MARINE PRIVATE

Private Bassiritz did not understand his orders.

Normally, this was not much of a concern for him. In his years as a marine, he had performed crowd control, jumped into friendly fire, executed snatch-and-runs, and even carried out an assassination. Ground combat could include myriad possible tactical situations, and generally the details were complex and beyond his ken. But as long as Bassiritz knew ally from foe, he was happy.

Bassiritz had always thought of the crew of the Lynx as his allies, however. As the Time Thief stole more and more faces from home, his shipmates had effectively become his family. But here he was, under orders delivered straight from the captain, ready to do violence to some of them. This didn't make sense. It seemed as if the tribulations of the gravity ghost over the last week--the jittering of his bunk, the reeling of floors and walls, the complaints from his sense of balance--had begun to affect the very fabric of reality.

For the thousandth time, Bassiritz went through the orders in his head, visualizing the motions his body would take. It was simple enough. And he knew that he would follow orders when the time came. He could comprehend no other course of action. But he didn't like the feeling it gave him.

Bassiritz felt out of place here in Navy country. The floors and the freefall handholds were the wrong color, and everyone had given him slanty looks as he'd followed Executive Officer Hobbes down the corridors. And now they were here, waiting in the captain's cabin. The room seemed fantastically large to Bassiritz, bigger than his parents' house; the skyroom alone could have held the bunk coffins of his entire squad. What did the captain do with all this room?

There was no way to guess. The captain wasn't here.

Executive Officer Hobbes was. She would be the only friend in this operation, Bassiritz knew. The other three officers had gone bad, mutinous.

There was a tall woman waiting beside the door across from Hobbes, with pilot's wings on her shoulders. She was sweating, twitching from nerves or intermittent bumps from the gravity ghost. Outside, a slight gunner waited on watch. He was bad too, but Hobbes had asked Bassiritz not to kill him unless it was absolutely necessary. The marine private hoped he wouldn't have to kill anyone.

The last conspirator, another gunnery officer, stood in the room's center, holding a short, wide knife. Bassiritz had never seen a blade of error before. He had hoped he never would. They were bad luck, it was reckoned back in his village. Once you possessed the tool, you'd eventually be called on to do the work, they said at home.

When Bassiritz was done with this operation, he was going to use up his payment of privilege chits and take a long, hot shower.

There were two quick raps on the door. Hobbes had explained to him that this was the signal that everything was going right. The captain was approaching alone. Bassiritz shook his head involuntarily--none of this was right. But he was pretending to be a conspirator, so he smiled, wringing the old rag he held in one hand.

The smile felt wrong on his face. He didn't like this one bit.

ExO Hobbes stole a look at him. She winked one lovely green eye--a sign, but one that meant nothing really. Just a reminder that he was here under orders.

"Stay cool and everything will go fine," she had said to him an hour ago. "That's what a wink will mean."

Nothing was fine, though.

The door opened. The captain entered.

The four of them leapt into action. Hobbes and the pilot grabbed Captain Zai (striking the captain--an Error of Blood right there) and propelled him forward. Bassiritz's quick eyes could see Hobbes slip something into Zai's hand, but he knew from long experience that the subtle motion had been too quick for normal people to see. As the captain fell toward him, Bassiritz's reflexes took over and he forgot the gross impropriety of his actions. He pushed the rag into Captain Zai's mouth with his left hand, stifling the cry that uttered from it. Bassiritz felt the captain's roar of anger vibrate his hand, but the marine was already focused on his real task here. The big gunnery officer was jumping forward, his blade of error leveled at the captain's stomach.

Bassiritz's right hand shot out. To the rest of them, trapped in their slow-motion world, it would look as if he were steadying himself. But the marine's armored hand (they all wore gloves to cover their fingerprints) grabbed the blade of error, guiding its wild trajectory straight into the center of Zai's stomach.

Those were his orders. No near misses, no wounds to the chest or groin. Right into the stomach: dead center.

ExO Hobbes hadn't told him exactly why. Bassiritz hadn't asked. But the recorded message from the captain had assured him that this was all part of the plan.

Bassiritz felt the knife go in, right on target. There was a sickly squelch, and a warm fluid spurted over his and the murderous gunner's hands.

Captain Zai made a hideous grunt, and tumbled face-first onto the ritual mat they'd spread out for him. The gunner pressed down on Zai's back, having left the blade in him.

"No footprints," the man whispered, pointing at Bassiritz's boots. One of them had a fleck of blood on it. Blood. What had they done here?

Bassiritz looked at Hobbes for the next signal.

The executive officer shook her head almost imperceptibly.

Not yet.

The room grew silent, a last shuddering sigh coming from the captain. Bassiritz gazed in horror at the blood that flowed from him and across the floor. It moved strangely, tiny rivers branching out like the living tendrils of a sea creature, shuddering with odd tremors. The gravity ghost was moving it. Bassiritz reflexively stepped back from a finger of the red liquid that reached for his boot.

The captain was not breathing. What had they done?

"It's over," Hobbes said.

The pilot leaned back against the wall, covered her face with her hands.

The gunner stumbled back, a nervous smile on his lips.

"All right, then," he said. Ho lifted a small transponder and spoke a single codeword into it. Bassiritz remembered to look at ExO Hobbes.

Hobbes winked her left eye. Now. The marine's fist shot out, catching the gunner's throat. The man crumpled to the bloody floor, most likely still alive. Bassiritz turned to watch the rest.

Hobbes was already in midswing, delivering a slap to the pilot's face with a loud crack. The larger woman reeled backward, her face blank from the blinding shock of the slap. A good way to confuse someone, but only for a few seconds. Bassiritz stepped forward. But before he could strike, a second crack rang out.

The electric smell of a dazegun filled the room. Bassiritz felt the small hairs on his arms rise and tingle.

The pilot dropped to the floor.

The captain leapt up, the dazer in his bloody hand. He whirled to face the fallen gunner, but the man was motionless. Bassiritz knew from experience that he wouldn't be getting up for hours.

"Captain?" Hobbes asked.

"I'm fine, Hobbes," he answered, nodding. "Well done."

The door burst open; more marines, Bassiritz noted happily. The Navy was too complicated for him.

The small gunner who had been watching for the conspirators outside was among them, his arms pinned. His eyes swept the room, then glared with hatred at ExO Hobbes.

"Any reaction from that transponder signal?" the captain asked.

Hobbes listened, then nodded. "Two crew from gunnery left their posts, sir. Headed for my cabin, apparently."

"Don't take them yet. Let's see what they're up to," he ordered.

The captain pulled the ringlets of his tunic with a single ripping motion, and the garment parted. One last rush of blood spattered onto the floor. Bassiritz noted the armor strapped to his undershirt; it only covered his stomach.

Bassiritz smiled. The captain certainly had confidence in him. If the blade of error had missed its mark, Captain Zai would be bleeding for real.

One of the other marines checked the gunnery officer crumpled on the floor.

"Alive, sir."

Suddenly, the young mutineer in the doorway lunged forward in his captors' arms. Bassiritz slipped between him and the captain, an arm raised to strike. But the marines held the man fast.

"The blade!" the gunner cried. "Let me take the blade."

All had gone according to plan, but Bassiritz found his relief turning bitter in his mouth. These were his crewmates, condemned to death for their shameful actions. Hobbes looked away from the young man, her eyes downcast.

"In due time," the captain said quietly.

They pulled the gunner from the room weeping, an animal howl coming from the young man.

Executive Officer Hobbes spoke up again. "Another response to the transponder. A notice went up on a public board, a few moments after your 'murder,' sir. An anonymous noise complaint, for the Section F gunnery bunks."

"A coincidence?"

"There is no Section F, sir."

Captain Zai shook his head. "How many of my crew are in on this?" he wondered aloud.

"At least two more, sir. One to send, another to receive. Whoever posted it was clever, though. We can't crack the anonymity."

The captain sighed. He stepped over the unconscious gunnery officer and sat heavily on his bed. "I seem to have injured my knee, Executive Officer."

"Bad gravity for a fall, sir. I'll get medical up here."

"Think we can trust them?" the captain said.

Hobbes was silent.

Then she said, "Well, at least the marines are with us, sir."

Captain Zai looked at Bassiritz and smiled wanly.

"Good work, soldier."

"Thank you, sir," Bassiritz answered, eyes front.

"You managed to stab me dead center."

"Yes, sir. Those were my orders, sir."

The captain wiped some of the fake blood from his face.

"Well, Private, with your help I seem to have accomplished something very unlikely."

"Sir?"

The captain stood, wincing as he shifted weight from one knee to the other.

"I doubt that many men have avoided two blades of error in their lives. Much less in the same week."

Bassiritz knew it was a joke, but no one laughed, so he kept his mouth shut.

SENATOR

"This pit is lined with an old and simple material," the Emperor began, gesturing to the floor beneath the counselors' feet. Nara Oxham had noticed before that of all the Diamond Palace she had seen, only the council chamber was made of the pearly substance.

"From the casein, or lactoid group of plastics," he continued. "A beautiful white, almost milky in appearance. It is, in fact, made from cows' milk and rennet, an enzyme from the stomachs of goats. Hardened by formaldehyde."

Senator Oxham lifted one foot from the floor uncomfortably. She had always liked the hard-plastic feel of the council chamber, but this pillaging of animals' guts seemed a bit perverse.

"It was discovered almost a hundred years before spaceflight, when a chemist's pet cat knocked a bottle of formaldehyde into its saucer of milk."

Save us, Oxham thought, from those agents of history.

She realized that the pit they all were perched around might well be a giant saucer of milk, a meal set out for some gargantuan housecat.

"The hardening effect was noticed, and plastic--the ancestor of our smart carbon--was created," the sovereign said. "Such disasters can always be turned into opportunities. But it is good to be prepared."

Disasters?

"The time has come to consider the possibility that the Lynx will fail."

The Emperor nodded at the dead admiral, who waved an image into the War Council's airscreen. Between the counselors hovered the familiar shape of the coming battle. The sweeping arcs that represented battlecruiser and frigate now almost intersected. "The two ships are nearing contact even as we speak," the admiral said. "The elements of their drone fleets will engage shortly. Against such a powerful foe, the demise of the Lynx could come suddenly."

Senator Nara Oxham took a deep breath. She had marked this moment for days; she didn't need some dead woman to explain its significance. Nara had hoped that she would be able to spend these hours alone, waiting for word to come from the Legis ground stations that were intently watching the battle. But the council summons had invaded her vigil.

Now she might learn of Laurent's death in the company of these politicians and gray warriors. She steeled herself, pushing fear and hope as far down as she could, forcing a cold absence into her heart. This diamond chamber was no place to weep, or even feel.

"If the Lynx is destroyed, and has failed to destroy the Rix array," the admiral continued, "we should know some eight hours after the fact, assuming standard models of simultaneity. That calculation includes light-speed delay between Legis XV and the battle, and a decision window for the local military. They'll have to be a hundred percent sure of what's happened."

"In those eight hours," the Emperor added, "the Rix ship will be forty billion kilometers closer to Legis."

"We will have to reply to Legis rather quickly," the general said. "For any decision to reach them before the Rix draw within range."

The counselors looked at each other in some puzzlement. They had been swept up in the greater war, and had lost track of the Lynx. The council had been determining the lot of generations--hundreds of billions of the living, dead, and unborn--and again the fate of a single ship demanded their attention.

"Then we should discuss our options, Sire," the Utopian senator said.

"Are there any?" Oxham asked.

"We believe that there are," the general said.

"I move to invoke the hundred-year rule," the Loyalist Senator Henders said.

There was a stir at these words. The rule was an old privilege of the Emperor's War Council, a means to ensure that His Majesty's counselors could speak freely, without fearing that their words would be openly repeated. With the council so far acting unanimously, there had been little reason to invoke the rule. The counselors never discussed their decision-making in public in any case. And under the rule, the consequences of an inadvertent slip would be unthinkable.

"I second," the Emperor said.

Nara felt cold fear come into the room. The sovereign had seconded, and the rule was invoked without objection.

Now nothing of this discussion could be repeated outside the chamber, not to anyone at all, not for one hundred years Imperial Absolute. The price of breaking the rule was as old as the Empire itself.

Execution by exsanguination: the common traitor's death.

Of course, Nara realized, she and the other senators on the council would be technically protected by their own senatorial privilege: freedom from arrest and Imperial censure. But breaking the rule constituted proof of treachery, and would be the end of any political power they might wield.

The discussion began with a speech from the Emperor.

"If the Rix compound mind is able to communicate with the rest of the Cult, then Legis has, in effect, been captured a second time. The mind is constituted of every piece of information on the planet: every line of code, every market datum, every technical specification. It has access to all our technological secrets."

Nara took a deep breath. They'd heard all this before. But the Emperor's next words surprised her.

"But that isn't our concern," he said. "The strength of Empire is not in our technology, but in our hearts. And that is where we must be most vigilant. The mind is more than computers and comfibers. It also contains every child's diary, every family legacy recording, the prayers of the living to their ancestors, the patient files of psychoanalysts and religious counselors. The mind has grasped the psyche of our Risen Empire; it knows us in every aspect. The Rix seek to steal our dreams."

The sovereign paused, challenging each of them with his stare.

"And we know what the Rix Cult brings: absolute disdain for human life except as a component of their precious minds. No terror was beyond them when they sought our submission in the First Incursion. Back then they didn't understand our strength, didn't realize what bound us together. Now, they have reached into our minds to discover what we most fear. They seek to pull out our secret nightmares and make a lever of them."

Nara Oxham felt the Emperor's fear clearly now. It spread slowly to the others in the room as his speech continued. She could see the source of his passion: the reasoning behind his hatred of the Rix, his horror at the mind's takeover of Legis, his willingness to sacrifice the Lynx. Finally, perhaps, he was telling the truth.

"If the Lynx fails," he said, "we have lost this war."

The words shook even Oxham. The old childhood conditioning, the imagery of fables and songs made the concept unthinkable. The Emperor of the Eighty Worlds spoke of losing a war. The sovereign wasn't allowed to entertain such an idea. He had beaten death, after all.

For a moment, the emotions in the room threatened to overwhelm her. Nara reached instinctively for her apathy bracelet, but forced herself not to resort to the drug. She needed to maintain her sensitivity. But the fear remained at the edge of her control.

"What must we do?" asked Senator Henders. Nara could see that he'd been coached for this question, as he had been to invoke the hundred-year rule. Henders already knew what the Emperor's answer would be.

"We must be prepared to kill the mind."

A chill ran down Oxham's spine.

"How, Your Majesty?" she asked.

"We must be ready to make any sacrifice."

"Sire," she pleaded. "What do you propose?"

"We must kill the mind," he said flatly. Then he turned to the dead general.

The ancient warrior raised his head and looked at them. His gray face shone a little, almost as if he were sweating.

"We switch off the nuclear dampening fields on Legis. Then we detonate four hundred clean-airburst warheads in the hundred-megaton range, at an altitude of two hundred kilometers, directly over population centers, control points, and data reserves."

"Nuclear weapons?" Nara said in disbelief. "Over our own people?"

"Very low yield on dirty radiation, optimized for electromagnetic pulse."

The admiral spoke. "Every unshielded machine on the planet will be rendered useless. Unlike a normal power grid failure, all the distributed, self-maintaining components of the infrastructure will be eliminated. Every phone, handheld device, and computer on the planet will suddenly stop working."

"Every aircar will fall from the sky," Oxham protested. "Every medical endoframe will fail."

The admiral shook his head. "Before the blast, a standard space-raid warning drill will run. Aircars will ground themselves, medics will be standing by."