CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

A cratered battle steel moon drifted where its drives had failed, power flickering. One entire face of its hull was slagged-down ruin, burned nine hundred kilometers deep through bulkhead after bulkhead by the inconceivable violence of a sister's death. Two thirds of her crew were dead; a quarter of those who lived would die, even with Imperial medical science, from massive radiation poisoning.

Her name was Emperor Herdan, and her handful of remaining weapons were ready as her survivors fought her damage. It was a hopeless task, but they knew all about hopeless tasks.

"Ma'am, I've got something closing from oh-seven-two level, one-four-zero vertical," Fleet Commander Oliver Weinstein said, and Lady Adrienne Robbins looked at him silently. A moment of tension quivered between them, then Weinstein seemed to sag. "We've lost most of our scan resolution, ma'am, but I think they're coming in on gravitonics."

"Thank you, Ollie," Adrienne said softly. And thank You, Jesus.

Four battered worldlets closed upon their wounded sister. None were unhurt, and craters gaped black and sullen in the interstellar gloom. Five ships made rendezvous: the last survivors of the Imperial Guard.

"'Tis Emperor Herdan in sooth," Jiltanith said wearily. She closed her eyes, and Colin squeezed her hand as once she had squeezed his. He could taste her pain, and her shame at knowing that her heart of hearts had hoped that Two had been mistaken, that Herdan had died instead of Birhat.

"Yes," he said softly. He would miss Tamman . . . and somehow he must tell Amanda. But he would miss them all. All of his unmanned ships and nine of his crewed units were gone. Fifty-four thousand people. And Dahak. . . . 

His mind shied away from his losses. He wouldn't think of them now. Not until horror had died to something he could handle and guilt had become sorrow.

"Who's least hurt?" he asked finally.

"Needst ask?" Jiltanith managed a pallid smile. "Who but Heka? Didst give Hector a charmed ship, my love."

"Guess I did, at that," Colin sighed. He activated a com link, and his holo-image appeared on MacMahan's bridge.

"Hector, go back and pick up the colliers, would you? And I want Fabricator straight out here."

"Of course, Your Majesty." MacMahan saluted, and Colin shivered, for he had spoken the title seriously.

"Thank you," he said quietly, returning the salute, then turned to study Two's display. Not a single Achuultani vessel remained in normal space within the prodigious range of Two's scanners. Less than a thousand of them had survived, and the tale of horror they would bear home would shake their Nest to its roots.

"Looks like we're clear, 'Tanni. I think we can stand down from battle stations now."

"Aye," Jiltanith said, and Colin could almost feel the physical shudder of relief quivering through the survivors of her crew. He slumped in his own couch. Only for a moment. Just long enough to gather himself before—

The display died. The command deck went utterly black.

"Emergency," Two's soprano voice said suddenly. "Emergency. Fatal core program failure. Fatal c—"

The voice chopped off, and Colin's head jerked in agony. He yanked his neural feed out of the sudden chaos raging through Comp Cent and stared at Jiltanith in horror as emergency lighting flared up.

"Fire control on manual only!" someone reported.

"Plotting on manual!" another voice snapped, and the reports rolled in as every system in the ship went to emergency backup.

"Jesu!" Jiltanith gasped. "What—?!"

And then the display flicked back to life, the emergency lighting switched itself off, and the backups quietly shut themselves down once more.

Colin sat stock still, hardly daring to breathe. Somehow, the restoration of function was more frightening than its failure, and the same strange paralysis gripped Jiltanith's entire bridge crew. They could only stare at their captain, and she could only stare at her husband.

"Colin?"

Colin jerked again as Two's soprano voice spoke without cuing. And then his eyes glazed, for the computer had used his name. His name, not 'Tanni's!

"Yes?"

"Colin," Two said again, and a shudder rippled down Colin's spine as the soprano voice began to shift and flow. Tone and timbre oscillated weirdly as Comp Cent's vocoder settings changed.

"Senior Fleet Captain Chernikov," Two said, voice deepening steadily, "was correct. It seems I do have a soul."

"Dahak!" Colin gasped as Jiltanith rose from her own couch, sliding her arms around his shoulders from behind. "My God, it is you! It is!"

"A somewhat redundant but essentially correct observation," a familiar voice said, but Colin knew it too well. It couldn't hide its own deep emotion from him.

"B-But how?" he whispered. "I saw you blow up!"

"Colin," Dahak said chidingly, "when speaking, I have always attempted to clearly differentiate between my own persona and the starship within which that persona is—or was—housed."

"Damn it!" Colin was half-laughing and half-weeping as he shook a fist at his console. "Don't play games with me now! How did you do it?!"

"I told you some time ago that I had resolved the fundamental differences between my design and the Empire's computers, Colin. I also informed you that I estimated an eight percent probability of success in replicating my own core programming, which might or might not create self-awareness in another computer. During the last moments of Dahak's existence, I was in fold-space communication with Two, whose computer already contained virtually my entire memory as a result of our earlier attempts to 'awaken' her. I dared not attempt replication at that moment, however, as any degradation of her capabilities would have resulted in her destruction. Instead, I stored my core programming and more recently acquired data base in an unused portion of her memory with a command to over-write it onto her own as soon as she reverted from battle stations."

"You bootstrapped yourself into Two!"

"Precisely," Dahak said with all of his customary imperturbability.

"You sneaky bastard! Oh, you sneaky, sneaky bastard! See if I ever talk to you again!"

"Hush, Colin!" Jiltanith clamped a hand over his mouth, and tears sparkled on her lashes as she smiled at the console before them. "Heed him not, my jo. Doubt not that he doth rejoice to hear thy voice once more e'en as I. Bravely done, oh, bravely, my Dahak!"

"Thank you," Dahak said. "I would not express it precisely in that fashion, but I must admit it was a . . . novel experience. And not," he added primly, "one I am eager to undergo again."

The silver ripple of Jiltanith's laughter was lost in the bray of Colin's delight, and then the entire bridge erupted in cheers.

"And that's that," Colin MacIntyre said, leaning back in his chaise lounge with a sigh.

He and Horus sat on the patio of what had once been his brother's small, neat house in the crisp Colorado night. The endless rains from the Siege had passed, though the chill approach of a far colder winter had frosted the ground with snow, but they were Imperials. The cold bothered them not at all, and this night was too beautiful to waste indoors.

Bright, icy stars winked overhead, no longer omens of devastation, and the Moon had returned. Brighter and somewhat larger than before, spotted with the dark blurs and shadows of craters yet to be repaired, but there. Mankind's ancient guardian floated in Mankind's night sky once more, more powerful even than of old.

"That statement is not quite correct," that guardian said now. "You have won the first campaign; the war is far from over."

"Dahak's right," Horus said, turning his wise old eyes to his son-in-law. "I'm an old man, even by Imperial standards. I won't live to see it end, but you and 'Tanni will."

"Aye, Your Grace, we shall." Jiltanith emerged into the frosty moonlight with her silent, cat-like stride and paused to kiss the Planetary Duke of Terra, then sat beside Colin. He squirmed sideways on the lounger, drawing her down so that her head rested on his shoulder.

"If we do," he said quietly to Horus, "it'll be because of you. Because of all of us, I suppose, but especially because of you. And Dahak."

"We both thank you." Horus smiled lazily. "And I, at least, have my reward—they're upstairs in their beds. But what of you, Dahak?"

"I, too, have my reward. I am here, with my friends, and I look forward to a long association with humanity—or perhaps I should say a longer association. You are not very logical beings, but I have learned a great deal from you. I look forward to learning more."

"And we to learning more of thee, my Dahak," Jiltanith said.

"Thank you. Yet we have wandered somewhat afield from my original observation. The war remains to be won."

"True," Colin agreed, "but the Nest—or its computer—doesn't know that yet. None of the ships with souped up hyper drives got away, either, so he won't know for another few centuries. Tao-ling and Mother already have Birhat's industrial plant almost completely back on line, more ships are coming in, Vlad and Fabricator are off on their first salvage mission, and we've got at least two perfectly habitable planets to grow people on. We may still find more, too—surely the plague didn't get all of them. By the time Mister Tin God figures out we're coming, we'll be ready to scrap his ass."

"Aye. And 'tis well to know we need not slay all the Aku'Ultan so to do."

Colin hugged Jiltanith tightly, for there had been no doubt in her voice. She would never be quick to forgive, but horror and pity for what had been done to the Achuultani had purged away her hate for them.

And she was right, he thought, recalling his last meeting with Brashieel. The centaur had greeted him not with a Protector's salute but with a human handclasp, and his strange, slit-pupilled eyes had met Colin's squarely. Many of the other captives had died or retreated into catatonia rather than accept the truth; Brashieel was tougher than that. Indeed, he was an extraordinary individual in every respect, emerging as the true leader of the POWs—or liberated slaves, depending on how one looked at them—despite his junior rank.

They had talked for several hours, accompanied by Hector MacMahan, Ninhursag, and the individual who had proved Earth's finest ambassador to the Aku'Ultan—Tinker Bell. The big, happy dog loved Achuultani. Something about their scent brought cheerful little grumbles of pleasure from her, and they were big and strong enough to frisk with to her heart's content. Best of all, from her uncomplicated viewpoint, the Achuultani had never seen anything remotely like her, and they were spoiling her absolutely rotten.

Brashieel had settled comfortably on his folded legs, rubbing Tinker Bell's ears, but his crest had lowered in rage more than once as they spoke. He, at least, understood what had happened to his people, and his hatred for the computer which had enslaved him was a fire in his soul. It was odd, Colin reflected, that the bitter warfare between Man and Achuultani should end this way, with the steady emergence of an alliance of Man and Achuultani against the computer which had victimized them both, all made possible only because another computer had risked its own existence to free them both.

And even if they were forced to destroy the Achuultani planets—a fate he prayed they could avoid—there would still be Aku'Ultan. Aided by the data Dahak had recovered from Deathdealer, Cohanna and Isis were slowly but steadily unlocking the puzzle of their genetic structure. At worst, they would be able to clone their prisoners within the next few decades; at best, Cohanna believed she could produce the first free Aku'Ultan females the universe had seen in seventy-three million years.

He grinned at the thought. It might be odd to find himself thinking of Achuultani allies, but not as "odd" as some of the things Brashieel and his fellows might have to get used to. The centaurs were still baffled by the very notion of two sexes. If Cohanna succeeded, Brashieel might find learning to live without a computer running his life the least of his problems. His grin grew broad enough to crack his face at the thought.

"What doth amuse thee so, my love?" his wife demanded, and he burst out laughing.

"Only life's little surprises, 'Tanni," he said, hugging her tight and kissing her. "Only life."