Chapter Forty-Four

Lawrence Jefferson gazed into the mirror and adjusted his appearance with meticulous care, then checked the clock. Ten more minutes, he thought, and turned back to the mirror to smile at himself.

For someone who'd seen almost thirty years of planning collapse with spectacular totality less than two months before, he felt remarkably cheerful. His coup attempt had failed, but the governorship of Earth was a fair consolation prize—and, he reflected, an even better platform from which to plan anew after a few years.

He'd gone to considerable lengths to set Brigadier Jourdain up as the fall guy if his plans miscarried, and the brigadier had helped by getting himself killed, which neatly precluded the possibility of his defending himself against the charges. Lieutenant Governor Jefferson had, of course, been shocked to learn that one of his most senior Security men had formed links to the Sword of God and had, in fact, used Security's own bio-enhancement facilities to enhance his own select band of traitors! The stunning discovery of Jourdain's treason had led to a massive shakeup at Security, in the course of which an Internal Affairs inspector had "stumbled across" the secret journal which chronicled the brigadier's secretly growing disaffection. A disaffection which had blossomed to full life when he was named to head the special team created by newly appointed Security Minister Jefferson to combat the Sword's terrorism following the Van Gelder assassination. Instead of hunting the Sword down to destroy it, he'd used the investigation to make contact with a Sword cell leader and found his true spiritual home.

It was a black mark against Jefferson that he'd failed to spot Jourdain's treason, but the man had been recruited away from the Imperial Marines by Gustav van Gelder (no one—now living, that was—knew it was Jefferson who'd recommended him to Gus), not Jefferson, and he'd passed every security screening. And if his journal rambled here and there, that was only to be expected in the personal maunderings of a megalomaniac who believed God had chosen him to destroy all who trafficked with the Anti-Christ. It detailed his meticulous plan to assassinate Colin, Jiltanith, Horus, their senior military officers, and Lawrence Jefferson, and if it was a bit vague about precisely what was supposed to happen when they were dead, the fact that he'd hidden his bomb inside the Narhani statue suggested his probable intent. By branding the Narhani with responsibility for the destruction of Birhat, he'd undoubtedly hoped to lead humanity into turning on them as arch-traitors and dealing with them precisely as the Sword of God said they should be dealt with.

Jefferson was proud of that journal. He'd spent over two years preparing it, just in case, and if there were a few points on which it failed to shed any light, that was actually a point in its favor. By leaving some mysteries, it avoided the classic failing of coverups: an attempt to answer every question. Had it tried to do so, someone—like Ninhursag MacMahan—undoubtedly would have found it just a bit too neat. As it was, and coupled with the fact that the dozens of still-living people named in it had, in fact, all been recruited by Jourdain (on Jefferson's orders, perhaps, but none of them knew that), it had worked to perfection. The most important members of Jefferson's conspiracy weren't listed in it, and several of his more valuable moles had actually been promoted for their sterling work in helping ONI run down the villains the journal's discovery had unmasked. Best of all, every one of those villains, questioned under Imperial lie detectors, only confirmed that Jourdain had recruited them and that all of their instructions had come from him.

The clock chimed softly, and Jefferson settled his face into properly grave lines before he walked to the door. He opened it and stepped out into the corridor to the Terran Chamber of Delegates with a slow, somber pace that befitted the occasion while his brain rehearsed the oath of office he was about to recite.

He was half way to the Chamber when a voice spoke behind him.

"Lawrence McClintock Jefferson," it said with icy precision, "I arrest you for conspiracy, espionage, murder, and the crime of high treason."

He froze, and his heart seemed to stop, for the voice was that of Colin I, Emperor of Humanity. He stood absolutely motionless for one agonizing moment, then turned slowly, and swallowed as he found himself facing the Emperor, and Hector and Ninhursag MacMahan. The general held a grav gun in one hand, its rock-steady muzzle trained on Jefferson's belly, and his hard, hating eyes begged the Lieutenant Governor to resist arrest.

"What . . . what did you say?" Jefferson whispered.

"You made one mistake," Ninhursag replied coldly. "Only one. When you set up Jourdain's journal, you fingered him for everything except the one crime that actually started us looking for you, 'Mister X.' There wasn't a word in it about Sean's and Harriet's assassination—and the murder of my daughter."

"Assassination?" Jefferson repeated in a numb voice.

"Without that, I might actually have bought it," she went on in a voice like liquid nitrogen, "but the megalomaniac you created in that journal would never have failed to record his greatest triumph. Which, of course, suggested it was a fake, so I started looking for who else might have had the combination of clearances necessary to steal the bomb's blueprints, have it built, smuggle it through the mat-trans, alter the mat-trans log so subsequent investigators would know he had, and get a batch of assassins into White Tower. And guess who all that pointed to?"

"But I—" He cleared his throat noisily. "But if you suspect me of such horrible crimes, why wait until now to arrest me?" he demanded harshly.

"We waited because 'Hursag wanted to see who distinguished themselves in your 'investigation' of Jourdain." Colin's voice was as icy as Ninhursag's. "It was one way to figure out who else was working for you. But the timing for your arrest?" He smiled viciously. "That was my idea, Jefferson. I wanted you to be able to taste the governorship—and I want you to go right on remembering what it tasted like up to the moment the firing squad pulls the trigger."

He stepped aside, and Jefferson saw the grim-faced Marines who'd stood behind the Emperor. Marines who advanced upon him with expressions whose plea to resist mirrored that of their commandant.

"You'll have a fair trial," Colin told him flatly as the Marines took him into custody, "but with any luck at all—" he smiled again, with a cold, cruel pleasure Jefferson had never imagined his homely face could wear "—every member of the firing squad will hit you in the belly. Think about that, Mister Jefferson. Look forward to it."

Colin and Jiltanith sat on their favorite Palace balcony, gazing out over the city of Phoenix. Colin held their infant daughter, Anna Zhirnovski MacIntyre, in his lap while her godmother stood guard at the balcony entrance and her younger brother Horus Gaheris MacIntyre nursed at his mother's breast. Amanda and Tsien Tao-ling stood side by side, leaning on the balcony rail, while Hector and Ninhursag sat beside Colin. Tinker Bell's pups—including Gaheris and his regenerated leg—drowsed on the sun-warmed flagstones, and Gerald and Sharon Hatcher, Brashieel, and Eve completed the gathering.

"I do not fully understand humans even now, Nest Lord." The Narhani leader sighed. "You can be a most complex and confusing species."

"Perhaps, my love," Eve said gently, "yet they are also a stubborn and generous one."

"Truly," Brashieel conceded, "but the thought that Jefferson planned to implicate us in our Nest Lord's murder—" He bent his head in the Narhani gesture of perplexity, and his double eyelids flickered with dismay.

"You were just there, Brashieel," Colin said wearily. "Just as the Achuultani computer needed a threat to keep your people enslaved, Jefferson needed a threat to justify the power he intended to seize."

"And the Achuultani history of genocide made us an excellent threat," Eve observed.

"Indeed," Dahak's voice replied. "It was a most complex plot, and Jefferson's association with Francine Hilgemann was a masterful alliance. It not only permitted him to further inflame and sustain the anti-Narhani prejudices the Church of the Armageddon enshrined but gave him direct access to the Sword of God. A classic continuation of Anu's practice of employing terrorist proxies."

"Um." Colin grunted agreement and gazed down into his daughter's small, thoughtful face. She looked perplexed as she tried to focus on the tip of her own nose, and at this moment, that was infinitely more important to him than Lawrence Jefferson or Francine Hilgemann.

Jefferson's interrogation under an Imperial lie detector had led to the arrest of his entire surviving command structure. The last of them had been shot a week before, and it was even possible some good would come of it. The Church of the Armageddon, for example, was in wild disarray. Not only had their spiritual leader been unmasked as a cold, cynical manipulator, but the fact that she and Jefferson had intended to use their anti-Narhani prejudice to whip up a genocidal frenzy to support their coup had shocked the church to its foundation. Colin suspected the hardcore true believers would find some way to blame the Narhani for their own victimization, but those whose brains hadn't entirely ossified might just take a good, hard look at themselves.

Yet none of it seemed very important somehow. No doubt that would change, but for now his wounds, and those of his friends, were too raw and bleeding. Jefferson's execution couldn't bring back their children any more than it could restore Horus or the Marines who'd died defending Jiltanith to life. There was such a thing as vengeance, and Colin was honest enough to admit he'd felt just that as Jefferson died, but it was a cold, iron-tasting thing, and too much of it was a poison more deadly than arsenic.

Anna blew a bubble of drool at him, and he smiled. He looked up at Jiltanith, feeling his bitter melancholy ease, and she smiled back. Darkness and grief still edged that smile, but so did tenderness, and her fingers stroked her son's head as he sucked on her nipple. Colin turned his head and saw the others watching, saw them smiling at his wife and his son, and a deep, gentle wave of warmth eased his heart as he felt their shared happiness for him and 'Tanni. Their love.

Perhaps that, he thought, was the real lesson. The knowledge that life meant growth and change and challenge, and that those were painful things, but that only those who dared to love despite the pain were the true inheritors of humanity's dreams of greatness.

He closed his eyes and pressed his nose into his daughter's fine, downy hair, inhaling the clean skin and baby powder and stale milk sweetness of her, and the peaceful content of this small, quiet moment suffused him.

And then Dahak made the quiet electronic sound he used when a human would have cleared his throat.

"Excuse me, Colin, but I have just received a priority hypercom transmission of which I feel you should be apprised."

"A hypercom message?" Colin raised his head with an expression of mild curiosity. "What sort of message?"

"The transmission," Dahak said, "is from the planet Pardal."

" 'Pardal'?" Colin looked at Hatcher. "Gerald? You have a survey mission to someplace called 'Pardal'?"

"Pardal?" Hatcher shook his head. "Never heard of it."

"You sure you got that name right, Dahak?" Colin asked.

"I am."

"Well where in the blazes is it and how come I never heard of it?"

"I am not yet certain of the answer to either of those questions, Colin. The message, however, is signed 'Acting Governor Midshipman His Imperial Highness Sean Horus MacIntyre,' " Dahak replied calmly, and Jiltanith gasped as Colin jerked upright in his lounger. "It reports the successful reclamation of the populated planet Pardal for the Imperium by the crew of the sublight battleship Israel: Midshipwoman Princess Isis Harriet MacIntyre, Midshipman Count Tamman, Midshipwoman Crown Princess Consort Sandra MacMahan MacIntyre, and Mishipman Nest Heir Brashan."

Colin's head snapped around. His incredulous gaze met Jiltanith's equally incredulous—and joyous—eyes, then swept to his friends, the friends who were coming to their feet in joy that matched his own, as Dahak paused for just a moment. Then the computer spoke again, and even Dahak's mellow voice could not hide its vast elation.

"Will there be a reply?"