This Day All Gods Die Part 6

Koina nodded. She no longer doubted Has.h.i.+: she had already been persuaded; won over. Now she was simply trying to fit the pieces of her new understanding together.

"But why G.o.dsen, of all people?" she asked. "That's never made sense to me. If anything, I would have said he was"-she searched for the right word-"irrelevant. A p.a.w.n. Killing him is like shooting at the decor. It makes a mess, but it doesn't change anything."

Has.h.i.+ responded with a shrug of irritation. "His own special relations.h.i.+p with the Dragon was well-known. An attack on him would also appear to be an attack on his master. That is reason enough for his selection as a target."

The DA director paused to gather his determination, then continued acidly, "Surely it is obvious that our lamented G.o.dsen was not meant to die? Before he was attacked, he received a summons to attend CEO Fasner. Had he obeyed, he would not have been present for a.s.sa.s.sination.

"He did not not obey, however. The director had restricted him to UMCPHQ. He died because, and only because, he elected to honor Warden Dios' instructions rather than the Dragon's." obey, however. The director had restricted him to UMCPHQ. He died because, and only because, he elected to honor Warden Dios' instructions rather than the Dragon's."

Against all expectation, G.o.dsen Frik had at last discovered his own honor. And he had acted on it by informing his director of Holt Fasner's summons.

Again Koina nodded.

Is it enough? Has.h.i.+ asked Warden silently. Must I continue this charade?

Inadvertently Chief Mandich spared Has.h.i.+. Speaking in a rush, he said, "And Fane made himself look like a target to complete the pattern. Put himself above suspicion. I get it.

"He could be sure he wasn't in any real danger because he controlled the trigger."

"Exactly so," Has.h.i.+ a.s.sented. He lacked the energy-or perhaps the will-to give Mandich any other acknowledgment.

Now that the Chief had finally grasped the thrust of Has.h.i.+'s explanations, he seemed unable to contain himself. His blunt nature demanded action. He turned at once to Warden.

"Director, what do you want me to do? It's probably a mistake to arrest Fane. If you say so, I accept that. But we can't just sit on our hands with all this. It's too much- "My G.o.d, it's going to make the Council reconsider that Bill." He swallowed convulsively as the truth struck him. "I mean, what we have is too much to ignore. But it isn't enough." Like all of Min Donner's ilk, he instantly and pa.s.sionately favored a Bill of Severance. "We need more."

Abruptly Warden surged to his feet. Perhaps Mandich's a.s.sertion had released a spring of decision in him. It was more likely, however, that he had heard all he needed. He had been waiting, not for Has.h.i.+'s explanation, but for the Chief's comprehension of it-and for Koina's. Now he could move his subordinates to their places in his deep game.

His manner was all crisp authority as he replied, "Getting ready for a possible war is my job." Despite Min Donner's absence, warfare lay outside the Security Chief's province. "Yours is to find evidence. Anything that counts as proof.

"You know what you're looking for now. Was Alt really fired six weeks ago? Who had access to his work? Did he ever leave HO? If he did, where did he go? Who did he see? What happened to Clay Imposs? You can think of other questions Security might be able to answer better than DA could."

"Yes, sir." The Chief snapped a salute, although Warden hadn't dismissed him.

Warden ignored the gesture. As a rule, he didn't respond to salutes. He acknowledged his people in other ways.

"Anything you find," he continued, "you'll report immediately to Director Lebwohl and Director Hannish as well as to me."

"Yes, sir," Chief Mandich repeated.

Warden turned to the DA director.

"Has.h.i.+, I want Lane's findings as soon as you get them. Let Koina have them, too. If Lane isn't already doing it, tell her to backtrack that coenzyme. Somebody must have done some research on it. There must be a record of it somewhere. She might be able to find it. Set up all the Red Priorities you need. That might lead us to whoever used Alt."

Has.h.i.+ a.s.sented with a nod. He was confident that Lane recognized the importance of her discovery, and knew how to pursue it.

"Other than that"-Warden indicated both Has.h.i.+ and Koina-"I want the two of you to get ready.

"Len is going to call an emergency session soon." So much was predictable. An Amnion incursion into human s.p.a.ce would demand action from the GCES. "When he does, I want both of you there. I want the Council to hear you respond in person to"-he spread his hands-"whatever comes up.

"It's still tenuous," he added without transition. "Circ.u.mstantial as h.e.l.l. But it will help. By G.o.d, it will help.

"Koina, when the time comes, add Has.h.i.+'s accusation against Holt to the list of things you tell Maxim Igensard.

"All right?" he asked rhetorically. "Then get out of here." His brusque dismissal made it clear that he didn't wish to hear any more questions. "I'm too busy for all this talk."

Too busy to grant me five minutes of honesty? Has.h.i.+ asked with his eyes. Will you not share the truth, even with me?

Warden shook his head as if he understood the silent inquiry. Whatever happened to him, he meant to face it alone.

Has.h.i.+ allowed himself a small grimace of pain as he rose to his feet.

Mandich reached the door first; headed away charged with his mission. Has.h.i.+ bowed Koina out of the small office ahead of them. When the door had closed and sealed behind them, however, he walked with her a short distance along the corridor. He had no desire for her company. However, he had known her too long-and had profited too much from her former trust-to treat her as Warden had just treated him.

As soon as they were beyond earshot of the guards who watched over the director in his office, she put her hand on his arm. "Has.h.i.+-" For a moment she actually leaned on him as if she feared her knees might fail. She kept her voice low in an effort to conceal a tremor of distress.

"If I tell Igensard all this, it'll ruin Warden. He won't have anything left to stand on. Even his honor. Igensard will have him up on charges in a matter of hours. Dereliction. Malfeasance. Tr"-the word caught in her throat briefly-"treason. He'll be lucky if he doesn't find himself facing execution.

"What does he think he's doing?"

Despite its softness, her tone betrayed her. She, too, was grieving.

Earlier she'd refused to tell him something he had very much wanted to know. Now he took his revenge, although it gave him no pleasure. Warden wouldn't thank him for revealing what he guessed. And her sorrow would only be increased.

"My dear Koina, if I answer you, you will believe that we have both lost our minds."

So that she would not pursue the matter, he disengaged his arm and walked away from her. Whatever happened, he meant to keep his own emotions as private as Warden's.

The Amnion had committed an act of war.

The director of the UMCP had chosen a terrible moment to stake all their lives against the Dragon.

ANGUS.

He didn't scream; could not have screamed if he'd wanted to. But for a time that might have been long or short his body screamed for him.

Asteroids and static crashed in mad ecstasy through the dark void, shattering against each other and recoiling in their rush to answer the singularity's hunger. The black hole sucked down energy in jagged bolts like lightning; swallowed matter lurid with Doppler s.h.i.+fts. Forces which he'd unleashed with his own hand seemed to tear him apart.

Dehydration. Intolerable g. Strange concussions of all kinds. EM violence intense enough to fry every circuit in his head. He was trapped in a crib of weight and pain so extreme that they crushed out every flicker or spasm of awareness. All his nerves became one long voiceless and unanswerable shriek.

There was no escape as long as the belt of his suit remained anch.o.r.ed to the s.h.i.+p-and no escape if it failed. Mortal bone and tissue couldn't survive the weird translations of the singularity's event horizon. Like the stars and the gap, so much gravity transcended human existence.

Infinite loss. Complete extinction. Every cell in his body wailed at the nearness of ultimate things. Perhaps he tried to twist against the strain, ease it somehow. He didn't know: his body understood only screaming.

But then his hurts began to shut down like systems going off-line. Behind its s.h.i.+elds, his datacore registered the scale of his distress and engaged its last prewritten defense: the one protection which might keep him alive-if not sane-when he suffered this much damage. It put him into stasis. Every iota of energy which his body and his power cells could supply was focused on sustaining his autonomic functions: pulse and respiration. Everything else was canceled.

His flesh stopped its screaming because it was no longer accessible to pain. He was neither conscious nor unconscious: his mind occupied a place where such concepts had no meaning; a place beyond change or interpretation. If g crushed him to a b.l.o.o.d.y smear inside his EVA suit, he didn't know it. If the pressure released him entirely, he couldn't tell the difference. Time and s.p.a.ce pa.s.sed him by.

And there was no one who could command his zone implants to release him.

Pulse.

Respiration.

Stasis.

Nothing else.

If he could have identified where he was, he might have considered it Heaven.

At some indefinable point-after instants or aeons of intervening peace-vestiges of recognition returned. On some level which seemed to have nothing to do with his mind, he understood that he was no longer outside the s.h.i.+p. His head wasn't confined by a helmet. Perhaps he knew that he was alive. The knowledge had no significance, however. It conveyed nothing; required nothing.

When the DA medtechs had put him into stasis during the days and weeks of his welding, he'd been able to hear what they said in his presence. When Warden Dios had switched his datacore, the UMCP director's words had reached him clearly.

Technically, we've done you a favor. That's obvious. You're stronger now, faster, more capable, effectively more intelligent. Not to mention the fact that you're still alive- In some sense he'd been aware of what he heard.

In every other way, we've committed a crime against you. We've committed a crime against your soul.

But he could not have reacted. Comprehension and recognition were irrelevant. No reactions were permitted to him.

It's got to stop.

Asteroids and singularities and the cold dark transcended him. The compulsions of machine logic transcended him.

After all Heaven was indistinguishable from h.e.l.l.

Gradually he came to the perception that he wasn't alone. Two or three dark shapes hovered somewhere around him. From time to time they smeared themselves across his vision as if to prove that they weren't like him; weren't imprisoned in his skull.

Yet their presence changed nothing. He still couldn't react. He would never react again. Even the small effort of focusing his eyes was beyond him: an exercise of choice which his welding rendered unattainable.

So impalpably that there was no point at which the change could have been detected, the utter gulf outside his EVA suit had become a blank white light, sterile and unforgiving. How much time had pa.s.sed? Stupid question. Or stupid to ask it. His datacore never gave him answers when he was in stasis. Counters in his head had measured the interval to the last microsecond, but they kept their data to themselves. When he was in stasis, he was presumed to need nothing except breath and blood, sustenance and elimination.

There was no one who could command his zone implants to release him. He himself, Angus Thermopyle, had erected barriers against the codes which could have coerced a response from his datacore.

Were the shapes speaking? He couldn't tell. They remained around him. He heard voices. But he had no way of knowing whether the voices came from the shapes.

"I'm trying," one of them said. For no particular reason, Angus recognized Mikka Vasaczk. "The computer says he can't wake up."

Apparently he was in sickbay. Someone must have gone outside to bring him in.

While Trumpet Trumpet was held by a singularity? Impossible. was held by a singularity? Impossible.

"How bad is he hurt?"

That was Vector Shaheed. Savior of humanity. The man who'd a.n.a.lyzed UMCPDA's antimutagen and made the formula available. If anybody survived to pick up his broadcast.

"Severe dehydration," Mikka reported. Fatigue and bitterness rasped in her voice. "IVs have taken care of that. Hemorrhage-s.h.i.+t, he's lost liters of blood. But the IVs are handling that, too. And most of the bleeding's stopped. One of his hips was dislocated-he must have tried to use his suit jets against the pull. That's been taken care of." The surgical table was almost prehensile: it could apply traction in any direction necessary. "He's responding to the drugs. Metabolins. Coagulants. a.n.a.lgesics. Stim.

"But the systems can't wake him up."

Of course not.

Trumpet's sickbay had been designed and programmed especially for him. The cybernetic physicians knew him intimately: special instruction-sets and diagnostic resources had come on-line the instant he was attached to the table. They could have repaired his welding. They could have compensated for any damage the electrodes might have done to his brain. Within limits they could have corrected faults in some of his equipment. sickbay had been designed and programmed especially for him. The cybernetic physicians knew him intimately: special instruction-sets and diagnostic resources had come on-line the instant he was attached to the table. They could have repaired his welding. They could have compensated for any damage the electrodes might have done to his brain. Within limits they could have corrected faults in some of his equipment.

But first they required the right codes.

"What about EEG?" Vector asked.

Maybe he didn't realize he was wasting his time.

Mikka answered shortly, "No readings."

"You mean he's brain-dead?"

Davies. The voice was unmistakable. Angus knew it well. Under the right kind of stress, it sounded like his own.

Three voices. Mikka, Vector, and Davies. Presumably that meant there were three shapes instead of just two.

Where was Morn?

Dead? Lost in gap-sickness?

Angus went away inside his head. He promised himself that he was never coming back. Morn's pain hurt him too much. He didn't want to know what had happened to her. He was afraid it would be more than he could bear.

But if he couldn't turn himself back on, he also couldn't retreat, use stasis to protect him. Like a black hole, the machine logic of his equipment gave nothing; permitted nothing. No time pa.s.sed before he heard Mikka reply, "That's not it. I mean the systems can't get a reading. Apparently his zone implants are blanking out neural activity. Or masking it. As far as sickbay can tell, his head's full of white noise. He could be screaming at us in there-telling us what to do-and we wouldn't know it."

"Angus, wake up!" Davies croaked. A jolt which might have been a slap rocked Angus' head from side to side on his slack neck. "G.o.d d.a.m.n it, we need you!"

"Stop that." Mikka sounded sick with weariness. "He can't hear you. He probably can't feel anything, either."

Unfortunately she was wrong.

"Can we short out the noise?" Vector asked distantly. "Set up some kind of interference? So the systems can get a reading? Maybe apply direct stimulation to wake him up?"

Mikka snorted. "We might kill him. We don't know what kind of synergy connects him and his equipment. He's a cyborg. Maybe he's dependent on his computer. Maybe his zone implants are what keep him alive."

Again she was wrong. The white noise in his head was his prison. The electrodes attached to his computer held him more tightly than arm cuffs and manacles. But she was right, too: Vector's suggestions wouldn't work. The bond between his brain and his zone implants was too intimate to be disrupted by any simple means.

Mikka and Vector and Davies could try to save him by ordering sickbay to remove the electrodes from his head. Or cut the leads from his computer. Turn him back into a human being. f.u.c.k f.u.c.k the synergy. But he didn't think that would work, either. Sickbay's programming wouldn't obey a command to unweld him, the synergy. But he didn't think that would work, either. Sickbay's programming wouldn't obey a command to unweld him, dismantle dismantle him, without authorization. him, without authorization.

No one aboard Trumpet Trumpet-perhaps no one within a hundred pa.r.s.ecs of the gap scout-knew the codes for that.

And if by some miracle sickbay obeyed- All his new strengths and capabilities would be lost. Enhanced reflexes, lasers, EM vision, jamming fields, databases, computational power: he would forfeit them all. His zone implants would no longer protect him from pain; no longer focus his mind; no longer give him sleep or power or numbness when he needed them. He would be free at last, truly and completely free-at the cost of everything which made freedom attractive.

What would he do then? How could he survive? He wasn't sure that he could handle the gap scout effectively without his computer's support. He would be at the mercy of anyone with more muscle or knowledge than he possessed.

That was the way he'd lived before he met Morn; before he fell into Warden Dios' hands. Preying on those who were weaker than he was so that he could avoid those who were stronger. Hating Hating everybody, weak and strong alike, because of his own weakness. Tied to the slats of the crib- everybody, weak and strong alike, because of his own weakness. Tied to the slats of the crib- Oh, perfect. A cackle like the laughter of a ghoul echoed in his skull. Abso-f.u.c.king-lutely perfect.