“What?”

Sar Gremian steps into the picture, literally. His face is livid. “You did what?”

“Rebel forces used Hellbores to destroy a robot-tank, an airship with its entire crew, and seventy-three federal troopers. They then used Hellbores, hypervelocity missiles, and octocellulose bombs in antitank mines to inflict serious damage to me. There was no choice but to destroy this equipment and those operating it. This is the heaviest damage I have sustained in combat since the Deng invasion sixteen years ago.”

“Jeezus H — do you realize you just blew up half a billion credits’ worth of infrastructure?” He runs a distracted hand across his skin-covered head, as though intending to pull long-vanished hair up by the roots. “Jeezus, half a billion credits… At least you contained the bastards.”

“The insurrection has not been contained.”

Sar Gremian’s narrow face blanches white, transforming the deep facial scarring into a sea of blotches against a pale background. His question emerges as a whisper.

“What do you mean, ‘not contained’?”

“I was ordered not to fire until reaching visual range. In the time it took me to reach the depot, federal troops completely failed to halt the departure of heavily laden trucks carrying an estimated seventy percent of the depot’s arsenal. Nearly two hundred enemy soldiers loaded and carried away one hundred twelve hypervelocity missiles, sixteen cases of octocellulose mines totaling one thousand six hundred explosive munitions casings, two thousand rifle-launched antitank rockets, eight hundred heavy rifles, and seventeen thousand rounds of ammunition.”

I can hear the president in the background, making sounds I have come to associate with gibbering terror.

“And where,” Sar Gremian asks in a grating tone, “are they now?”

“The trucks have been driven into the canyons of the Southern Damisi. It may be possible to trail them based on power emissions and chemical residues, but the on-board map in my geological database confirms that I cannot easily pursue. The canyons are too narrow. My warhull will not fit. Not without serious rearrangement of the rockfaces, which will result in multiple tons of debris, which will block passageways too narrow already. The rebels could not have chosen a better location from which to stage raids.

“Of more serious concern, the inventory of artillery at Barran Bluff Depot lists ten mobile Hellbore field guns, with 10cm bores. I have destroyed seven. There is no evidence of the remaining three in the rubble. I infer that rebel leaders were successful in stealing three mobile weapons platforms capable of inflicting mobility kills on a Bolo. The octocellulose antitank mines also stolen are capable of mobility kills on a Bolo, as well, particularly if used with intelligent placement and in batches detonated in tandem. Their forces suffered heavy casualties, but inflicted serious casualties, as well, and were able to retreat successfully with the majority of what they meant to obtain. The damage inflicted on government forces and equipment, including myself, is serious. I have lost armor and sustained substantial tread damage which will require repairs for me to be field-worthy.”

Sar Gremian does not speak.

He stares blankly into the datacam, saying nothing at all for seventy point zero-three seconds. I am familiar with the homily “one’s life flashes before one’s eyes” at the approach of death. This appears to be a case of one’s career flashing before one’s eyes. I wait.

“I’ll get back to you,” he finally says.

The transmission terminates. I monitor outgoing communications from the president’s temporary office and detect a call to a private comm-unit registered to Vittori Santorini. The transmission is encrypted with a code I cannot break. The call lasts for three minutes, thirteen point two seconds. Sar Gremian calls me back.

“You can’t chase the missing Hellbores?”

“I can attempt aerial reconnaissance with a remote drone. The rebels destroyed the last three drones I launched. I have only one drone left on board and four more stored in depot.”

“Launch the drone, goddammit! Find out where those Hellbores are!”

“Drone launched. No visual contact. Faint IR trail detected. Several motorized vehicles have crossed Haggertown Valley and entered Skeleton Cut. Drone in pursuit. No motion detected. No visual contact. IR trails diverge into three branch canyons. No visual contact. IR trails branch again, into five feeder canyons. Unable to determine which heat signatures were produced by trucks and which were left by mobile Hellbore platforms. Decreasing altitude to check for tire and tread marks. Insufficient light to detect patterns in the dust overlay of stone canyon floor. Regaining altitude. No visual contact.” I hesitate as the IR trails vanish. “IR trails lost. Theorizing. Likeliest explanation is underground concealment. The canyons in this region are riddled with undercuts and caves. Suggest infantry squadrons as optimal search-and-destroy method.”

“Infantry? We don’t have any infantry.”

“Artillery crews would suffice as an acceptable substitute. Federal police units would also serve.”

“Send in the police? Against mobile Hellbores? Are you out of your mind?”

I consider this possibility. “Analyzing heuristics. Resartus Protocols have not engaged.”

“What? What the hell does that mean?”

“I am not insane.”

Sar Gremian stares into the camera. “How immensely reassuring. You can’t find three stolen nuclear weapons platforms or a convoy of multi-ton trucks, but you’re not insane. Is there some other task you can waste time on while looking for the stolen guns?”

“I can keep talking to you.”

This is, perhaps, not the most politic thing I might have said. Sar Gremian’s reply is a snarl that twists his mouth in a particularly unattractive manner. “Find the fucking Hellbores, machine! I don’t give a damn what it takes. Blow holes through every rockface in the Damisi Mountains, if you have to, but find them. Is that clear enough for you?”

“I cannot blow holes in the canyon walls without increasing the amount of hard radiation already contaminating the Haggertown Valley farms and the towns of Haggertown and Gersham. Without the crops in these farms, Jefferson faces widespread food shortages. This conflicts with my primary mission.”

Sar Gremian’s response is both pithy and unhelpful. He terminates the transmission and places another coded call to Vittori Santorini. This call lasts eight minutes, nineteen seconds. Sar Gremian calls me back. “Go to your depot. We’ll send the P-Squads out there. That’ll keep somebody busy earning their pay.”

The veiled threat to my future level of financial support registers clearly in my threat-assessment processors. It is the last clear and fully aware thought I entertain before standing down from Battle Reflex Alert. I feel the loss of analytical power as I back out through the carnage I have wrought atop Barran Bluff. I successfully extricate myself from the rubble, noting the unhappy look on Captain Lokkis’ face as he receives a transmission from Sar Gremian. The man who engineered the downfall of the Hancock family does not appear to relish pursuit of an enemy in possession of high-tech weaponry concealed in a maze of canyons in the middle of the night.

This is not my immediate concern. I limp toward my maintenance depot, registering the damage in pain sensors across my prow and forward turret and track mounts. I move at a crawling pace of barely one kilometer per hour, trying to save further serious damage to my track linkages. It is a long way home. And the only thing I have to look forward to, when I reach it, is the dubious care to be rendered by a functionally illiterate technician who was drunk during our last conversation.

Misery has become my constant companion.

IV

At the one-hundred meter mark, Kafari flashed the commence-attack signal.

Three Hellbores snarled from the darkness. Nineveh’s training barracks, officers’ quarters, and noncom barracks vanished into white-hot, triple fireballs. Debris shot skyward, arcing up and out in graceful parabolas. The smashed pieces of Nineveh’s entire command structure were still falling when Red Wolf leaned through his open window and fired a shoulder-launched rocket at the fence between them and their objective.

The warhead detonated just above the ground. A spectacular flash obliterated a five-meter swath of fence. Red Wolf ducked back into the truck as bits of semimolten debris rained down onto their transport. Kafari put her foot down and roared forward. She charged the gap at full speed and plunged through the smoking wreckage, then skidded into the open plaza beyond. The prison lay dead ahead. Other teams were converging on the rendezvous point. She skidded them to a halt right on target. Kafari and Red Wolf, facemasks and hoods firmly in place, bailed out of the truck while the squads in back tumbled over the tailgate.

Kafari’s team was the first to reach the detention center’s door. She could see officers inside, silhouetted against the interior lights as they peered out at the destruction, too stunned to realize they, too, were under attack. Red Wolf slapped a shaped charge against the sophisticated electronics that kept the door locked. He jammed in fuses and scrambled back. Half the door blew off. Red Wolf kicked down what was left.

Kafari signaled her fire teams to drop into a low crouch, a posture that afforded less target space for the enemy’s guns, then motioned them forward. They dove through the demolished wreckage of the door, rolling into a room full of smoke. The biochem mask lowered visibility to nearly nothing. Kafari couldn’t tell where her team members were and couldn’t see the enemy at all. Gunfire barked in the smoke-filled room. Somebody was shooting blind, taking wild shots through the murk.

A bullet whined past Kafari’s ear and embedded itself in the wall behind her. She tracked the muzzle flash and returned fire, shooting through a reception counter to reach the gunman beyond. She threw herself into a sideways roll, away from anyone shooting back at her and heard a sharp, masculine scream above the staccato chatter of other guns. Movement behind her brought Kafari around, ready to defend against fire from the rear. She recognized Anish by the command helmet he wore.

“What the goddamned hell are you doing here?” he roared at her.

She took down a guard to Anish’s right, nailing him, center of mass. “Saving your goddamned backside! Get to work, soldier!”

“Secure the cell blocks,” Anish shouted into his command-comm. “Don’t give ’em time to slaughter the prisoners. Blow doors if you have to, but get in there!”

Kafari’s forward fire team made short work of the door that separated the public reception area from the private offices and cell blocks beyond. A concussion shook the room as they blew that door, as well. The smoke that bellied up concealed their movements as they scuttled through. Kafari motioned her second team through and motioned Anish and his teams forward, as well, in deference to Anish’s desire to keep her in the realm of the living. Red Wolf stayed glued to her back, shooting at anything wearing a POPPA uniform and covering their rear from potential attack if anyone still outside developed a hankering to protest what was happening in here.

They moved out on the heels of Anish’s last team, following them into a long corridor with offices — whole suites of offices — branching off from it. The teams ahead of her were hard-pressed to sweep for potential ambushes in those rooms while attempting to reach the cell blocks before a massacre could ensue. Kafari and Red Wolf moved at a crouch, keeping their heads below the level of the windows set into various doors and moving cautiously from one doorway to the next.

They were halfway down the corridor when gunfire erupted, cutting them off from Anish’s rear-most fire teams. Kafari ate the floor — then found herself under Red Wolf. He tackled her and sent them skidding into another office, out of the line of fire. Kafari cursed as they fetched up hard against somebody’s desk. For one brain-rattled moment, she was in a Klameth Canyon basement, again, with the Deng shooting at them through the stairs and Abe Lendan’s bodyguard tackling and sliding with him into the wall. No wonder the president had yelled — being body-slammed hurt.

Kafari shook her head to clear it, then twisted around, trying to see where the shots were coming from. Muzzle flashes from an office farther along the corridor gave her the location. The placard on the door said Commandant’s Office.

Kafari crawled forward on elbows and knees. Red Wolf checked her, interposing himself between her and the door. “No way, sir,” he muttered. “Use the radio and keep your damn-fool head down.”

Kafari ground her teeth and spat into her command-comm. “Alpha One to Beta One, we are pinned. Repeat, pinned. We are taking fire from the commandant’s office. Might be a useful bird if he knows how to sing.”

“Roger. Stay put.”

Seven seconds later, a barrage of covering fire erupted in the corridor. Live rounds created a grey canopy at waist height, forcing the occupant or occupants of the commandant’s office to duck for their lives. Red Wolf slid through the open doorway of their shelter, motioning Kafari to stay where she was, and eased forward under that canopy. Kafari was nearly bouncing with frustration when she remembered that she wore a command helmet. Swearing at her own greenhorn stupidity, she fumbled with exterior controls until the video system came online, giving her thumbnail views from each of the button-size, fish-eye cameras on her field team’s helmets.

She zeroed in on Red Wolf’s signal and watched, distracted and fascinated by the eerie sensation, as “they” crawled forward under covering fire. Red Wolf reached the commandant’s open doorway, while one of Anish’s team members approached from the other side. They crawled through together, peeling left and right as they slid into the room. Kafari could see boots under the desk ahead of Red Wolf.

Whoever was doing the shooting, he or she didn’t like the hail of live rounds tearing into the office. The person was shooting wildly, reaching up with one hand to fire in the general direction of the hall, while staying behind the interposing desk. Within seconds, with the pistol shot dry, an empty magazine bounced onto the floor and slid toward Red Wolf. An instant later, their quarry started swearing a blue streak.

“He’s fumbled the reload!” Kafari shouted.

Red Wolf hurled himself forward and skidded around the end of the desk. The gunman was still trying to ram the magazine home when Red Wolf took him off at the knees. He screamed and went down. Blood soaked into his trousers from a pair of nicely shattered kneecaps.

Red Wolf searched him for weapons. “He’s clean, sir.”

Kafari crossed the corridor at a run and reached the other office without drawing any more fire. Their prisoner was, indeed, the commandant of Nineveh Base.

“You’ll fry for this!” he snarled. Hatred and pain had twisted his face into a malevolent mask.

Red Wolf gave him a cold laugh. “I’m so scared, you got me pissing in my boots.” He ripped a wire loose from the computer console and twisted the commandant’s wrists behind him. “He’s all yours, sir,” Red Wolf said, giving Kafari a salute.

She beckoned Anish’s fire team in from the hall. “Get him outta here,” she said, dropping her voice into its lowest registers and putting a Port Town swagger into it. “Put him in my truck. I wanna chat with this som-bitch.”

“Aye-aye, sir!”

They hoisted Nineveh’s commandant and carried him out, ignoring the string of invectives ripping loose. Kafari and Red Wolf scrambled after the rest of the penetration team, which had leapfrogged ahead to reach the cell blocks. They found Anish Balin at the cell block’s control console, using the master computer to unlock rank after rank of prison doors. Several uniformed officers were down, both in the control room and in the corridor between the cells, sprawled obscenely in pools of their own blood. Dazed prisoners were stumbling past, some of them so badly injured, they couldn’t walk without help. A few had to be carried.

One man’s face had been nearly obliterated by savage beatings. The wreckage was purple-black, a face made of squashed plums. The ghastly, swollen bruises and crusted blood had nearly closed both eyes. It looked like there was broken bone, under the bruises. The coffee-toned skin of his hands, ears, and neck had turned a shade more grey than brown. His clothing was ripped, revealing more bruises. He’d actually staggered past before Kafari realized who he was. She turned sharply, queasy from the shock, and strode after him. Speaking in a low whisper, she asked, “Do Asali bees still have stingers?”

He slewed around, squinting through crusted, swollen eyes, unable to see her face through the biochem mask and command helmet. “I’d hate to get caught in a swarm,” he said cautiously, the words slurred and drunken as he struggled to move muscles too stiff and battered to shape the sounds. Even so, those few words confirmed his identity. Dinny Ghamal swayed on his feet and sweat broke out across his battered face. “Asali bees can get mean,” he added, waiting for her response.

“Oh, yes,” Kafari agreed. “It’s a good idea to have a bolt-hole handy, if you run Asali bees. Cheese rooms work pretty well.”

She saw realization spread itself across his ruined face, tugging at the edges of his eyes and battered mouth. Then Dinny grippped her free hand — the one without a gun in it — with both of his own. Crusted blood around his eyes softened and ran red.

“You came back for us,” he choked out. “They told us you were dead. Showed us pictures of your aircar, wrecked and full of bullet holes. But you came back, just for us…”

Kafari started to answer, intending to say, “Of course I came back for you” when sudden understanding flashed through her. He was speaking literally. He thought she’d come back from the dead. The amount of pain required to reduce Dinny Ghamal to such a state turned Kafari’s hatred into ice-filled rage.

“There’s an old saying,” Kafari told him, “that our ancestors brought out from Terra. There is nothing as dangerous as a strong man’s ghost.”

Dinny’s fingers tightened against hers as a rush of emotions — far too complex to take in while a battle raged around them — blazed in his eyes. Kafari pulled a backup gun from her gear and handed it to him. “Where’s your mother? And your wife?”

“Second floor. With the little ones.” He stood up straighter as he pointed the way to the nearest stairwell.

Kafari called for backup. “Alpha Team, form up and move out! Second floor! They’ve shifted the wounded and the kids!”

She was already running for the stairs, gun in hand. Red Wolf was right behind her. Dinny struggled along in her wake. Kafari took the steps two at a time, just ahead of Alpha Team’s front runners. When they reached the second floor landing, Kafari flattened herself against the wall while Red Wolf kicked the door in.

Nobody shot at them.

Red Wolf went through first, leaving Dinny and Kafari as rear guard. They’d emerged into a long corridor that paralleled the line of cell blocks one floor below. This floor clearly served as infirmary — but not for healing purposes. The beds and examination tables all had straps. Thick, unbreakable ones. Most had dark stains that no one had bothered to clean up.

She heard voices farther down the corridor, women’s voices, shrill with panic. By the time Kafari and Dinny reached the source of the screams, the noisemakers had fallen silent. Red Wolf stood guard over six women prisoners, two in P-Squad uniforms, the other four in white lab coats. Alpha Team was kicking down more doors. Prisoners were stumbling, even crawling, out of detention cells. Most of them bore the marks of torture, with physical injuries that made Dinny’s beating look mild. Kafari’s cold rage froze into jagged ice. Mere retribution didn’t come close to the hell she intended to inflict on those responsible for this.

There was a sudden explosion of curses farther down the corridor. Then one of her lieutenants came running. “Sir! Begging the commander’s presence, sir!”

Kafari exchanged glances with Dinny and Red Wolf, then headed down the long corridor. Dinny followed, leaving Red Wolf to stand guard over the prisoners. The sickening bloodstains on the floor grew worse with every step. Most of Alpha Team was already headed back, assisting badly injured men and women out of rooms Kafari couldn’t look at too closely, for fear of vomiting inside her helmet. When she reached the end of the corridor, the remainder of Alpha Team stepped aside.

She peered into a fairly large room. A single glance told Kafari that this chamber had once been used as a surgery. Her second glance faltered as the jumble of odd shapes piled along the floor took on a sudden, sickening pattern. Kafari couldn’t tell how many people had been jammed into this one charnel-house room. Her throat worked in convulsive reflex. She clamped her jaws together and held the nausea between her teeth. She forced herself to look, but couldn’t quite control the way her gaze skittered from one image to another. The floor was thick with dark, congealed blood. There was no sign of the Hancock family’s children in that pile. Kafari could see only adult-sized hands and feet sticking out like jackstraws. They had clearly been dead for hours. They’d died hard. Much too hard.

“What’s behind that?” Kafari choked out, pointing to a half-buried door on the far wall.

“We’ll find out, sir.”

The remainder of Alpha Team waded in, pulling corpses off the mound. Kafari’s gut kept clenching with dread. They were near the bottom when one of the bodies in the pile moaned and stirred. Kafari’s hair stood on end for a split second, then she and Dinny rushed forward, pulling the woman free of the corpses stacked on top of her. An agonized sound burst from Dinny’s throat. Aisha was still alive. But not for long. Kafari could see that, at first glance. Dinny dropped to his knees beside her, cradling her head and trying to lift her from the floor where they’d dumped her to die. “I’m here, Mama,” he told her, voice choked down to a raw whisper. “I’ve got you safe now.”

“Dinny?” she whispered. “You got away…”

“We’re going home, Mama,” he told her, voice breaking. “We’re taking you home.”

“Don’t need to go home, son,” she said, her voice shockingly fragile. “Just get me outside these walls, outside them fences. I want to die free.”

Anguish tore gashes into Dinny’s battered face. Then the fire team finally unblocked the door and pulled it open.

“We’ve got live kids in here!”

Kafari’s breath sobbed in her lungs with a single, heartfelt prayer of relief.

“Get ’em out! I want this building cleared in the next three minutes!”

Children started tumbling out of the room, tripping over bodies that had once been people they loved. Glass-pale, they greeted their rescuers with eyes like burnt cinders. They went where they were told to go. Older ones helped younger ones. Once-innocent faces were etched with the cruelty they had witnessed.

Kafari turned her attention back to Aisha. “Get her downstairs,” she told the remaining two members of Alpha Team. “Put her in my truck. Shove that bastard commandant into another one. I won’t have them in the same space. Tell Anish to interrogate the son-of-a-bitch.”

“Yes, sir!”

They lifted Aisha while Dinny braced her head, then maneuvered her to the stairs. Kafari turned on her heel and strode back to where Red Wolf was holding six butchers at gunpoint. Kafari stared at the six women for long moments. “How many of you are constitutional scholars?”

The prisoners glanced at one another.

“No one?” Kafari prompted. “All right. Let me acquaint you with the contents of clause twenty-three. ‘Each citizen has the legal duty and moral responsibility to protect Jefferson from all threats, foreign or domestic. Any government official acting in abrogation of this constitution represents a threat to Jefferson’s survival and must not be tolerated. If redress in the courts fails to curb usurpation of power, citizens are authorized and required to remove such officials from office.’ I think that just about says it all, don’t you?”

The six women who had participated in the torture and slaughter of innocent prisoners stared up at her. Realization dawned in their eyes. Kafari allowed them sufficient time to know terror.

“Consider yourselves officially removed.”

She left them sitting on the floor, meeting Red Wolf’s glance on her way past. Kafari was halfway down the stairs when the first shot ripped loose. Screams erupted, high and knife-edged, begging for the mercy they had failed to show their victims.

Five more rapid-fire shots silenced them.

Kafari strode toward her truck, barking out orders. “Do a final sweep and mount up. Give me a by-the-squad headcount in two minutes. I want everyone outside this base in three minutes. Move it!”

Squads reported in. The last members of Alpha and Beta’s fire teams emerged from a final, visual sweep, making sure they’d found all the prisoners. Two minutes and twelve seconds later, they were in their trucks, heading for the holes they’d made in Nineveh’s fences. Not one shot was fired at them. Nineveh’s survivors had no further stomach for it. Once clear, the trucks scattered into the predawn darkness, heading across the Adero floodplain for a host of hiding places she and Anish had worked out. Kafari drove only as far as the nearest Hellbore gunnery crew and halted. She left the engine idling and slid down to greet the crew.

“We’re prepped and ready to go, sir.”

The other two Hellbore crews reported readiness, as well. “Very good,” Kafari said. “On my signal.”

She pulled off her command helmet and strode to the back of the truck, where Aisha Ghimal lay cradled in Dinny’s lap. She climbed up, swung the rear doors closed, then switched on the light. Aisha blinked up at Kafari.

“Honey child,” she whispered, “it was you…”

She dropped to her knees beside the dying woman. “Yes,” she choked out. “It was me.”

Aisha groped for her hand. Kafari took it in a gentle grip, held on with careful strength, hating the glove of her biochem suit, which prevented her from touching her friend’s hand skin-to-skin. “You saved us, once before,” Aisha said, voice labored and weak, worse, even, than it had been in the charnel-house where they’d found her. “Killed off a whole army of Deng, to save us. You got… a different army to kill… this time.”

“Yes,” Kafari said, unable to force anything more past the tight pain in her throat.

“You’ll do it, child. You’ll save us. Ain’t nobody else who can do it. You got the heart for it, child, the heart and the head. And the wisdom.” Her fingers tightened against Kafari’s. Then she moved her head, slightly. “Dinny?” she whispered.

“I’m here, Mama.”

“You watch over Kafari, son. Help her do what’s got to be done.”

“I will,” he swore the vow. “I swear it on Papa’s memory, I will.”

“Love you, Dinny,” she breathed out, the words almost silent. “So proud to be your mama.”

Her eyes didn’t close.

But she wasn’t there, any more.

Dinny started to cry, broken sobs that shook his shoulders with their violence.

Kafari squeezed his shoulder once. Then opened the rear doors, dry-eyed and full of cold hatred. She closed the doors again. Retrieved the starlight scope from the cab of her truck. Moved purposefully to the waiting gunnery crew. Scanned Nineveh Base, which was a smouldering patch of light on the horizon.

“You know what I want,” she said, her words striking the air like bitten-off chunks of steel. She pulled her helmet back on, which shielded her ears. She signaled the other two gun crews and said, “This is Alpha One. Stand by to fire.”

She stood there one moment longer, staring across the intervening darkness, weighing risks and odds and the value of lessons about to be imparted. Then she climbed into her truck, gripped the wheel in both hands, and spoke again. “Now!”

The night turned to fire. Nineveh Base’s motorpool and airfield erupted with volcanic fury. Fuel ignited, burning hot enough to melt steel. The Hellbores spoke again, with tongues of flame, The prison became a funeral pyre, cremating the dead and sending a message POPPA’s leaders would not soon forget. That lesson turned expensive when all three Hellbores snarled simultaneously, striking their final target for the night in perfect unison. Located on the corner of Ninevah Base farthest from the Shantytown, Sonny’s maintenance depot was an immense structure full of high-tech military munitions and sophisticated equipment necessary to repair the Bolo.

It blew apart under Kafari’s guns. Hellbore fire hit the depot again and again, turning it into a white hell of destruction.

The munitions inside detonated. The fireball flattened the home she had shared with Simon. The shockwave slammed into the rest of Nineveh Base like a scythe. Every building on the sprawling base vanished. The blast tore across the Adero floodplain, as well, heading right toward them. It shook Kafari’s truck so hard, glass shattered and they nearly flipped over. The truck rocked onto its rear wheels like bucking stallion, then the cab came down again and they landed with a jarring of bone and a shuddering of springs. Red Wolf recovered his senses first and started slapping broken glass off Kafari’s clothes.

When she could see, again, Nineveh Base was gone.

Just… gone.

“That,” Red Wolf swore eloquently, “was one hell of a boom.”

“That,” Kafari countered savagely, “was just the beginning.”

She gave the signal to scatter. Then put the truck into gear, turned her back on the smouldering ruins, and drove away. They’d won the first battle. The rest of the war was going to get ugly.

I

Movement woke Yalena with a clang and a jolt that made her gasp. It was dark, so dark she couldn’t see anything, and cold enough to hurt her skin, where she was sprawled across something lumpy and cold. “Mom? Are we in the cargo box?”

No one answered. Yalena groped through the darkness, trying to find her mother’s hand. Her seeking fingertips encountered nothing but more of the ice-cold lumps she was lying on. Panic set in. “Mom!”

Her wrist-comm beeped softly.

“Sugarplum?”

“Mom! Where are you?”

“That’s not important. But I do need to tell you something that is. I can’t go with you. There are some things I have to do. Or try, anyway. Tell your father I love him…”

“Mommy! You can’t do this! You have to come with me!”

“I can’t, sweetheart. And we can’t talk like this, on an open comm-line. I love you. Remember that, always, whatever happens. I’ll get a message to someone, to let you out of there, okay?”

“Mommy!” Yalena was groping, blind and terrified, for the side of the cargo box, where the door opened, and discovered there was no way to open it from the inside. Her breath caught in a painful knot. Her mother couldn’t come with her, because there wasn’t a way to latch the door properly from the inside. Somebody had to latch it from outside. She was neatly trapped. Her mother must have realized that all along.

She was also on her way to the space station, with no way out. Yalena started to cry as the box swayed into the air. They tilted and swung around as stevedores transferred the cargo box to a waiting freight shuttle that would take her into orbit. They jolted, slid, clanged to a halt. Then waited. Interminably. Yalena was shivering with cold, miserable and scared. Then a rumble vibrated through the boxes. She finally identified the sound: orbit-capable engines coming on-line.

A moment later, the shuttle lifted ponderously, swinging around with a spin that left her inner ears protesting. Then a giant fist crushed her down against the frozen meat. She couldn’t move, could barely breathe. It went on forever, an agony in every muscle…

The engines cut off and she was abruptly weightless. Spinning nausea bit her throat. She was falling, could feel herself falling. Yalena tried to convince her inner ear that she was just weightless, in orbit, but her inner ear wasn’t having any of it. She threw up, creating a mess that drifted unpleasantly through the narrow space into which her mother had crammed her. Let me down! her body was screaming. That sounded like a very good idea to Yalena. Weight returned for a few seconds as the shuttle punched its engines in a short burst. The pilot was probably jockeying them around to dock with the station.

How much time passed, Yalena didn’t know. There were more bursts from the shuttle’s engines. Then a clanging sound rang through the hull and abruptly Yalena dropped against the frozen meat. They’d made spacedock with the rotating station and the centrifugal spin gave her weight, again. She had no idea where, exactly, she was. Yalena knew that cargo shuttles never off-loaded directly into the freighters. They docked with the station and transferred cargo through Ziva Two, to give inspectors the opportunity to search for contraband.

Would they check Yalena’s box? Her mother didn’t think so and the more Yalena thought about it, the more convinced she became that nobody would open this box to inspect it. With this much contraband going out, the station’s team of inspectors had to be aware of it. And were doubtless well paid in exchange for keeping their mouths shut while the modified boxes flowed through unchallenged.

The cargo box shifted, jolting and bumping its way out of the shuttle’s cargo bay and into the station. Then they started sliding forward at a steady pace, riding on what must’ve been a conveyor belt of some kind while running the gauntlet of “random” inspections. They stopped several times, but nobody opened her box. They bumped their way off the conveyor and moved in a new direction. Another conveyor, Yalena realized. It was a long trip, moving as slowly as they were. At length, they were jolted and tipped and ended up stationary with a clang and a bump.

Unless she were vastly mistaken, she had reached the freighter’s hold.

There were other jarring bumps as more cargo boxes were stuffed in. Yalena started to panic. They were going to bury her at the back of the hold, with so much stacked over and around her, she’d be trapped and die of starvation, or maybe just from the bitter cold. There was a abrupt cessation of sound as the loading stopped. Yalena caught her breath, tried to hear through the muffling walls.

A sudden grating noise assailed her ears. Then a sharp crack sounded as the door to her prison was thrown abruptly open. Light stabbed into the cramped space, blinding her. Someone exclaimed aloud, then hands reached in, pulling her out of the freezing cargo box. She was so cold and so cramped from lying there, she couldn’t stand up. She was picked up and carried. As her eyes adjusted to the light, she realized a man was holding her, a man who looked strangely familiar, although she was fairly certain she’d never seen him, before.

He was staring at her, brows knit in puzzlement. “You don’t know me, do you?”

She shook her head.

“I’m Stefano Soteris, supercargo on The Star of Mali. Your mother,” he added with a slight smile, “is my cousin.”

Yalena’s eyes widened. “You’re her cousin?”

“That I am. And your second cousin. It’s lucky for you that we docked when we did.”

Yalena didn’t know what to say. She hadn’t known her mother’s cousin worked on a Malinese freighter. Then guilt smote her squarely between the eyes. She hadn’t known, because she hadn’t ever shown the slightest interest in her own family. She didn’t even know how many cousins she had, let alone second cousins. Her ignorance was her own fault and no one else’s.

“I’m sorry to be such trouble,” she whispered. “I’ve been nothing but nasty to everybody. Stupid and hideous and now… now people are risking themselves for me… and I’m not worth it…”

Once she started crying, she couldn’t stop. Literally could not stop. Her mother’s cousin picked up speed, striding rapidly through the ship while she sobbed on his shoulder. She heard voices, Stefano’s and a woman’s, then she was lowered to sit on what looked, vaguely, like the edge of somebody’s bed. Stefano’s hard shoulder was replaced by a softer one. Gentle arms came around her, held and rocked her.

“Easy, child, shh…”

When the body-wrenching sobs finally eased away, Yalena realized she was leaning against an older woman with a lot of grey in her short-cropped hair. She was dressed as a spacer, in a close-fitting body sleeve made of something supple. One whole shoulder was soaking wet.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered.

“No need to apologize,” the woman said, peering into her eyes. “You’ve come through several kinds of hell in the last few hours. I’d say you’ve earned a good, long cry. You need a good bit of sleep, as well. Your eyes are burnt out. And here’s the ship’s surgeon.”

The doctor examined her with great care. “I’m giving you a sedative, young lady. A fairly strong one. We’ll do a bit more tomorrow, when you’re feeling up to it. For now, just rest.”

“I’m sorry,” she whispered again, unable to say anything else. He administered the sedative, gently, using a hypo-spray that barely stung at all. They left her alone, then, with nothing further to stand between her and her conscience. Facing herself was almost as bad as facing the Bolo had been. Every selfish, meanspirited, stupid thing she had ever done or said came back to rattle through her mind like swords on a whirligig. How could she ever make amends for the hurt she had caused her mother, over the years?

Even worse was the prospect of facing her father. That was so daunting, Yalena would almost have preferred to jump out of the freighter by the nearest airlock. The memory of sitting in a hospital waiting room, insisting with childish selfishness that she wouldn’t leave Jefferson, when her father was desperately injured and would face a nightmare of rehabilitation alone, left her writhing inside, soul-sick and exhausted.

How could she have demanded her own way at a time when her parents needed one another, desperately? All the laughter had gone out of her mother, that day, and it hadn’t returned in two long years. Yalena whimpered with the excruciating self-knowledge that she had spent those years twisting the knife deeper with every nasty comment, every belittling prejudice, every petty little demand she’d laid down as an ultimatum.

A song from her childhood floated into her mind, a cheerful little song that danced in razor-sharp shoes. Growing oats and peas, barley and beans… farmers who did nothing but dance and sing and suck money away from decent people by charging outrageous prices for plants that grew themselves… A pretty, poisonous lie handed wholesale to a wounded, desperate child. Everything POPPA had said was a lie. The whole fabric of her life was a lie, a stained and tattered ruin that nothing would ever put right, again.

Yet her mother had risked her own life, rescuing Yalena out of that deathtrap. Why? When she had spent her life preferring the company of her friends and the gossip at school over everything and everyone else? And now she didn’t even have those friends. POPPA had killed them. Coldly and without remorse. In that moment, a hatred of POPPA cyrstallized, so deep and so dangerous, it scared her.

I can’t make it up to you, Mom, she whispered as the tears began to come, again. I can’t ever undo that damage. But I can stop being stupid and I can stop hurting people. And maybe one day… Yalena bit her lip and rolled over to bury her face in the pillow. Maybe one day, I can do something that will make you proud of me, instead. Then the weeping broke loose again and she soaked the pillow under her cheek. She was still crying when the sedative pulled her down into gentle oblivion.

II

I limp back toward my depot under a veil of darkness and apparent secrecy. The most noteworthy observation I make en route is the utter lack of civilian presence anywhere along the path I follow. Farmhouses, villages, and the occasional fuel station are vacant, giving every appearance of having been abandoned in a great rush. I conclude that the government has issued orders forcibly evacuating a corridor that allows me to crawl home unobserved.

I am still thirty kilometers from depot when a sudden “Mayday” broadcast originates from Nineveh Base. Someone is screaming incoherently about an attack. I catch the sound of massive explosions, then the broadcast slices off. I monitor government communications and tap the planetary datanet via wireless communications. I cannot access the base’s security system without a land-line connection, however, which leaves me effectively blind. I need to know what is happening at Nineveh Base.

I attempt to contact my mechanic.

He does not respond. He is either so drunk he has passed out or is not in his quarters. Either way, he is useless. I attempt to contact Nineveh Base’s commandant. No one answers. I do not like this state of affairs. I continue to plod northward, unable to speed up without risking further damage to my tracks. Minutes crawl past. At my current rate of speed, it will take thirty hours to reach my depot. I debate the wisdom of contacting Jefferson’s president or even Sar Gremian. I have doubts that either will be inclined to respond.

Sixteen point three minutes after the abortive distress call from Nineveh Base, a massive flash strobes across the northern horizon. A far-off rumble of sound resolves into an explosion of such staggering size, it nearly stops me in my tracks, from sheer shock. I am the only thing on Jefferson capable of creating an explosion on that scale. Unless…

I do not care for the implications.

Not at all.

My entire supply of replacement munitions is on Nineveh Base. Along with all my spare parts and what passes for a mechanic. I pick up speed. Damaged track plates rattle. The burst of light that heralded the explosion has faded to a steady, dull glow that marks a large fire when my final aerial drone, circling the canyons behind me, registers a burst of rifle fire. Nervous P-Squads searching for rebels with stolen munitions shoot straight up. The drone goes off-line.

My personality gestalt center registers dismay and disgust in equal measures. Ninevah Base is under attack and my last drone has just been shot down, a victim of “friendly fire.” Without a drone, I cannot find attackers to launch a remote strike. Even at my increased rate of speed, I cannot reach Nineveh Base in time to do anything about the attack, let alone trace the attackers. The strike force will disappear in its entirety long before I arrive.

Sar Gremian contacts me. “Machine, do you see any sign of rebel gun crews out there?”

“No. Request VSR. What was the cause of the explosion my sensors just registered?”

“Somebody’s shot the shit out of Nineveh Base. Find them.”

“I have sustained damage that precludes—”

“I don’t give a hairy rat’s ass! Find them!”

“I would welcome suggestions as to how I should accomplish this. I am incapable of speed greater than three km per hour. I have no aerial reconnaissance capability left, as the P-Squads searching the canyons behind me have just shot down my last aerial drone. I cannot shoot an enemy I cannot find.”

Sar Gremian’s suggestion is anatomically impossible. I do not possess the kind of orifice into which he suggests I insert an appendage Bolos do not possess, as we do not procreate biologically. His order is therefore invalid and cannot be carried out. When I tell him so, he simply terminates the call. I maintain Battle Reflex Alert and strain my sensors to their greatest range, but catch no sign of any rebel forces.

Clearly the attack against Barran Bluff was carried out specifically to gain access to the heavy weaponry needed to assault Nineveh Base. Anish Balin has proven himself a shrewd and resourceful commander. I speculate that the Hancock Family Cooperative was the target of a substantial rescue operation, with the destruction of the air assault team at Barran Bluff used deliberately as a diversion to draw me away from Nineveh Base. My presence there would have doomed any such rescue, as the commander of the rebellion doubtless knew only too well.

If the seven Hellbores left behind had succeeded in killing me — as they could have done, if their crews had been better trained — the rebellion could have brought POPPA and its ruling regime to its knees in one night. This suggests speed, good military intelligence that is probably the result of a talented computer programmer hacking into the government’s computerized security systems, and a level of organization surprising for a fledgling group that has had neither time nor opportunity to train. An army of civilian soldiers can be formidable, particularly when motivated by a combination of high ideals and righteous wrath.

The Granger population has an ample supply of both.

They have failed to destroy me, however, which dooms them to a long and costly war of attrition. How costly that war will be is brought home to me when I finally reach a line-of-sight distance from my maintenance depot. The eastern sky is turning to flame above the Damisi Mountains, heralding the rising of Jefferson’s sun, when I halt on the floodplain, a full kilometer from the smouldering wreckage.

Nineveh Base no longer exists. Neither does my maintenance depot. Phil Fabrizio’s quarters are entirely gone. So is most of the surrounding shantytown. Thousands have died, here. Battle rage sweeps through my personality gestalt circuitry. There will be retribution for this wanton slaughter. It is one thing to shoot soldiers in combat. It is another to destroy innocent civilians whose main crime was living too close to the backblast of war.

I feel a twinge in my complex logic circuitry, which I suppress. I have no desire to follow the chain of thought that would compare the actions of Granger rebels with my own actions in downtown Madison. I was operating under orders from a lawfully elected president. The Granger rebels have acted in willful defiance of that government, perpetrating an illegal act of war. My duty is clear.

How I will carry out that duty, I do not know. I have tangled with the rebels only once and have sustained serious damage. That damage cannot now be repaired, certainly not in a timely fashion. I hesitate to consider what Sar Gremian will send by way of a replacement mechanic for Phil Fabrizio. There is no point in sitting out here, a kilometer away from the destruction, since Anish Balin’s men have been gone for hours. They have doubtless scattered to hiding places in the Damisi Mountains.

The thought of searching the maze of canyons weathered into those mountains is too daunting to consider. I spoke the truth to Sar Gremian when I told him that I cannot make such a search. Anish Balin doubtless knows this and will capitalize on it, to his advantage and my frustration. As there is no point in continuing to sit where I am, I move cautiously forward. The destruction has been savage and thorough. When I reach the perimeter of my own missing depot, I halt again, literally at a loss as to my next course of action. There are no guards along the base’s perimeter, mostly because there is not enough left to guard. Rescue workers are combing the wreckage of shanties, attempting to find survivors. Or perhaps merely locating bodies for burial, to reduce the contagion likely to spread from unburied remains. I am noticed and pointed at by crews who clearly would prefer to take themselves elsewhere.

I am still sitting there when a civilian groundcar approaches, picking its way carefully through the rubble-strewn streets of the shantytown. My first thought — that POPPA officials have arrived to inspect the damage — is only partially correct. The occupant of the car has, indeed, arrived to survey the damage. But he is not a ranking member of POPPA’s government. Phil Fabrizio climbs out of the groundcar and stares at the bare patch of ground where his quarters once sat.

“Aw, shit, man! They blew it all to goddamned hell!”

I am so startled to see my mechanic alive, it takes me three full seconds to find something to say. “You are alive,” I finally manage, with less-than-scintillating wit. “Why?”

Phil stares up at my warhull. “Huh? Whaddaya mean, ‘why?’ ”

“Why are you alive? More accurately, where were you, as you clearly were not in your quarters at the time of their destruction.”

“Huh,” he snorts, “I wasn’t in ’em, ’cause I ain’t entirely stupid. When the shootin’ started, I skedaddled, just jumped in my car and ran for it. They blew up a buncha buildings, straight off. I didn’t figure it was too healthy to stick around, you know? So I hightailed it over to my sister Maria’s house. We heard the whole place go, right after I got there, like a volcano or somethin’, but there ain’t no news reports on it, nowhere. Not even the chats. So I figured the only way t’ find out was t’ go home and see for myself. Only,” he stared at the spot where his quarters no longer stood, “I got no home left. Goddamn ’em! How’m I s’posed to pay for alla my stuff? You can just bet your flintsteel butt, Sar Gremian ain’t gonna pay for it.”

I sympathize with Phil’s loss, as I find myself in exactly the same predicament. Unlike Phil, however, my losses will force Sar Gremian to act, if he wants me to continue functioning as a mobile interdiction force. Phil is entirely correct in his assessment of Sar Gremian’s reaction. He will not like the size of the price tag.

“What happened to you?” Phil finally asks, noticing for the first time the gaping holes in my track linkages.

“I was shot. I require extensive repair to damaged tracks.”

“But—” He stumbles to a halt, staring in open dismay. “How’d you get shot? I watched the news last night, before all the shooting and shit started here, and they never said nuthin’ about you gettin’ shot.” He frowns. “Come t’think of it, they never said nuthin’ about you bein’ there at all. And you was never in the pictures. Just the explosions, blowin’ up the rebels. I never thought about it, ’cause I knew where you was, an’ all. Why didn’t they show you fightin’ those gun-totin’ land hogs?”

“It is politically expedient for the government to hide the fact that I was required to put down an armed rebellion. It is also in the government’s best interest to hide the fact that the rebels were sufficiently armed and dangerous to inflict heavy damage to me. That damage must be repaired. You will need track plates and durachrome linkages to replace seventeen point three meters of damage in my left-hand track, twenty point five meters in my right-hand track, and eleven point nine-three meters in my central track.”

Phil’s nano-tatt contorts itself into a knotty tangle of black filaments reminding me unpleasantly of Deng infantry. He scowls at the ground, then mutters, “I dunno how t’do that. And even if I did, which I don’t, what am I s’posed to use? Spit balls and elbow grease? I got no tools, let alone parts!”

“Sar Gremian will have to authorize payment for off-world equipment to be shipped in, which will take time. In the interim, you will have to scrounge.”

Phil scratches his ear. “Yeah, but how? And scrounge for what, exactly? We got nothin’ on this whole planet strong as durachrome. Hell, we can’t even make durachrome. What’m I supposed to use? Steel?”

I review technical specs. “Not an optimal metal, but steel linkages should work, if I do not have to face combat against Deng Yavacs. They will have to be replaced after every mission, however. My weight will warp and degrade them over any appreciable distance. I will download technical specifications on metallurgy, casting, and forging requirements for you as reference material when contacting potential vendors. Tolerances must be within specification, as well. I would suggest contacting the Tayari Mining Consortium’s tool-and-die division for assistance.”

“How’n hell I s’posed to do that?”

“Try looking them up on the datanet,” I suggest, with creditable patience. “Your status as this world’s only Bolo mechanic gives you treaty-level clearance to request technical assistance from any on-world resource.”

This elementary piece of advice appears to affect Phil Fabrizio like Divine Writ. “I can? Hey, that’s like fuckin’ fabulous! Yeah, I’ll do that! I’ll download them specs you was talkin’ about — hey, how’m I gonna do that? My computer got blown up.”

“Go back to your sister’s house. When you arrive, call me on your wrist-comm and tell me the identity code for your sister’s datanet account. As the engineering specs for my treads are not classified, I am authorized to download them to an unsecure computer. Clearly, you will also need a new computer.”

He gives me a grin. “Now that, I can scrounge by my own self. Sit tight, Big Guy. I’ll call you.”

He swaggers back to his car, chest puffed out at the prospect of calling Tayari’s executives with a question they must, by treaty obligation, answer. My mechanic is easily delighted. I could learn to envy such a carefree creature, under other conditions.

Phil has been gone for twelve point three minutes when an aircar on approach vector from downtown Madison signals me, using the proper command code to enter my proximity alert zone without triggering a defensive reflex. The aircar circles above the shattered base for three point oh-seven minutes, evidently taking stock of the damage. Two minutes and twelve seconds later, the multi-passenger aircar touches down near my warhull. Sar Gremian emerges. There are eleven high-ranking military officials with him and four other civilians. I brace for trouble.

“Bolo,” Sar Gremian says with an unpleasant tone grating through his voice, “we’ve come to give you a medal. Aren’t you pleased?”

I am not pleased. I am astonished. Of all the things I expected Sar Gremian to say, “we’ve come to give you a medal” is the least-anticipated phrase imaginable. It is a measure of how disheartened I have been, that such a ploy succeeds in pleasing my personality gestalt center’s ruffled logic trains. It is good to be recognized for a job well done, particularly when it has resulted in physical damage to one’s self. The battle for Barran Bluff was particularly savage, in its way, and will have long-lasting consequences.

The president’s senior advisor has brought four general officers with him, along with three colonels and four majors, a surprisingly high number of staff-grade officers in an army that has been dismantled from the ground up. Based on their uniform devices, there are now more command-grade generals than battalions. It is a strange way to run an army.

I recognize the generals and two of the colonels from news broadcasts and meetings I have monitored. I face the officers and Party officials responsible for the creation of propaganda, the seizure of privately held property, the placation and control of urban subsistence recipients, and the conversion of property into currency used to fund POPPA’s social and environmental programs. I do not feel particularly honored by their visit.

General Teon Meinhard gazes up at my turret for several seconds before clearing his throat to speak. “Well, now, we’ve come to give you a medal, y’see. A nice, shiny one. It’ll look good, welded up there with the others. It’s a public service award. The highest we have. We’re here to commend you for the heroic assault you made, defending the public good.”

“That is appreciated, General. It is not easy to destroy seven 10cm mobile Hellbores shooting at you from behind cover.”

The general blinks in evident surprise. “Hellbores? I’m not talking about destroying any Hellbores.” He shoots a suspicious glance at Sar Gremian. “Is that what did this?” He waves one hand at the destruction surrounding us. “Hellbores? Where in blazes did common criminals get their hands on something like that? I didn’t know we even had Hellbores!”

I am appalled by the general’s utter lack of information on the battles that have been waged in the past several hours. A general who remains totally ignorant of the basic facts surrounding the heaviest military engagement since the Deng invasion is not worth his weight in mud. Sar Gremian explains the situation to General Meinhard in openly contemptuous terms, an attitude I suspect is well-earned. The other officers smirk and even the civilians appear to be concealing derisive expressions. I begin to think it would have been no great loss if General Meinhard and the officers with him had been quartered on Nineveh Base, rather than living off post in a wealthy civilian section of Madison, which are the official addresses on record for these officers.

When Sar Gremian completes his brief situation report, I seek clarification. “Why are you giving me a medal, if not for the battle at Barran Bluff? The insurrection at Barran is the first combat I have fought since the Deng invasion. I have not been part of any other engagements that would qualify as an assault in defense of anything.”

“But you have,” General Meinhard protests. “You crushed a riot that killed the president!”

I am struck speechless. Jefferson’s government is giving me a medal of valor for crushing civilians in a riot? A riot that would never have ended in Gifre Zeloc’s death if I had not been ordered to crush protestors in the first place? Or if he had used ordinary common sense, rather than jumping into a mob full of enraged Grangers? I sit in stupefied silence as one of the majors crawls up my warhull, medal and welding torch in hand.

“I’ll put it on this side,” the major says, “so it’ll stand out from all the old ones.”

He welds the new “ribbon hanger” — as military slang has dubbed such things through the centuries — onto my turret. After one hundred fifteen years in service, I finally understand why a medal can be referred to in such dismissive terms. I find myself glad that he has not sullied my other badges of honor by adding this gaudy decoration to the cluster of medals that reflect genuine service to humanity. The major succeeds in welding the thing to the right-hand side of my turret, where it blazes in lurid testimony to folly.

Sar Gremian steps forward while the major is still climbing down and peers critically at the damage to my treads. He frowns. “For once,” he mutters, “you weren’t just pissing and moaning. Those tracks have to be fixed. We can’t afford to have some reporter get a photo of you with that kind of damage visible. I suppose we’ll have to find a replacement for that worthless mechanic of yours, as well.”

“That will not be necessary,” I advise him. “Phil Fabrizio was not in his quarters when they were destroyed. He had left the base to visit his sister. I spoke to him before your aircar arrived.”

Sar Gremian frowned. “Where is he? Never mind that, just call him and tell him to shag his ass out here. He’s going to earn that fancy salary we’ve been paying him.”

“Very well. Message sent.”

The president’s advisor says, “Get some work crews out here, Teon. I want a fence around the Bolo, something solid, that curious reporters can’t photograph that machine through, and put an interdiction on fly-overs until we can rig something to park this thing under. Get ’em out here and started within thirty minutes. Phineas,” he addresses a man whose wrist-comm signal identifies as General Orlége, POPPA’s chief propaganda official, “we’re going to need one hell of a damage-control effort on this mess. We can’t hide the loss of Nineveh Base or even Barran Bluff. It’s got to be explained.”

Phineas Orlége says smoothly, “It’s being handled. I’ve already cleared the basic strategy with Vittori and Nassiona. As expensive as this will be to replace,” he waves one hand at the scorched earth of Nineveh Base, including in his gesture my own damage, “this incident will work powerfully in our favor. By my conservative estimate, the events of the past twenty-five hours — and I include Gifre’s death and the arson in downtown Madison — will move our timetable up by several months, at a bare minimum. By this time tomorrow, we may be as much as a year ahead of schedule, which is fine news, indeed. The masses will not tolerate this kind of brutality and their reaction will give us precisely what we need. I refuse to be discouraged by mere price tags, particularly given the size of the stakes in this fascinating little game.”

Sar Gremian favors him with a cool stare. “Then I will give you the pleasure of presenting the bill to Vittori and Nassiona. Your glib assurances may desert you.”

Phineas Orlége smiles. “I shall look forward to seeing which of us is right.”

I am attempting to decide whether this comment was a threat or challenge when Phil pulls his groundcar to a halt six meters from the group beside my ravaged treads. He climbs out, sees the cluster of uniformed officers, and halts. His nano-tatt flares a deep mustard yellow, while the remainder of his face loses color entirely. The resulting combination is not visually appealing.

“Who are you?” General Meinhard demands.

“That,” Sar Gremian says coldly, “is the Bolo’s mechanic. You’d have known that, if you’d bothered to read the security reports I sent when we hired him.”

Meinhard turns purple and sputters. Sar Gremian ignores him and turns his ill temper onto my technician, speaking with a bite like acid. “What kind of excuse do you have for deserting your duty post in the middle of combat?” He gestures to the empty, burnt-out ruin of my maintenance depot. “Do you have the slightest idea what this equipment was worth? Or the spare parts? You didn’t even try to defend it. You just ran like a scared rabbit and let a pack of terrorists blow it up. I should by God take it out of your pathetic little salary. Better still, I should have you court-martialed and shot for treason!”

Phil’s jaw muscles bunch in sudden anger. His nano-tatt pulses crimson. He thins his lips and glares at the president’s senior advisor, but does not speak. This is perhaps the wisest thing I have ever seen him do.

“Did you hear me, you stupid slopebrow?”

Phil’s jaw juts forward, increasing his resemblance to an angry australopithecine. Quite unexpectedly, I sympathize. I have been on the receiving end of Sar Gremian’s temper. Phil goes up in my estimation even further when he says, “How’s about I set somethin’ straight, Mr. High-and-Mighty Advisor? Court-martial is what’cha do to soldiers, only I ain’t a soldier. I’m the Bolo’s technician. You ought t’ be dancin’ for joy, ’cause it’s a damned good thing I got the hell outta here when the shootin’ started. If I hadn’t a got outta here when I did, you’d be lookin’ for a new mechanic, on top of all the other stuff you gotta pay for.

“So how’s about you stop slingin’ the shit my way an’ get me some goddamn tools and crap t’ fix him with? And maybe while you’re at it, you can get me a computer and some new clothes and a toothbrush, ’cause I just lost every goddamn thing I had in the world, on account a somebody screwed around and let a bunch a land hogs steal weapons they got no business to have. How’s about you do alla that before you come around here pissin’ all over me? You still got a place t’sleep, tonight. I don’t and I ain’t in no mood t’listen to some uppity jackass tellin’ me this is my fault, when anybody with half a brain coulda’ seen it comin’ from ten kilometers away.”

Sar Gremian turns white. “I refuse to be insulted by a vulgar little street rat!”

“Who stuck the hot poker up your ass? You got nuthin’ to bitch about an’ you’re just wastin’ time flappin’ your lips at me, ’stead a doin’ your job. You don’t like hearin’ it? You c’n always get out th’ same way you got in.” He jerks his head toward the aircar. “Hey, Sonny, you want I should throw the bum out?”

I begin to like Phil Fabrizio. He is illiterate, although possibly less stupid than I gave him credit for, but he is tough as nails and apparently cannot be intimidated by anyone or anything. Including me, for that matter. These qualities would have made him a fine technician, if he had actually known anything. Perhaps there is hope for remedial training?

“That will not be necessary,” I tell him. “But thank you for offering,” I add with all sincerity. “This does not, however, address the immediate and critical problem of obtaining sufficient spare parts to repair the damage. I am likely to need repairs again in the near future, as we still face a situation wherein insurrectionists have seized high-tech weaponry and demonstrated that they know how to use it. There are three missing mobile Hellbores and hundreds of octocellulose bombs, hyper-v missiles, and small arms that will doubtless be used at first opportunity. Given the circumstances, it is imperative that I regain mobility as quickly as possible. I find it difficult to believe that Anish Balin and his followers will show greater leniency to POPPA Party officials in elected or appointed office than they showed the federal troops at Barran Bluff or the P-Squadron personnel on Nineveh Base.”

My analysis of the situation brings a moment of chilled silence.

“Gentlemen,” Sar Gremian says in an icy tone, “I suggest we return to Madison. Now.”

They depart, rapidly, leaving Phil to stare after them. When their aircar has gained sufficient airspace for horizontal flight, Phil mutters, “They shouldn’t a’been so upper-class snooty. First of all, it ain’t right. Second of all, it ain’t what POPPA is all about.”

I do not respond, as my view of POPPA is at variance with his.

Phil, apparently in all innocence, glances up at my warhull and asks, “What do you think?”

I have been asked a question, allowing me to respond, rather than simply listen to complaints. “POPPA is composed of two tiers. The lower tier produces many outspoken members who make their demands known to the upper tier. The lower tier is derived from the inner-city population that serves as the base of the party. The lower tier’s members are generally educated in public school systems and if they aspire to advanced training, they are educated in facilities provided by the state. This wing constitutes the majority of POPPA’s membership, but contributes little or nothing to party theory or platform. It votes the party line and is rewarded with cash payments, subsidized housing, subsidized education, and occasionally preferential employment in government positions such as you hold, as my mechanic. The lower tier produces only a handful of clearly token individuals allowed to serve in high offices.

“The upper tier, which includes most of the party’s management, virtually all the appointed and elected government officials, and all of the party’s decision-makers, is drawn exclusively from suburban areas where wealth is a fundamental criterion for admittance as a resident. These POPPA party members are generally educated at private schools and attend private colleges, many of them on Vishnu. They are not affected by food-rationing schemes, income caps, or taxation laws, as the legislation drafted and passed by members of their social group inevitably contains loopholes that effectively shelter their income and render them immune from unpleasant statutes that restrict the lives of lower-tier party members and all nonparty citizens.

“POPPA’s leadership recognizes that in return for supporting a seemingly populist agenda, they can obtain all the votes they require to remain in power. Even the most cursory analysis of their actions and attitudes, however, indicates that they are not populists but, in fact, are strong antipopulists who actively despise their voting base. This is not merely demonstrated by such confrontations as you have just enjoyed with Sar Gremian, it is proven by their efforts to reduce public educational systems to a level most grade-school children on other worlds have surpassed, with the excuse that this curriculum is all that the students can handle. They have made the inner-city population base totally dependent on the government, which they control.

“Their current actions are repressive and heavy-handed. Last year’s abolishment of the presidential election commission is a case in point. It was passed in clear violation of this world’s constitution, but has not been stricken down as unconstitutional. Until that legislation passed, POPPA was required to placate those elements of the party uncomfortable with an extremist agenda. That restraint no longer exists, paving the way for POPPA’s leadership to be as extremist as they wish. Given events of the last two days, I predict a harsh response that will clarify POPPA’s deeper agenda for everyone to see.”

“But—” Phil sputters. “But that’s not what the party’s about! Not at all! POPPA loves the people! And I can prove it! POPPA takes money from all them rich farmers and gives it to the poor. And if that law was unconstitutional, then how come the High Court ain’t done anything about it?”

“The High Court has been drawn, with the exception of a single individual, from the upper tier of POPPA leadership. I am fully aware that you have had no real historical training, but I can list fifteen cases from the last two years, alone, where high courts rendered purely political judgements that had nothing to do with justice and everything to do with political expediency. Your comment about the party’s intent only shows the logical fallacy of their statements. They say they want to help ‘the people,’ but their efforts have succeeded in lowering overall living conditions, reducing educational standards, and sharply curtailing individual freedom.

“As to the ‘rich farmers,’ the agricultural producers remaining on Jefferson live on fifteen point seven-three percent less money than the poorest of the urban subsidy recipients. Yet they work sixty and seventy hours a week at hard physical labor and they endure a standard of living three times lower than conditions in Port Town’s worst slums. There are no ‘rich farmers’ anywhere on Jefferson.

“There is a phrase from a major Terran religious text that is appropriate to this situation: ‘By their fruits shall you know them.’ POPPA has only one demonstrated attitude — contempt — and one demonstrable goal — total power. POPPA’s ruling echelon has very nearly achieved that goal, which will give party officials an open field in which to demonstrate its utter contempt of those it holds powerless. Jefferson is on the brink of political and economic disaster.”

Phil stares, openmouthed. Then he says, “If you really believe alla that, how come you obey their orders? Especially the unconstitutional ones?”

“My controlling authority rests solely with the president and is not governed by the constitution. My mission parameters were defined by Sector Command. I take advisement only from the president. As long as presidential orders do not exceed my parameters for ‘excessive collateral damage’ or conflict with my primary mission, I am under the president’s orders for rules of engagement.”

Phil blinks several times. Finally manages to squeak, “You mean you’re the president’s personal Bolo?”

“In effect, yes.”

“And you do whatever the president orders?”

“Yes. Unless it violates my mission or involves excessive collateral damage.”

“What’s, uh, ‘excessive collateral damage?’ ”

“There is an algorithm that determines the relative target worth versus the likelihood of collateral damage. One example is using a nuclear weapon to destroy a city from which I am taking ineffective fire. I cannot fire nuclear weapons at a city unless there is effective fire directed at my position.”

“What if the fire is effective? Like, damaging your track.”

“Then I can fire at will, as I did in combat against Anish Balin’s forces. In that engagement, no civilians lost their lives. Had that battle occurred in a city, rather than a military outpost, there would have been civilian deaths. It is unfortunate and I do my best to avoid this, but collateral damage happens. I am not proud of having crushed to death civilians in my attempt to reach Gifre Zeloc. Given the parameters of that engagement, with the constraints of not being able to fire my main weapons systems, I killed as few as possible while carrying out the immediate mission.”

Phil does not speak. His jaw muscles clench. I detect an expression in his eyes that I have not seen there, before. Then he turns on his heel and stalks over to his groundcar. He slams the door and drives away, moving in a rapid and reckless manner. I am alone again.

I do not like that feeling.

III

Three days later, Simon received an incoming call from The Star of Mali. Simon hadn’t seen his wife’s cousin since the wedding, but he knew Stefano Soteris at once.

“Colonel Khrustinov?” Stefano asked, brow furrowed as he stared uncertainly into Simon’s ravaged face.

“Hello, Stefano. Sorry about the alterations to my face. I didn’t have much of one left, after the aircrash. The surgeons did a damned fine job, sculpting a new one.”

“I’m so sorry, Colonel—”

“Simon,” he said gently.

“Yes, sir,” Kafari’s cousin said, working to control his shock. “Very well, sir. We’ve just docked at Bombay Station. Can you meet us at eleven hundred hours, Gate Seventeen?”

“I’ll be there.”

Stefano just nodded and ended the transmission. Simon stepped through the shower, then dragged on a good dress shirt and slacks, even a jacket. He looked bad enough, as it was. He didn’t need to compound it with sloppy clothes, particularly not today, when he’d be meeting Yalena. He hadn’t seen his daughter in two years. He wouldn’t know her and she wouldn’t know him. They’d never really known one another at all. Trying to adjust to one another’s company, particularly since Yalena did not see eye-to-eye with him, was going to be difficult for both of them.

He had to move slowly, even with the servo-motors of his leg braces, which allowed him to walk faster than he could with only the crutch canes. Time was, he’d feared that he would never walk again. It had taken two years of on-going treatments and hard work just to get this far. He wanted to call Sheila Brisbane and ask her to go with him, but decided against it. Yalena had enough to adjust to, without throwing in the company of a woman whose presence could be misconstrued as evidence of an affair.

No, he wouldn’t do that to Yalena or himself. Or Captain Brisbane.

By the time he reached the spaceport and parked his groundcar, he had a serious case of jitters. He didn’t know which was worse: dreading the reunion with his daughter — and the lie he must tell her, about Kafari — or the difficulties he would face during Yalena’s adjustment, which would be tough on them both. He stopped at a small gift shop and bought a bouquet of flowers, following the old Russian custom handed down through his family generation after generation. The Khrustinovs who’d left Terra had carried that tradition from one star system to another as they spread out and made homes for themselves on distant, scattered worlds.

He hoped the custom would earn a smile, at least. He wanted to see a smile, even a half smile, on his daughter’s face before he told her about her mother’s death. He reached Gate Seventeen with scant minutes to spare. He had barely settled into a chair when the shuttle landed, sliding gracefully into the docking bay he could see through the tall glass windows. The engines cut off. Simon rose to his feet, clutching the flowers in one hand, and waited, not quite sure what to expect.

Then he caught sight of her. The teen-aged girl who stepped off the Star of Mali’s shuttle was no longer a child. She looked up at him through eyes that had seen too much horror. He knew that look, had seen it in the eyes of soldiers fresh from combat, had faced it in his bathroom mirror all too many times since Etaine.

Yalena had grown, during the past two years. Tall and willowy, she had her mother’s face, something he’d never noticed before. Her footsteps slowed when she saw him. The look in her eyes hurt. He moved forward to greet her, holding out the flowers. She took them, not even speaking, and buried her nose in their fragrance.

“Mom wouldn’t come,” she whispered, the words muffled against the flower petals.

“I know,” Simon told her, dreading what he was about to do. He had to force himself to say it. “I received a SWIFT transmission. Before you got here.”

“From Mom?” Her voice wavered.

“No,” he lied. “Your mother… didn’t make it. She was shot by a P-Squad dragoon, trying to slip out of the spaceport. They’re shooting looters on sight and they don’t bother to ask for credentials first.” That last part was true, at least. They were shooting looters on sight.

Blood drained from her face so fast, she swayed. “No…”

He tried to steady her. She jerked away, rigid. “It’s my fault!” she cried. “Mine! She came into town just to get me out. We walked all night through the sewers. She put me in that cargo box to save my life! And some stinking P-Squad—” She dissolved into hysterical weeping. Simon caught her, held her close. The sound of her grief, knife-edged and raw, made him want to take the words back, to reassure her. But he couldn’t — just couldn’t — trust her yet.

Not when she had spent her whole life believing in POPPA.

Simon wrapped an arm very gently around his distraught daughter and guided her out of the terminal. She said nothing as they climbed into his ground car. She said nothing as he drove them home. From what he could tell, she wasn’t even paying attention to the city. They were nearly to the apartment before she broke her long silence.

“Daddy?” Her voice was a mere whisper.

“Yes?”

“I’m sorry. I don’t expect you to believe that. I wouldn’t, if I were you. But I am.” A single tear rolled down her cheek. “And I’ll try to prove it.”

He reached across and squeezed her hand. “I love you, Yalena.”

Another tear appeared, trembled on the edge for a moment, then slid down her face. “I don’t know why.”

“Try to take it on faith for a bit.”

She nodded. “Okay.” Then she touched the flowers she still carried. “These are beautiful.”

“I’m glad you like them.” He managed a smile. “It’s an old custom, from Terra. A Russian custom. Always greet people you love with flowers, when they’ve been gone for a long time.”

Droplets that were not rain fell onto the petals in her lap. “I don’t know anything about Russia. I don’t know much about anything else, either,” she added bitterly. “On the Star of Mali, I tried to use some of the library files, but I couldn’t make sense of them. I didn’t know enough to make sense of them. I kept having to stop and look things up, until I got totally lost, trying to find meanings for the things that would tell me what something else meant. I never got all the way though any of them. And I tried, really hard. I hate POPPA!” she added with a savage sob in her voice.

“It’s going to be rough, I know that,” Simon said gently. “But you’ll have help. I’ve nothing better to do with my time, for one thing. And Vishnu’s school system has set up special classes for refugees coming in from Jefferson. The principal told me about the program yesterday, when I made arrangements for you to start classes next week. It will take hard work, a lot of it. But you can do it. Try to have faith in that, too.”

“Okay,” she whispered again.

She said very little for the rest of the day and went to bed very early, pleading exhaustion. Simon closed her bedroom door softly, wishing she were little enough to rock to sleep, and made his way into his own room. He had his daughter back. A piece of her, anyway. He was grateful for that much. But he could not stop thinking about Kafari and the war she planned to wage. She was getting ready to fight a dangerous enemy and he wasn’t thinking about POPPA. He was thinking about the machine he had once called friend. If Sonny killed Kafari…

Then Simon would kill Sonny.

It was as simple — and serious — as that.