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  Warily, Zahava and K'Raoda entered the room, hands on their weapons.

  "Pull up some chairs," said Guan-Sharick, pouring the brandy. "I'm going to tell you what comes next-and why you're going to help me."

  "Home," said S'Rel, watching the forward scan as Devastator emerged from her jump. All the AIs on the bridge were gathered around him, watching the projection. "One million years uptime, a hundred thousand years subjective time since we left."

  "Jump reference one-one red four-eight Alpha," said R'Gal. "We're in central sector, as plotted."

  "You were governor here," said S'Rel.

  R'Gal nodded, watching the data trail thread along the bottom of the tacscan. "And if I were still governor, we'd have been detected and challenged by now. Anything, K'Raoda?"

  "I'm monitoring all standard AI comm-channels," said the K'Ronarin, eyes on the console array. "Nothing."

  "Nothing?" S'Rel came and looked over K'Raoda's shoulder. "What about commercial and scientific traffic?"

  "Nothing," repeated the human. "Try it yourself."

  "I was going to make for one of the slave systems," said R'Gal. K'Raoda looked at R'Gal. "But better plot course for the nearest inhabited world…"

  "Monitor the slave bands." Guan-Sharick stepped onto the bridge, followed by the two Terrans. "And the AI distress frequencies."

  "Why?" said S'Rel. "The human trash we left behind after the Revolt…"

  "Are dead," said Guan-Sharick. "A million years ago.

  "Concepts of time are mere abstractions to you AIs," she continued, eyes passing over R'Gal and S'Rel, moving on to the other AIs on the bridge. "Temporal reality? What's temporal reality to beings who never die?"

  "We change," said S'Rel. "We grow, some of us-intellectually, spiritually. Certainly, we know what time is-entropy will get us all, eventually."

  "Yes, but you don't die, S'Rel," said the blonde. "Not on any scale mortals can conceive. Essentially, you're immortal-all of you. And any society of immortals tends to be static."

  "What are you saying?" asked S'Rel.

  "'Humans die," said Guan-Sharick, turning to him. "Their societies are brawling, fecund, fluxing heaps. And that makes it absurd for you to predicate any judgment of any society on data that is one million years old -including your own. Consider-AI society's dependent on humans for much of its economy. AI society may have seemed static when you left, gentlebeings, but it did not exist in a vacuum."

  "Commander K'Raoda," said R'Gal, "please monitor the slave bands and spare us further sociological speculation."

  "The slave bands are brawling, fluxing heaps," said K'Raoda after a moment. "They're bristling with military transmissions, most of them in the clear."

  "A revolt," said S'Rel uneasily. The AIs on the bridge exchanged worried glances. "Anything on any AI band?"

  K'Raoda touched the commlink, then listened for a moment, fingertip touching the commjack in his ear. "Yes," he said finally. "Automatic emergency calls on the distress bands."

  "Put one on," said R'Gal.

  They listened in silence to a flat, emotionless voice. "… is the satellite defense nexus at Bano. We are under attack by slave units. Our position is rapidly deteriorating. We do not have sufficient force left to operate the defenses. The crippler has taken out over eighty-seven percent of the garrison. Overrun is imminent. We repeat, overrun is imminent. All units, all stations, be advised: slave units are employing a cloaking device-tacscan cannot detect them. Also, they have obtained the shield frequencies of all battleglobe and defense installation shield frequencies. They can penetrate our shielding at will, and are only detectable optically. We have dropped shielding and are diverting all power to the guns.

  "This is the satellite defense nexus at Bano…"

  "Gods of my fathers," said R'Gal, unthinkingly using the K'Ronarin oath. "The Empire of the One is gone. The Fleet of the One is gone."

  "Overthrown by organic, agrarian clods," said S'Rel.

  "Revolutionaries," said John scornfully. "You're a nest of reactionaries." Walking past S'Rel and R'Gal, he stopped and turned, leaning against the edge of K'Raoda's console, arms folded. "I'll remind you-corpses bought us this monstrous machine-Admiral S'Gan and all her command, many of Implacable's crew, about five hundred D'Linian soldiers. Then, through wit and cunning, we r: ached here, ready to spark a revolt, make an empire totter." His eyes met those of the AI commanders-perfect, blue, expressionless eyes, watchful and waiting. "And what do we find-the revolt's over, the Empire's fallen. By God, you should be dancing on the bridge, R'Gal, S'Rel, all of you. You're dismayed? Why?"

  "You return home with a lot of robots," said R'Gal, hands steepled in front of his chin, "ready to overthrow the fascist humans who're about to invade the place you've called home for a lot of years. Reaching there, you find that the food processors have revolted and sliced all the humans. Is your first reaction to break open a sparkling wine?"

  "Those agrarian clods?" said K'Raoda, turning in his chair.

  "What about them?" said S'Rel.

  "Here they come," he said, pointing out the window.

  They followed where his finger pointed, through the armorglass wall and onto the endless sweep of steel that was Devastator's hull. Backdropped by the sullen umbra of the battleglobe's shield, black specks were swooping toward the command tower.

  "Tacscan reads negative, shield reads normal," said K'Raoda.

  "Alert. Alert." It was ship's computer. "Shield breach. Shield breach. Incoming hos-tiles. Incoming hostiles."

  "Battlestations," ordered R'Gal, moving to the commander's station.

  K'Raoda thumbed the alert switch. Rattling throughout the battleglobe's occupied area, the battle klaxon's strident awooka! sent men and AIs racing to emergency posts.

  S'Rel stepped to his own station as the bridge filled with personnel. He spoke quickly into the commlink. "All batteries to automatic. Initiate optical tracking. All batteries commence…"

  A finger switched off the commlink. "Open up on them, they'll know we're hostile," said R'Gal.

  "If we don't, Commander, they'll blow the ship…"

  Explosions racked the bridge, sending humans and AIs sprawling. Outside, orange-blue flames leaped high as missile battery after missile battery detonated, touched by swift green rays.

  "Contracting shielding to inhabited areas only," said K'Raoda, fingers flying over the console. "Releasing atmosphere curtain to snuff fires."

  A shrill, three-note alarm sounded. "Hos-tiles closing on command tower," said computer. "Hostiles closing on command tower. Request counterfire. Request counterfire."

  Everyone looked outside. The black specks had become silver, needle-nosed fighter craft, streaking at hull level toward the bridge, a

  … of burning weapons batteries behind an. The last defense perimeter passed, the fighters opened fire on the command tower, ost as K'Raoda released the atmosphere curtain.

  "Drop!" John shouted, pushing Zahava to the deck. As he threw himself on top of her, the heavy fusion bolts exploded against the bridge's shield. Glancing up, John had just a quick glimpse of one of the fighter craft spinning wildly out of control. Caught in the irresistible rush of millions of cubic tons of escaping air, the fighter pierced the shield and slammed into the bridge. John saw it for just a second as it burst through the armorglass -fangs seemed to reach for him from the bow-carnivorous white fangs that dripped blood-then a silent ball of light touched him and he knew no more.

  20

  "Stinks," said dtrelna.

  L'Wrona sniffed. "Recycler's old-it's picking up some of the nitrates. Fairly harmless."

  "The air doesn't worry me," said D'Trelna, peering into the twilight world of S'Yal's last citadel. "But where's the light coming from?" he asked, gazing up. An inverted black bowl, the fortress shield was tinged with a faint blue aura.

  "Fascinating," said L'Wrona, watching the faint, rhythmic pulsing of the aura. "What kind of power source can withstand a full fleet bombardment," said the c
aptain, "keep this installation intact even as it sinks into molten rock, then keep the earth itself from crushing it over fifteen thousand years?"

  If I knew, I'd be rich," said D'Trelna, looking down the ancient pathway on which they stood to the valley below. Nestled in a grove of silver-barked trees was a white, one-story villa, of the sort that had once dotted lakes and streams throughout the Empire-a graceful, blue-roofed structure of tiled courtyards, fountains and formal gardens.

  "Not a palace, not a mansion and certainly not what I was expecting," said D'Trelna.

  "What were you expecting, J'Quel?"

  "Darkness. Hideous, menacing shapes." Raising his hands, he curled them into talons. "Things that suck the souls out of…"

  "J'Quel, you're being silly," said L'Wrona, lowering the commodore's nearest hand with his own. "Just because the man had an unsavory reputation doesn't mean he lived in a charnel house."

  "Unsavory?" said the commodore, starting the walk down the road toward the villa. "Try evil."

  "Evil?" said L'Wrona with faint contempt. "Really, J'Quel-such a simplistic…"

  "Evil," repeated the commodore, chopping the palm of one hand with the other. "Can't exist, can it, H'Nar? Not a logical construct. The cool winds of reason blow through the temple of technology. Superstition's cast aside."

  "I didn't say…"

  "Evil," said D'Trelna. "Biofabs, corsairs, mindslavers, components, AIs. Evil. You should recognize it by now, H'Nar-we've been fighting it long enough." He strode on ahead down the ancient pathway, a fat, angry man ready for whatever awaited.

  L'Wrona caught up, stopping him with a hand to his shoulder. Surprised, D'Trelna turned, staring up into an angry face. "My people came here with the Golden Fleet. We stood with T'Nil when he overthrew the Mindslavers' Guild. We held the Marches against every form of human vermin that tried for K'Ronar. We fought R'Actol and her creatures. More good men and causes have called us friend than you and I have years, Commodore. My family, my friends-they're all dead. My home's a netherworld of walking dead. Don't lecture me on evil."

  D'Trelna opened his mouth, then shut it. Controlling himself with visible effort, he started back down the path, L'Wrona following. They walked silently, footsteps absorbed by the soft rubbery surface of the footway. As they reached the floor of the valley, the dead soil to either side gave way to green heather and flowering shrubs. #

  L'Wrona stopped. "Did you see any flora from the hilltop?" he asked.

  D'Trelna shook his head. "Just those trees," he said, pointing ahead to the grove of silver-barked trees.

  Twilight vanished, replaced by a bright summer noon. Commodore and captain bed up, squinting-the shield now glowed yellow.

  Sunlight and flowers," said D'Trelna, stopping to smell a delicate red bud. "Spring stirs to life. Our doing?" he asked, turning back to the road.

  "Let's hope spring's all that's stirring," said L'Wrona as they walked through the small stand of silver trees. As they walked, the interlaced boughs over their heads grew leaves, forming a golden canopy over the two. "S'Yal was head of some hideous cult that promised immortality in exchange for loyalty," said L'Wrona. "Fanatical loyalty-and he probably had enough of the Old Science to pull it off. Mystical idiocy reinforced by ritual sacrifice-that alone would have destroyed him, in time. But then he went and betrayed the very AIs his grandfather had freed…"

  "A revolt he put down," said D'Trelna. "Lost his personal fleet and most of the rest. So having blown the AIs away, the remnant came home and took care of S'Yal-to the general good of all. So? You think he left something behind?"

  "Does this strike you as a fortress, J'Quel?" said L'Wrona, gesturing about him.

  "Grubby, gray things with too-bright corridors that stink of metallic air?" said D'Trelna.

  The captain nodded.

  "No." The commodore shrugged, hands behind his back. "But who's to say what an Imperial citadel would look like, given the technology then available?"

  "We've both seen Imperial fortresses of about the same period," said L'Wrona. "Does this look like A'Gran Seven's Redoubt, or S'Hlor's Third's Defense Ring-all battlesteel and weapons batteries?"

  "No," said the commodore. "But if you're implying we've woken some sort of sleeping dreadfuls…"

  Leaving the grove, they rounded a bend and stopped before the gate.

  "There was no gate here," said D'Trelna, reaching out a hand to touch the wooden planks. "Not when we stood on the hillside." A double-doored, brass-hinged gate, it was set in a high, vine-choked stone wall that ran away to either side, disappearing around the villa.

  "Well, there's a gate," said L'Wrona, pushing it with both hands. It didn't budge. "And it's locked."

  "We don't have time for this," said D'Trelna. "Combine T'Lan could be slicing up K'Ronarport by now. Take it out, H'Nar," he ordered, stepping back.

  Nodding, L'Wrona stepped back, drew and fired. Three red bolts burst through the gate, leaving behind a few charred and flaming sticks clinging to scorched hinges.

  Captain and commodore stepped cautiously through the smoke, weapons in hand, and found themselves standing back on the hillside, looking down at the distant villa. There was no wall, no gate. Twilight had returned.

  The two officers stared at the valley for a moment, then at each other. "We're being toyed with," said D'Trelna, holstering his side-arm. "Suggestions?"

  "A time field?" said L'Wrona.

  D'Trelna glanced at his chronometer. "No. Time has advanced, not retreated."

  "Internal transporter?"

  "I'd say yes, except that the visual images keep changing." D'Trelna ran a hand through his hair. "Which leaves…"

  "Illusion."

  "Certainly some form of mind control," said D'Trelna. He looked at L'Wrona. "I really wanted to strangle you back there, H'Nar. We're not the most compatible couple Fleet ever fielded, but I've never been that angry at you."

  The captain met his gaze and nodded. "You're right-we're being toyed with. How?"

  D'Trelna looked back down into the valley. "Something that alters our perception of reality-some gentle electronic whisper seducing our senses, goading our baser instincts."

  "And to counter it?" said L'Wrona. "We've no grasp of the technology…"

  "A sharp dose of reality," said D'Trelna. Drawing his blaster, he twisted the muzzle power selector to low, covered the aperture with his left hand and clicked off the safety.

  "J'Quel!" cried L'Wrona, stepping toward D'Trelna, hand reaching for the blaster.

  D'Trelna squeezed the trigger just as L'Wrona seized his wrist. A bolt of raw red energy lanced D'Trelna's left hand.

  L'Wrona found himself alone, his hand clutching nothing.

  "You've got to pass them," said Admiral L'Guan with more calm than he felt. "K'Ronar's about to be decimated. The Palace, the Tower, Archives-the cultural and historical legacy of galactic humanity…"

  "No," said Line. "Those ships are only fourteen percent of the total recalled. Of those, eight percent are corsairs. And the Fleet units present represent over forty-seven disparate commands. Do you seriously expect to get them all to fight as a unit, for the same cause, without a week's training, Admiral?"

  "But…"

  "We'll hold them in reserve," said Line. "Until the rest of the recall comes in, and the Heir returns."

  L'Guan shook his head and turned to stare at wall screens with their vivid images of the Combine ships wiping out the remainder of K'Ronar's defenders: blasted and crumpled wreckage tumbling in erratic, decaying orbits around the planet; lifepods torn open by the precise little bolts of Mark 44 fusion cannons, holes in their hulls choked with tangled wreckage and bloated, unsuited bodies.

  As L'Guan turned away, his eye was caught by another screen on which a round silver lifepod fled toward a red glimmer on K'Ronar's surface-the shielded sanctuary of Prime Base. As the admiral watched, two slender silver missiles overtook the lifepod, exploding within meters of its unshielded hull. "Line," said L'Guan, turning from t
he image of ochre-colored gases dissipating into space, "you're an unfeeling slime."

  "Just doing my job, Admiral."

  "Now, this is more like it," muttered D'Trelna, looking at the real citadel as the medkit tended his hand.

  The original twilight was there, generated by the same shield-all else had changed. Where the villa and its grounds had stood now loomed a dark ziggurat of a pyramid, made of the same black metal as the citadel's flooring. The only other structures were oblong, vertical mirrors, set in the flooring. Slightly taller than a man, they ringed the pyramid at the same distance as had the stone wall. A second, smaller group of mirrors stood in four rows fronting the ring at about the same distance as the trees had the wall.

  The medkit chirped as its amber light turned green. The commodore slipped the little machine off his hand and snapped it back onto his belt. Raising his left hand to his face, he examined it carefully, flexing his fingers. Gone was the neatly cauterized hole of the beam hit that had pierced the palm, only a small white scab marking its place. Satisfied, D'Trelna drew his blaster, twisted the muzzle back to operational mode and turned to where L'Wrona stood. Seemingly unaware of D'Trelna, he stared around and through the commodore, eyes scanning the citadel. "J'Quel!" he called, hands cupped.

  "Here, H'Nar," said D'Trelna.

  L'Wrona seemed not to hear, instead taking out his communit and keying the transmit. "D'Trelna. L'Wrona. Acknowledge," he called.

  Reaching over, D'Trelna seized the captain by the shoulder and shook him, hard.

  "D'Trelna!" exclaimed the captain, seeing the commodore for the first time. "Where in…" He stopped, his eye caught by the dark spectacle of S'Yal's citadel. "Gods," he said. "You beat their camouflage." He glanced at DTrelna's hand.

  "Medkit?"

  "A marvelous device," nodded the commodore.

  "What are all those mirrors for?" asked L'Wrona, his gaze returning to the citadel.

  "I have my suspicions," said D'Trelna.

  "Care to share them?"

  "Not yet-I don't want to have to argue my primitive superstitions with you when we should be penetrating that large lump out there."