Chapter Six

It wasn't a large room, but it seemed huge to Sean MacIntyre as he stood waiting at the foot of the narrow bed, and his anxious eyes swept it again and again, scanning every surface for the tiniest trace of dust.

Sean had spent all his seventeen and a half years knowing he was Academy-bound, yet despite the vantage point his lofty birth should have given him, he hadn't really understood what that meant. Now he knew . . .  and his worst nightmares had fallen far short of the reality.

He was a "plebe," the lowest form of military life and the legitimate prey of any higher member of the food chain. He remembered dinner conversations in which Adrienne Robbins had assured his father she'd eliminated most of the hazing the Emperor had recalled from his own days at the US Navy's academy. Sean would never dream of disputing her word, of course, but it seemed unlikely to him that she could have eliminated very much of it after all.

Intellectually, he understood a plebe's unenviable lot was a necessary part of teaching future officers to function under pressure and knew it wasn't personal—or not, at least, for most people. All of which made no difference to his sweaty palms as he awaited quarters inspection, for this was a subject upon which his intellect and the rest of him were hardly on speaking terms. He'd embarrassed Mid/4 Malinovsky, his divisional officer, before her peers. The fact that he'd embarrassed himself even worse cut no ice with her, and understanding why she'd set her flinty little heart on making his life a living hell was no help at all.

He'd felt, to use one of his father's favorite deflating phrases, as proud as a peacock as he stood in the front rank of the newest Academy class, awaiting the Commandant's first inspection. Every detail of his appearance had been perfect—God knew he'd worked hard enough to make it so!—and he'd been excited and happy despite the butterflies in his midsection. And because he'd felt and been all those things, he'd done an incredibly stupid thing.

He'd smiled at Admiral Robbins. Worse, he'd forgotten to stare straight before him as she inspected the ranks. He'd actually turned his head to meet her eyes and grinned at her!

Lady Nergal hadn't said a word, but her brown eyes had held no trace of "Aunt Adrienne's" twinkle. Their temperature had hovered somewhere a bit below that of liquid helium as they considered him like some particularly repulsive amoeba, and the parade ground's silence had been . . . profound.

It only lasted a century or so, and then his eyes whipped back to their appointed position, his ramrod-straight spine turned straighter still, and his smile vanished. But the damage had been done, and Christina Malinovsky intended to make him pay.

The click of a heel warned him, and he snapped to rigid attention, thumbs against his trouser seams, as Mid/4 Malinovsky entered his quarters.

There were no domestic robots at the Academy. Some of the Fleet and Marine officers had pointed out that their own pre-Imperial military academies had provided their midshipmen and cadets with servants in order to free them from domestic concerns and let them concentrate on their studies. Admiral Robbins, however, was a product of the US military tradition. She was a great believer in the virtues of sweat, and no one had quite had the nerve to argue with her when she began designing the Academy's syllabus and traditions. The fact that His Imperial Majesty Colin I sprang from the same tradition as Admiral Robbins may also have had a little something to do with that, but the mechanics behind the decision meant little to the plebes faced with its consequences, and Sean had labored manfully against this dreadful moment. Now he stood silent, buttons gleaming like tiny suns, boots so brightly polished it was difficult to tell they were black, and used the full enhancement he'd finally received to keep from sweating bullets.

Mid/4 Malinovsky prowled around the room, running white-gloved fingers over shelves and dresser top, regarding her stony face in the lavatory mirror as she checked his tooth glass for water spots. She opened his locker to examine its contents and his tiny closet to check the hangered garments and study the polish of his second pair of boots. Her perfectly turned out exec stood in the door, traditional clipboard tucked under his arm, watching her, and Sean could almost feel the sadistic glee with which he waited to inscribe Mid/1 MacIntyre's name on his gig list. But Malinovsky said nothing, and Sean fought down a sense of relief and reminded himself she wasn't done yet.

She straightened and closed the closet, looked about the room one more time, and crossed to his bed. She stopped where he could see her—not, he was certain, by accident—and reached into her pocket. She took her time, making an elaborate ritual of it, as she withdrew a shiny disk Sean recognized after a moment as an antique U.S. silver dollar. She balanced it consideringly on her crooked index finger and thumb, then flipped it.

The coin flashed through the air, then arced down to land precisely in the center of the bunk . . . and lie there.

Malinovsky's gray eyes glittered as it failed to bounce, and Sean's heart fell. He kept his face impassive—with an effort—as she reclaimed the coin and weighed it in her palm a moment before pocketing it once more. Then she reached down, gripped the blanket and sheets, and stripped the mattress bare with a single jerk.

She turned on her heel, and her exec's stylus was poised.

"Five demerits," she said flatly, and stalked away.

Colin MacIntyre looked around the gleaming conference table at the members of his Imperial Council. Two of them were absent, for Lawrence Jefferson had been called in as a last-minute substitute for Horus, and Life Councilor Geb, the Minister of Reconstruction was seldom on Birhat. For the most part, that was because he spent his time following close on the heels of Survey Command, but Geb was also the last surviving citizen of the original Birhat, and the monumental changes his home world had suffered hurt.

That was one reason Colin had recalled Vlad Chernikov from his post as Geb's assistant. Tsien and Horus had needed an engineer on Birhat, so Colin had created the Ministry of Engineering and Vlad had agreed to accept it. Now the blond, blue-eyed ex-cosmonaut finished his summary of the Bia System's ongoing civilian projects, and Colin nodded approval.

"Sounds like you're on top of things, Vlad . . . as usual." Vlad smiled, and Colin smiled back. "Having said that, how's Earth's shield coming?"

"Quite well," Vlad said. "The only real problem is the task's simple magnitude. We have emplaced forty percent of the primary generators and work is beginning on the subordinate stations. I fear the asteroid belt has all but vanished, but the Centauris freighters are keeping pace."

Colin nodded. Spaceborne Imperial "smelters" could render almost any material down to its basic elements to synthesize the composites and alloys Imperial industry needed, like the battle steel which formed Battle Fleet's planetoids, but even Imperial synthetics required some starting point. The raw materials to build things the size of Mother or Dahak had to come from somewhere, and the huge freighters of the Imperium's "mining expeditions" could—and did—transport the rubble of entire planets to the fabrication centers. The Centauris System, unfortunately for it, was conveniently close to Sol, and its original eleven planets had already been reduced to nine. Soon there would be only eight as gravitonic warheads blew yet another to splinters to feed the insatiable appetite of Earth's orbital shipyards.

"In the meantime, Baltan and Dahak have completed plans for Stepmother." Several councilors' eyes narrowed with interest. "We have yet to fully explore Mother's memory, but we are confident we have extracted all the essential programs for her Battle Fleet and constitutional functions. Stepmother's final core programming parameters remain flexible, however, as it seems probable additions will be required as our studies here in Bia continue. Of course, the entire project will require many years, but Horus, Tao-ling and I intend to initiate construction within three months."

"And thank God we're finally ready," Colin said. "Dahak, you and Baltan have my sincere thanks for your efforts."

"You are, of course, welcome, Sire," Dahak replied, on his best formal behavior for the meeting. "I feel certain I speak for Admiral Baltan as well as for myself."

"Well, remind me to thank him in person the next time I see him." Colin turned back to Vlad. "And the new planetoids?"

"Those are much further advanced, despite the usual unforeseen delays. Imperial Terra should commission within four years."

"Any problems with the computers, Vlad?" Gerald Hatcher asked.

"I'll take that, if I may, Colin," Sir Frederick Amesbury said. The wiry Englishman, one of Hatcher's fellow chiefs of staff during the Siege, had become Minister of Cybernetics, and Colin nodded for him to go on.

"The pilot computers have been up and running for over two years, Ger," Amesbury said, "and Dahak's original figures have been spot on. Incorporating that Achuultani logic circuit into our energy-state designs has raised the speed of operations another five percent, and we've included more responsiveness to nonspecific prompts in the software. They aren't self-aware, of course, but they have about thirty percent more autonomous decision-making capability. I believe you'll be quite pleased with the results."

"Excuse me, Sir Frederick," it was Lawrence Jefferson, "but that's something I'm still not quite clear on. I can see why we wouldn't want Mother or Stepmother to be self-aware, but why don't we want our warships that way? If we had more ships like Dahak, wouldn't we have a far more effective fleet?"

"Yes and no," Amesbury said. "The ships would certainly be more efficient, but they'd also be far more dangerous."

"Why?"

"If I may, Sir Frederick?" Dahak said, and Amesbury nodded. "The problem, Lieutenant Governor, is that such ships would be too powerful for our own safety. As you know, the Fourth Imperium was incapable of building fully self-aware computers at the time of my construction. My own awareness evolved accidentally during fifty-one thousand years of unsupervised operation, and even now, we have not fully determined the reasons for this.

"The Fourth Empire, however, was so capable yet chose not to utilize that capacity for reasons which, upon consideration, particularly in light of facts we have discovered but which the Empire could not have known, seem entirely valid. Consider: there is no proof cybernetic intelligences are immune to 'insanity,' and the Achuultani computer is ample proof not all are immune to ambition. Should an Asgerd-class planetoid go 'insane,' it could do incalculable damage. Indeed, true prudence might suggest that I myself should be transferred from my present hull to some less dangerous location."

"Dahak," Colin sighed, "we are not going to argue about that again! I'll accept your argument against creating any more self-aware computers, but you've certainly proven yourself to us!"

"Besides," Vlad said dryly, "why should the possibility that you might go crazy disturb us when we have an Emperor who has done so already?"

A chuckle ran around the table, but Colin didn't share it. His mind was already moving on to the next point, and he glanced at his Minister of Biosciences with a pang of sorrow. In many ways, Isis would have made a better councilor than Cohanna . . . if not for her age. She had far better "people sense," but Colin was unhappily certain Project Genesis was going to be not simply the crowning achievement of Isis Tudor's life but its last.

"All right, I believe that covers just about everything," he said quietly, "but before we close, Cohanna has something to report. 'Hanna?"

Cohanna looked down at her hands with uncharacteristic sadness for a moment, then cleared her throat.

"I wish Isis were here to tell you this herself, but she wasn't up to the trip. However—" she raised her eyes "—I'm pleased to announce that the first free Narhani female in seventy-eight million years was born at oh-two-thirty-four Greenwich time this morning." A soft sound of surprise ran around the table, and Cohanna smiled mistily. "Isis was there, and she's named the child 'Eve.' So far as we can tell, she's absolutely healthy."

Gerald Hatcher's quiet voice broke the long, still silence.

"I never really believed you could do it, 'Hanna."

"I didn't." Cohanna's voice was very soft. "Isis did."

There was another moment of silence before Vlad Chernikov spoke again, and his earlier levity had vanished.

"How is Isis, 'Tanni?" he asked gently.

"Not well, Vlad," Jiltanith said sadly. "She faileth quickly, and so Father doth stay at her side. She feeleth no pain, and she hath seen her life's work yield its fruit, yet do I fear her time is short."

"I am sorry to hear that." Vlad looked around the silent table for a moment, then back at Jiltanith. "Please tell her how proud we are of her . . . and give her our love."

"I shall," Jiltanith said softly.

Francine Hilgemann activated her antisnooping devices before taking the new Bible from its package. Her security systems were every bit as good as those of the Imperial government (since they'd come from government sources), which meant she was as safe from observation as anyone could be, and she inhaled the rich smell of printer's ink appreciatively as she opened the book. She'd always loved beauty, and she was both amused and genuinely pleased by the effect neural computer feeds had produced on the printing industry. Man had rediscovered that books were treasures, not simply a means of conveying information, and the volume she held was a masterpiece of the printer's art.

She leafed through it admiringly, then paused at the Lamentations of Jeremiah. The tissue-thin paper slid out with pleasing ease—unlike the last time, when some idiot had used glue and wrecked two pages of Leviticus.

She unfolded the sheets, careful of their fragility, and spread them on her blotter. Datachips were far smaller and easier to hide. She and her allies knew that, but they also knew few modern security people thought in terms of anything as clumsy as written messages, which meant few looked for them. And, of course, data that was never in electronic storage couldn't be extracted from electronic storage by a computer named Dahak.

She got out her code book, translated the message, and read through it slowly twice, committing it to memory. Then she burned the sheets, ground the ash to powder, and leaned back to consider the news.

MacIntyre and his crowd were finally ready to begin on Stepmother, and she agreed with her ally's assessment. By rights, Stepmother ought to represent an enormous threat to their long-term plans, but that could be changed. With a little luck and a great deal of hard work, the "threat" was going to become the advantage that let them bring off the most ambitious coup d'etat in human history, instead.

She gnawed her thumbnail thoughtfully. In many ways, she'd prefer to strike now, but Stepmother had to be closer to completion. Not complete, but within sight of it. That gave them their time frame, and she was beginning to understand the purpose that godawful gravitonic warhead would serve. Her eyes gleamed appreciatively as she considered the implications. It would be their very own Reichstag fire, and the Narhani gave them such a splendid "internal threat" to justify the "special powers" their candidate for the crown would invoke to insure Stepmother got finished the right way.

But that was for the future. For now, there was this latest news about the Narhani to consider, and she pondered it carefully. Officially, she was simply the general secretary of the Church's coequal bishops—but then, Josef Stalin had been "simply" the General Secretary of the Central Committee, hadn't he?—and it would be her job to soothe her flock's anxiety when the information was officially released. Still, the Achuultani were the Spawn of the Anti-Christ, and with a little care, her soothing assurance that Narhani weren't really Achuultani—except, perhaps, in a purely technical sense, which, of course, loyal subjects of the Imperium could never hold against their fellow subjects when no one could prove they had Satanic origins—would convey exactly the opposite message. Add a particularly earnest pastoral letter reminding the faithful of their duty to pray for the Emperor's guidance in these troubled times, and the anti-Narhani ferment would bubble along very nicely, thank you.

And, in the meantime, there were those other members of her flock whom she would see got the news in somewhat less soothing form.

The Reverend Robert Stevens sat in the dingy room beneath his church and watched the shocked eyes of the men and women seated around him. He felt their horror rising with his own, and more than one face was ashen.

"Are you sure, Father Bob?" Alice Hughes asked hoarsely.

"Yes, Alice." Stevens' grating, high-pitched voice was ill-suited to prayers or sermons, but God had given him a mission which put such paltry burdens into their proper perspective. "You know I can't reveal my source's identity—" in fact, he had no idea who the ultimate source was, though its information had always proven reliable "—but I'm sure."

"God forgive them," Tom Mason whispered. "How could they actually help the Anti-Christ's spawn breed?"

"Oh, come on, Tom!" Yance Jackson's lip curled and his green eyes blazed. "We've known the answer to that ever since they started cloning their precious 'Narhani.' " He made the name a curse. "They've been corrupted."

"But how?" Alice asked hesitantly. "They fought the Achuultani as God's own champions! How could they do that . . . and then do this?"

"It's this new technology," Jackson growled. "Don't you see, where fear couldn't tempt them, power has. They've set themselves up as gods!"

"I'm afraid Yance is right," Stevens said sadly. "They were God's champions, Alice, but Satan knows that as well as we do. He couldn't defeat them when they fought in His armor, so Satan's turned to temptation, seducing where he couldn't conquer. And this—" he tapped the piece of paper on the table before them "—is the proof he's succeeded."

"And so is the name they've given this demon of theirs," Jackson said harshly. " 'Eve!' It should've been 'Lilith'!"

Stevens nodded even more sadly, but a new fire kindled in his eyes.

"The Emperor and his Council have fallen into evil," cold certitude cleansed his voice of sorrow, "and God-fearing people are under no obligation to obey evil rulers." He reached out to the people sitting on either side of him, and more hands rose, joining in a circle of faith under the humming fluorescent light. Stevens felt their belief feeding his own, making it strong, and a fierce sense of purpose filled him.

"The time is coming, brothers and sisters," he told them. "The time of fire, when the Lord shall call us to smite the ungodly in His name, and we must be strong to do His will. For the Armageddon is truly upon us, and we—" his eyes swept around the circle, glittering with an inner flame "—are the true Sword of God!"