The Gap Into Ruin: This Day All Gods Die

by Stephen R. Donaldson

  Fane’s disembodied voice continued smoothly. “But that’s not the reason I’ve been calling you. Aside from the fact,” he added piously, “that we all have standing orders to give you our fullest cooperation whenever it’s needed.” We no doubt referred to Holt Fasner’s primary subordinates. “There’s something you may not know about him.”

  “What’s that, Mr. Fane?” Warden put in noncommittally.

  Fane paused for emphasis, then announced, “We fired him six weeks ago. Threw him out.”

  Koina shook her head at this information. Chief Mandich clenched his fists.

  Only a conscious act of will prevented Hashi from laughing aloud.

  Warden’s shoulders tightened. He scowled at the intercom as if he were trying to read Cleatus Fane’s aura through the blank mask of the microwave downlink.

  “Why?” he demanded.

  Fane answered promptly. “I’m sure I don’t need to tell you that we wouldn’t have anybody working for us—certainly not in a position as sensitive as Security Liaison for Anodyne Systems—if he wasn’t cleared by the most rigorous scrutiny.” An irritating fuzz of static distorted his sincerity. “And we scrutinize everyone incessantly. Over and over again.

  “Our latest—shall I call them observations?—of Nathan Alt showed that over the past several months he’s been in frequent contact with the native Earthers.”

  The First Executive Assistant raised his voice to convey indignation. “I don’t need to remind you, Director Dios, that they’re terrorists. The worst kind of scum. In the name of preserving humankind’s ‘genetic purity,’ they oppose any dealings with the Amnion, even responsible trade. They oppose diplomatic relations. They oppose us because we do lawful, authorized business with forbidden space. And they don’t hesitate to use violence of all kinds to support their policies.

  “Of course we fired Nathan Alt. Once we knew he was in contact with the native Earthers, we couldn’t trust him.”

  Warden ignored Fane’s outrage. “And that’s how you knew Alt was dangerous as soon as you recognized him?” he asked.

  “Director Dios,” Cleatus Fane retorted strongly, “I think the native Earthers are behind all these recent attacks. I think Nathan Alt gave them the means to supply kazes with legitimate id, and they’ve been using it to try to undermine both the UMC and the UMCP.

  “Fortunately they can’t succeed,” he added at once. “The fact that the GCES soundly rejected Captain Vertigus’ misguided Bill of Severance demonstrates that. But the danger is still real. And it must be stopped.”

  Through the static he projected the righteous indignation of a man who had come close to a death he didn’t deserve.

  Warden grimaced at the intercom. After a moment he drawled mordantly, “An interesting theory, Mr. Fane. I want to be sure I understand it. The first attack—the one on Captain Vertigus—what was that supposed to accomplish? The native Earthers have always called him a hero.”

  The FEA laughed humorlessly. “But he hasn’t done anything heroic for decades. He’s too old and ineffectual to do them any good. They wanted to make him a martyr. His opposition to Holt Fasner and the UMC is common knowledge. They want people to think he was attacked to silence his opposition.”

  Warden snorted softly; too softly to register on the intercom pickup. “You can’t apply the same argument to Godsen Frik.”

  “Of course not.” Static or stress made Fane’s bonhomie sound brittle. “As a spokesman for the special relationship between the UMC and the UMCP, he’s a natural enemy of the native Earthers. They wanted to use the confusion caused by Captain Vertigus’ martyrdom to strike at one of their most public targets.”

  For a moment Warden appeared to give this statement consideration. Then he asked, “And the attack today?”

  “An attempt to scare the Council,” Fane pronounced firmly. “Fear breeds stupidity—and stupidity breeds native Earthers.”

  Hashi considered this an interesting piece of conceptual legerdemain. From his perspective, stupidity bred rejection of Captain Vertigus’ Bill of Severance.

  Warden may have felt the same—Koina plainly did—but he didn’t comment.

  “I’ll look into it,” he told the Dragon’s henchman. “But I have to say, Mr. Fane, it makes me wonder why you hired Alt in the first place. You had reason to think he might not be particularly reliable.”

  Cleatus Fane snorted. “Because he couldn’t meet Director Donner’s standards for ‘conduct becoming an officer’? There aren’t many men or women on the planet who can be that pure all the time. His court-martial didn’t render him unfit for productive work. Or honorable work, for that matter,” Fane added.

  “But the truth is”—microwave noise complicated his candor—“his court-martial was one of the reasons we hired him. He never hid the fact that he resented the UMCP. From our point of view, that made him uniquely valuable. We wanted a man who was highly motivated to find fault with anything you people touched—especially with the security procedures designed for organizations like Anodyne Systems and the GCES. If he couldn’t find chinks in your armor—so to speak—no one could. And if he could find them, we could fix them.”

  The First Executive Assistant might as well have said, Don’t try to challenge me, Director Dios. You’re wasting your time.

  Chief Mandich’s features held a resentful scowl, but he didn’t speak.

  Warden shrugged noncommittally. “As I say,” he replied, “time is tight, Mr. Fane. Director Lebwohl is already investigating some of the possibilities you’ve mentioned.” Cleatus Fane would know soon—if he didn’t already—that Hashi had invoked Red Priority security locks for some of Holt Fasner’s Home Office computers, as well as for all of Anodyne Systems’. “Just one more question, if you don’t mind.

  “Did Alt take any of his work with him?”

  “Director,” Fane answered heavily, “nobody carries that kind of work around in his head. It’s too minute and complex. His last project ran to something like eight million lines of source-code. Most of us would burn out our brains just trying to remember the design protocols.

  “And we made damn sure he didn’t carry it any other way. I can tell you that for a fact.”

  On this point Hashi felt certain that the FEA’s facts were accurate. Captain Alt’s secrets—whatever they might have been—had never left the Dragon’s orbital headquarters.

  “Very well, Mr. Fane,” Warden returned. “I’ll contact Holt Fasner directly when I have anything to report.”

  He raised his hand and aimed one strong finger to silence the intercom.

  On impulse Hashi left his seat so abruptly that Warden’s hand stopped. In a rush Hashi reached the front of the desk and leaned over the intercom.

  “Mr. Fane?” he said quickly, almost breathlessly. “Forgive the intrusion. This is Director Lebwohl. I am with Director Dios. Overhearing your discussion, I have a question of my own, if you will permit me to put it to you.”

  Fane hesitated momentarily, then said, “Go ahead, Director Lebwohl. Anything you want to know.”

  Grinning past his glasses at Warden, Hashi responded promptly, “You say that you fired Nathan Alt six weeks ago because he was in contact with the native Earthers. And you made sure—I believe you made ‘damn’ sure—that none of his work left with him. Did you institute any other precautions to ensure the security of Anodyne Systems?”

  If the First Executive Assistant was willing to go this far, surely he would go further.

  “Of course.” Fane’s tone hinted at relief. He was prepared for this question. “We made a mistake hiring Alt. We weren’t going to compound it by being naive. In essence, we threw out everything he did while he was Security Liaison. I mean, we kept his ideas. Some of them were brilliant. But we erased every application he designed. We erased every application he might have touched. Then we wrote our own to replace his. And we wrote patches to alter the code engines in every SOD-CMOS chip Anodyne Systems manufactured during his tenure.

&nb
sp; “Even if he was smuggling data and code to the native Earthers for months before we caught him,” Fane concluded, “it’s all useless to them now.”

  Nodding to no one in particular, Hashi resumed his seat. He didn’t trouble himself to thank Cleatus Fane.

  Frowning at his DA director, Warden pursued, “In other words, Mr. Fane, you’re sure the security breach which put legitimate id in the hands of three recent kazes didn’t come from Nathan Alt? Directly or indirectly?”

  “That’s right,” Fane replied as if his credibility were intact. “You have a traitor on your hands. That’s obvious. But he isn’t here.”

  No doubt Fane meant in Holt Fasner’s employ, either in his Home Office or in the UMC.

  “Thank you, Mr. Fane,” Warden said sharply. “That’s all.”

  With a decisive stab of his finger, he toggled his intercom to end the First Executive Assistant’s call.

  Then he faced Hashi. His hands clenched each other on the desktop as if—literally as well as metaphorically—he needed to keep a grip on himself. His single eye caught the light like the wink of a cutting laser. Hope or fury beat visibly in the veins at his temples.

  “All right, Director Lebwohl,” he said harshly. “We’ve heard what Cleatus Fane has to say. What does it prove?”

  Koina and Chief Mandich studied Hashi with their separate forms of incomprehension. Confusion appeared to aggravate the Chief’s resentment. Perhaps he was irritated because he thought that Hashi’s insistence on speaking to Fane wasted time. But Koina’s bafflement was of a different kind. Hashi saw her as a woman whose primary assumptions prevented her from understanding what she heard.

  “Ah, ‘prove,’ “he answered Warden. “Nothing, I fear. We remain in the realm of the tenuous and circumstantial”—Werner Heisenberg’s rich domain—“despite the First Executive Assistant’s generous confirmation. Nevertheless I believe that my conclusions are substantial. They will hold.”

  Warden didn’t hesitate. “What are your conclusions?”

  Hashi spread his hands as if to show that they were empty of subterfuge or misdirection. Enunciating each word distinctly, he announced, “That these recent kazes have been sent against us by none other than the UMC CEO himself, Holt Fasner.”

  With one forefinger the DA director pushed his glasses up on his nose to disguise the fact that he was keenly proud of himself.

  HASHI

  For an instant shock seemed to stun the room like a silent concussion. Then Chief Mandich demanded, “What?”

  Tensely Koina asked, “Hashi, are you sure?”

  The DA director gave them no reply. He reserved his clarity for Warden Dios.

  “No doubt,” he elaborated, “the conspiracy was carried out by Cleatus Fane—and to some extent by Nathan Alt. Nevertheless it derives both its authority and its intent from the great worm in his lair.”

  Now both Koina and Mandich kept silent, awaiting Warden’s reaction.

  Warden allowed himself a long, slow breath. Some of the tension appeared to recede from his frame. Relief, perhaps? Or defeat? Hashi couldn’t tell which. He could only trust that he had at last begun to grasp the UMCP director’s game.

  Quietly Warden asked, “How do you figure that?”

  He had authorized Koina Hannish to reveal how passage of the Preempt Act had been obtained. He had instructed her to admit Angus Thermopyle’s innocence—and Morn Hyland’s knowledge of that innocence. Hashi could think of no explanation except that Warden had decided to attempt the Dragon’s downfall.

  The DA director intended to give him every possible aid.

  “Of the kaze who attacked Captain Vertigus,” he began, seeking precision so that everyone would see that his logic was seamless, “nothing is known. Prior to the agreement recently negotiated by Director Hannish—the agreement which has assigned temporary responsibility for GCES Security to Chief Mandich—we lacked investigative jurisdiction. Therefore I admit frankly that any connection between that assault and those on Godsen Frik and the GCES must remain purely speculative. We will not be able to ‘prove’ it.

  “The other two are another matter. There our jurisdiction was plain. Within the limits imposed by events, our opportunity to investigate has been unimpeded.”

  He paused to sort oblique strands of inference, then continued.

  “Lane Harbinger has already justified my faith in her many times over.” Confidence sharpened the habitual wheeze of his voice. “One notable example is germane. As my recent reports indicate, she has been able to recognize and preserve a minute fragment of a SOD-CMOS chip from the credentials of the kaze who slew poor Godsen Frik.” Hashi made no effort to pretend that his grief for the former PR director was sincere. “From this fragment she has contrived to extract data.

  “Need I explain why this achievement is remarkable?” He glanced at Chief Mandich’s blunt resentment; returned his gaze to Warden. “Perhaps not.

  “The data is as fragmentary as the chip,” he resumed. “Nevertheless it, too, is recognizable. Specifically Lane has identified strings of source-code which demonstrate, first, that the chip is one of ours, legitimately manufactured for us by Anodyne Systems, and second, that the chip was of recent production. The source-code is current as well as correct. It shows no indications of patching or other alteration.

  “This coincides with what Lane has determined from her physical analysis of the chip.”

  Gradually Hashi’s manner expanded to match his subject.

  “As you know, for credentials to pass scrutiny they need only be correct. Patched chips are correct. Nevertheless their source-codes are not current. If they were, they would not require patching.”

  QED.

  “Sadly, this demonstrates little where our Godsen’s killer is concerned. If his credentials were recently issued—too recently to have required the patch of which FEA Fane spoke—they would be both current and correct.

  “However, Clay Imposs’ credentials in Nathan Alt’s possession are altogether more revealing.”

  Hashi smiled to remind Warden—as well as Koina and Mandich—that he himself had preserved those credentials at the hazard of his own life.

  Chief Mandich couldn’t contain himself. He must have loathed hearing Hashi lecture. “How so?” he demanded. “I don’t get it. If they were correct enough to pass, who cares how current they are?”

  Hashi allowed his tone to sharpen. “The benign Cleatus Fane helpfully assures us that Nathan Alt was fired six weeks ago. Further, he assures us that substantial precautions were taken to guarantee that Nathan Alt could not betray Anodyne Systems. I am certain that his statements will be confirmed by Anodyne Systems’ records, as well as by those of the Dragon’s Home Office.

  “Yet I am also certain that the First Executive Assistant is lying to us.

  “Clay Imposs was a sergeant for GCES Security. To attain his rank, he had served that organization for several years.” Hashi wished to appear calm; as stolid as his director. Nevertheless he couldn’t stifle the throb of his excitement. “Therefore his id tag and clearance badge would naturally have been patched six weeks ago. And yet the source-code in his credentials is both correct and current.”

  Lane and her assistants could not be mistaken on such a point.

  Koina caught her breath sharply. Mandich murmured an obscenity between his teeth like a man who was beginning to understand.

  Warden waited without expression for Hashi to go.

  “As I have explained,” Hashi stated, “those credentials are a composite of his id and Nathan Alt’s. But such a conflation could only have been performed by someone with perfect access to the code engines themselves. It is a complete fabrication, which only an intimate knowledge of the code engines could have made possible.

  “And yet the designers of those engines are ours,” he concluded in triumph. “No one whom we did not assign has had access to the source-code—except Nathan Alt.”

  The UMCP director nodded to himself. Despite the best Hashi
could do, Warden still showed no surprise. Yet the easing of tension in the muscles around his eye suggested emotions which pleased Hashi more than any amount of surprise: relief; gratification.

  “Well done, Hashi,” he murmured as if no one were listening. “I wouldn’t have thought of that.”

  An elation like pride strained Hashi’s chest until he wondered whether his old heart could bear it.

  “Wait a minute,” Koina put in quickly. “You think Alt went on working for Cleatus Fane after Fane says he was fired. How can he lie about something like that? Even if the records were changed, wouldn’t our people—the designers who worked with Alt—wouldn’t they be able to testify that the records are wrong, that Alt wasn’t fired six weeks ago?”

  Hashi offered no reply. Instead he waited for Chief Mandich to speak.

  The chief chewed bitterness for a moment. Then he said gruffly, “No. I’m afraid not.”

  Warden knew this as well as Hashi did. Like Hashi, however, he left the explanation to Mandich.

  “We take every precaution we can think of to protect that work,” the Chief growled. “It’s all done from remote terminals by secure link to dedicated computers at Anodyne. First the link has to be established. Those are Administration codes. Then the remote terminal has to match the system protocols. DA supplies the codes for that. Then the terminal operator has to gain access. We”—ED Security—“control those codes.

  “It’s not just that the code designers never even see each other. They don’t have any way of knowing who else has access—who they’re working with. Alt could have been fired years ago. He could have been working there yesterday. The design teams wouldn’t know the difference.”

  In disgust he added, “It’s supposed to be safer that way.”

  Koina wasn’t satisfied, however. “But for Fane to tell a lie like that—” she protested. “It’s still too dangerous. He must have known he would be caught.”