“You may be the only one with the strength and will to stop him, Margalis,” he whispered, and curled his hand in a final salute. “Farewell, old friend…Sky Pilot….”
I bent to touch him, drew back sharply. Flames leapt from the floor, flames and the smell of charred leather. There was a soft explosive sound, and a ball of smoke roiled toward me. I brought my hand protectively to my face. When I drew it away again, the flames were gone.
The viewing deck was empty. When I stopped to examine the floor, I found a small circle of ash where the ’file disk had been. As my finger stretched forth to touch it, it melted away like snow, and I stood back up in a daze.
“ There are records here in the ship’s library that will show you — look at them and learn. ”
“The library,” I whispered. I turned and fled the viewing deck, my heels clashing against the tiles, while behind me the blue-glazed eye of Earth gazed implacably upon the Izanagi.
The library was nearly as spacious as the viewing deck, with a great window running the length of one wall. Outside, stars burned and swirled in that dreamy waltz that accompanies the elÿon’s bursts of acceleration. I hardly gave them a look. I hurried to a carrel, throwing myself into the seat so quickly, I ripped its fabric with my metal hand.
“What would you like to research?” The pleasant voice of the ship’s librarian questioned me softly. In front of me appeared the generated image of a slight young man, clad in the simple black-and-gray suit of a Nipponian scholiast.
“All records of hostile maneuvers within the last six months.”
The figure rippled and faint dots of red and green imposed themselves upon his face. The library’s datafiles were deteriorating; the strain upon Lascar Franschii was starting to show. “Do you wish to review activity within the HORUS sectors or a particular region of Earth?”
I hesitated before deciding. I would look first upon the place where I had spent most of my career.
“The Archipelago.”
The scholiast nodded and the image blinked out—too quickly, another sign of the ship’s degrading systems. There was an instant when I might have imagined the soft click and buzz of the elÿon’s vast datafiles being accessed. Then the first icon appeared.
Before me an emerald plain wove into view, threads of turquoise and deep blue racing through it until the complete landscape shone in the library’s musty air. Beneath the ’filed image, glowing letters spelled out a name, latitude and longitude, and other coordinates. I gazed upon the Arafura Sea, its waters deceptively calm and utterly devoid of the landmarks that should have been there.
My voice was tight as I asked, “Where are the islands of the Archipelago? Where is Alor Setar? Where is Kalimantan?”
The scholiast’s reply hung calmly in the spaces above the wavering green ocean. “Alor Setar was destroyed by tsunami on the nineteenth of June, Old Solar Calendar.”
I counted back. It was the same day that the wave had swallowed Araboth. Not a week had passed since then. A terrible pressure began to build within my mind.
“Show me Sulawaya, then,” I ordered. “Sulawesi and Jawa.”
The ocean wrinkled, darkened to indigo as the image shifted. I saw a long line of blackened crags emerging from the water like knots of charred bone, some of them smoking as though racked by volcanic activity. Another string of letters and numerals appeared—
LRT 02° 10’ S—LONG 114° 44 E, CONFIG 9743 PRIOR STATUS: JAWA
“Where is this?” I asked with dread.
“Jawa,” the scholiast murmured.
I shook my head in disbelief. “But it’s gone. There’s nothing there.”
“The Ascendant Autocracy at Vancouver mistakenly believed the tsunami that destroyed their holdings at Araboth was the result of an Emirate attack. On twenty June o.s.c. they sent twenty thousand troops to attack the Emirate’s city of Tarabulus. Emirate troops retaliated with protonic weapons intervention directed at Jawa.”
The image flickered and changed to a close-up, empty turquoise waters flecked with gold and white beneath the remorseless sun. The glowing letters shifted until they spelled out another message.
LAT 04° 11’ S—LONG 107°30’ E CONFIG 9899 PRIOR STATUS: DJAKARTA, JAWA
It had been the Ascendant’s primary base in the Malayu Archipelago, one of the only remaining technopolies in the world.
“It’s gone,” I whispered. “How can it be gone?”
Once lush green mountains had risen from that sea, islands and glittering spans of bridges, the dark spires of refinery platforms and floating webs of agrivelts where the hydrapithecenes toiled. Now there was nothing; nothing but water, a single vast ocean encompassing the seas of Arafura and South China, Timor and Banda and Sulu.
They had all been destroyed. Sumatera, Jawa, Alor Setar, Kalimantan—all the thousand islands that had been spread across the ocean’s jeweled net like so many butterflies—all gone. Only a few score ragged promontories rose above the smooth blue surface. Black and molten orange beneath a faint haze of smoke and ash, they were all that remained of the system of hydrofarms and refineries that had been the Ascendants’ most valuable planetary holdings. The largest single population center in what remained of the civilized world had been reduced to steam and ash.
“ No! ”
My anguished shout rang through the chamber, setting off a small warning beacon by the door. I raged on heedlessly. How could they have done this? Who could have done this? Even the Habilis Emirate would not have deliberately destroyed such a rare hoard of resources; not even the Autocracy. But then I thought of Tarabulus, the beautiful and ancient heart of the Emirate. If it truly had been ravaged by Ascendant troops…
I knew how these lightning wars went. But the thought of that empty sea, of the horrible waste of lives and the precious hydrofarms, sickened me so that I sat in silence for a long time, staring blankly at the floor. Finally I raised my head and called out to the scholiast.
“More,” I whispered. “Let me see more.”
“Please be specific,” the scholiast’s voice rebuked me gently.
The clawed fingers of my left hand raked the top of the carrel. “The HORUS colonies,” I cried harshly. “Show me what became of the HORUS colonies.”
The ’filed image of the Archipelago radiated into random jots of emerald. An instant later a new ’file opened. It showed a whirlpool of black and ultramarine, with a date superimposed upon it.
JUNE 08, 2592, N.A.E. 73
At the whirlpool’s center a brilliantly shining torus tumbled in a languorous somersault. I could barely read the letters on its side—
HORUS/NASNA/CAMPBELL PRIME SERIES 0779988342
For a moment the torus hung there, no larger than my hand but seemingly as solid. Then, as silently as though it were some seed-heavy blossom scattered by the wind, the station burst. A speck of black at its center spread like spilled ink, as the shining outer rim of the structure stretched and bowed until finally it broke apart, flying soundlessly into the heavens. Campbell Prime had been destroyed. The holofile ended abruptly.
I clenched my fist and said, “NASNA Prime. Show me.” Flick. Another date; another silent maelstrom.
OCTOBER 31, 2591, N.A.E. 72
In the heart of this spiral the familiar struts and hourglass of the NASNA Prime Station slowly rotated. I could see the long silver tear that marked the main viewing deck, and imagined crimson-uniformed figures there, staring out into the void. I watched transfixed as one end of the hourglass distended. It bubbled outward, did not burst so much as disintegrate. Spars and beams of metal spilled out as the station cracked open like an egg, discharging its living humors. There was a blinding burst of light; then nothing.
Throwing back my head like an animal I let forth a howl, a shriek of rage and horror that surely would have frozen anyone who heard it; but who was there in that place to hear? When the echoes of my fury died away, I bowed, and covered my face with my hand.
There was a long silence. Then, “H
ave you another request?” asked the librarian.
I looked up. The ’file had looped back and started to play again. At the sound of my voice the image froze, the explosion like a brittle flower hanging in front of me.
“No! No, wait—yes, there is something else I would like to see.”
The destruction of NASNA Prime flickered off. The scholiast reappeared, assumed his usual patient expression. I leaned forward, my hand stabbing at the air.
“The footage you just showed me, of the NASNA Prime Station—where did it come from?”
The scholiast’s image froze as it searched for data. After nearly a minute it announced crisply, “Lyapang Wondot 3—that is, Autocratic News Service 3.”
“No—where did they get it from? Who actually ’filed it?
Was there a person’s name? Who knew that station was going to be destroyed? ”
Again the scholiast accessed its files. This time golden letters flowed through the air, spelling out the source.
UNKNOWN HOLOFILER, HELENA AULIS AUXILIARY CAPSULE PERDITA.
“Helena Aulis,” I said dully. The auxiliary capsule had been deployed from the colony that Lascar Franschii claimed held one of the leaders of the geneslave rebellion. “Run a personnel check on the broadcaster for that transmission.”
High-pitched squeals as the loop was played back and analyzed.
“Nonhuman auxiliary personnel,” the scholiast said at last. “Point of origin, HORUS colony Helena Aulis. Clearance Code 7, Energumen, male, Kalaman Cluster 579.”
An energumen. Again I stabbed at the air.
“That footage of the Campbell station,” I barked. “Who ’filed it? Who knew Campbell Prime was to be destroyed?”
Another golden banner.
UNKNOWN HOLOFILER, HELENA AULIS AUXILIARY CAPSULE PERDITA.
I waved impatiently. “Run a personnel check.”
More squeals. Then, “Nonhuman auxiliary personnel. Point of origin, HORUS colony Helena Aulis. Clearance Code 7, Energumen, male, Kalaman Cluster 579.”
Another energumen—or the same one—had witnessed and probably instigated the destruction of both NASNA Prime and the Campbell Station. Seemingly random acts of terrorism, and no one had ever thought to trace the news sources.
Or if they had, the correct information was never revealed.
The pressure in my mind roared like flame.
Kalaman Cluster 579.
Months before anyone was aware of it, the energumens had already begun their assault on the Ascendant Autocracy—and the Emirate, and no doubt the Balkhash Commonwealth as well.
“One more question,” I said. The shrill echo of my voice shivered in the cool air. “You said that Jawa was destroyed by Ascendant troops in retaliation for a presumed attack by the Emirate on Kalimantan and Araboth.
“But there was no attack, not according to your records. A tsunami destroyed Araboth. Who notified Quirinus headquarters otherwise? Who told them Araboth had been destroyed by the Habilis Emirate?”
The scholiast flickered in and out of sight. A disembodied voice announced, “That is classified information.”
“I am the Aviator Imperator Tast’annin!” I roared, then shouted my clearance code. The scholiast’s impassive face shimmered back into sight. After a few moments it said, “Medusine Kovax received a transmission on 19 June o.s.c. informing her of Emirate hostility in the North American theater. Ascendant troops responded within fourteen solar hours.”
“And the source for this transmission?”
A beat. Without emotion the scholiast recited, “The relay was traced to the Perdita, an auxiliary capsule from Helena Aulis.”
It was as Lascar Franschii had said. The energumens and other geneslaves had declared war on humanity.
I turned and stalked across the room, trying to calm myself; trying to call upon all my decades of training to keep from being overwhelmed by the sheer simplicity and lunacy and effectiveness of this campaign. After a few minutes my rage and sense of helplessness began to ebb. I stopped at the window and stared out, not really seeing anything.
For a terrorist movement—one that could only have burgeoned in the last year, even the last few months, else surely I would have heard rumors of it—it was amazingly well organized. They had the same weapons as the Autocracy; more of them, now that they had assumed control of HORUS. And seemingly they had at least one intelligent leader in this male energumen from Cluster 579. Every one of the places destroyed by their ragged troops had been an Ascendant stronghold, an armory or military base or resource holding of particular strategic value. It was not the sort of information geneslaves would have access to, even infernally gifted ones.
Unless…
Unless their maneuvers were all being dictated by another leader. One who knew the exact placement of the Ascendant armories and the more ancient weapons stores that had been lost over the centuries.
“The Oracle!” I cried.
“Your request?” The scholiast appeared and inclined its head to me.
“The Oracle—the messenger that has been appearing to the energumens in the HORUS colonies—do you have it on ’file?”
The scholiast blinked from view. An endless minute passed, and another. Finally it wove back into sight.
“There is an urgent ’file message for you, Imperator. Please stand by.”
In the air before me a darkness appeared, an oily cloud that swirled in slowly widening circles until it formed a viscous globe roughly man-sized, the color of a black pearl. A faint lavender light candled within its heart, a violet radiance that grew more and more intense, until I had to shield my eyes from it.
“Imperator Tast’annin.”
I lowered my hand. Within the shimmering globe stood the figure of a man, his outlines blurred by the shifting light. But as I stared, I saw that this was not a man at all, any more than Nefertity was a woman. It was a construct, a replicant, but more beautifully made than any I had ever seen, save for my nemosyne companion.
And of course that is what it was. The Ascendant’s missing military unit; the nemosyne I was searching for.
“Metatron,” I whispered.
He bowed slightly. “Imperator Tast’annin. I have been anxious to meet with you.”
My voice rose angrily. “Where are you transmitting from? How did you know I was here?”
“Agent Shi Pei informed me, shortly before she was relieved of her duties at Cisneros.” Silvery threads rippled across the violet mask of his face, and he smiled.
“How did you know I was at Cisneros?”
“A breach in their security system.” He gave a dismissive wave, an airy gesture that seemed charged with supernatural meaning. “They have all been relieved of their duties.”
Slow horror built in me as I asked, “What do you mean?”
He cupped his palms as though holding some living treasure, daggerwing butterfly or wormwood moth. When he opened them, a tiny jeweled box floated above his violet fingers. Sparks of light leapt from it like luminous spray. I leaned forward. The scintillating rays resolved into minute towers crashing in upon themselves; the flashing gems became blocks of residential units exploding into bursts of gold and crimson and black. I was looking at a ’filed image of Cisneros in flames.
In spite of my resolve I jerked backward. The nemosyne laughed.
“Oh, it won’t burn you, Imperator—”
Crack!
He clapped his hands together and the jewel-box disappeared. “There,” he said, flicking his fingers as though to cleanse them; “ that’s done.” He looked up at me, his emerald eyes glowing. “Now what shall we see next? Wichita? Vancouver? Punta Arenas?”
At each name a glittering image spun into sight. Wichita’s domes like dun-colored bubbles, Vancouver’s spires and minarets, the ice-locked casements of Antarctica’s capital. The nemosyne drew back, regarding them critically. “Or perhaps we should pluck an eye from HORUS—”
And there were the lazily turning stations of Hotei, Helena A
ulis, Quirinus, Advhi Sar, each image much cleaner than the real thing and small enough to fit in my hand. Metatron’s eyes narrowed. Light gleamed from one plasteel arm as he reached out and contemplatively pinched Advhi Sar’s shining torus between two fingers. As I watched, he brought it to his mouth and, smiling, bit down upon it with glittering meal teeth.
“ Stop it. ”
I knew they were only ’filed images, but it was too easy to recall Jawa and NASNA Prime, and Araboth’s domes crushed by the prince of storms. Metatron only shrugged.
“As you wish, Imperator.” The shining cities blinked from sight. For an instant the nemosyne was utterly still, staring at me with the cold dull gaze of an adder. Any resemblance to a mortal man was gone. I was looking at a being infinitely less human than Lascar Franschii or myself, or even Nefertity. His coldly glittering eyes, the cruel and angular lines of his face, were less alive than anything I had ever seen. Yet he was charged with such malevolence, such unshakable strength and arrogance, that he seemed more powerful than anything I had ever gazed upon.
“What are you?” I whispered.
“Many things.” He smiled again, slowly, and said, “My name is Legion.”
“Who discovered you? Who has programmed you to do these things? Why?”
A shrug of those gleaming shoulders. “ Ad astra per asperan, Imperator. You will find out soon enough.”
The nemosyne’s image flickered, as though the transmission were fading. His voice began to grow fainter. “Certain Ascendant outposts on Earth and in HORUS have proved difficult for my followers to reclaim. It seems they have formed their own alliances. Ironic, isn’t it, that after all these centuries your Autocracy and Emirates and Commonwealth should suddenly find themselves with a common enemy?”
His voice grew silken as he crooned, “But we are not your enemy, Imperator, the geneslaves and I. Humanity is. And you are no longer human. Your human masters have done nothing but fail you, again and again. Don’t you think it is time you shed your lingering affection for mem? Don’t you think it is time you found a new master?”
In the air above his head fiery words appeared, the NASNA motto Oderint dum metuant spelled out in flames.
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