Final Assault (19 page)

"They'll be slaughtered."

"May I remind the admiral that K'Tran commands the mindslavers?"

"They'll take out a few battleglobes and then they'll be slaughtered," said L'Guan. 'And then our ancient masters will arrive —probably to find K'Ronar a smoldering ruin and you and me still arguing. I ask again —will you end our splendid isolation? Will you deploy?"

"You know my answer. The Heir was supposed to be here, giving the necessary orders, Admiral." L'Guan looked up, surprised at the petulant tone.

"He would have been, if he hadn't gotten kidnapped by that miserable woman and her cutthroats."

"I have no other option than to wait, Admiral."

"Fine," said L'Guan, sinking into his chair. "We'll wait, Line—for your Emperor and a miracle."

19

Q
'nil looked up
as the door to
Devastator's
sickbay hissed open. "Harrison," he said, returning to his computer terminal. "You look your usual robust self."

"And you're your usual sardonic self, Medtech." Taking a straight-backed metal chair from beside the medanalyzer, he pulled it up to Q'Nil's desk and sat, arms folded over the back, facing the medtech.

"Why don't you sit down," said Q'Nil, working the complink.

"How long have we known each other, Q'Nil?" asked the Terran.

"If you're going to propose some quaint Terran mating contract..."

"Marriage. I wasn't going to propose it."

Q'Xil jotted a note, then returned to the complink. He looked about forty, tall, thin, hair receding, with an intelligent forehead and high cheekbones. John had seen him smile only once.

"About two years, Harrison," said Q'Nil. "The battle at the Lake of Dreams, then the original Terra Two nastiness, the skirmish in Blue Nine and now this last, desperate sally." He looked up. "Why?"

"I've searched the computer banks, backtracked all the mission logs, correlated . . ."

Q'Nil shrugged and returned to his work. "And you've determined that whenever Guan-Sharick appeared, I was nowhere around. And with two years of data, most of it from
Implacable,
you've eliminated all other shipboard contenders. I am, ipso facto, Guan-Sharick, late Illusion Master of the Infinite Hosts of the Magnificent—a being wanted by the K'Ronarin Confederation for sundry war crimes." The medtech looked up again, cool blue eyes looking into John's. "So?"

"You . . . you admit it?" asked the Terran.

"D'Trelna knew, back on
Implacable,"
said Guan-Sharick. The blonde replaced Q'Nil's lanky form, yellow hair cascading over her shoulders as she tossed her head back. "And Hochmeister, even before then. You've taken a well-worn path to my door."

"Is this really you?" he asked, reaching out a tentative hand, touching her wrist. "And none of your metaphysical bullshit," he said as she opened her mouth.

Guan-Sharick laughed. "All right, Harrison," she said. "No more metaphysical bullshit. Yes, it's really me. And am I really a hundred thousand years old?"

He said nothing, watching as she folded one leg across another. "Yes, counting all my clones. This one"—she touched her chest —"is about fifty years old."

"You've killed a lot of people," said John. "To what end?"

The transmute held up a finger. "In a language older than the AIs, 'Guan-Sharick' means healer. That's what I am here—what I've alv/ays been. When the Emperor of the Golden Fleet led the great human exodus from this galaxy, I was his medical officer. I'm still a medic, Harrison—it's just that my practice now spans two galaxies."

"I see," he said. "You've been playing Machiavellian games with galactic humanity for a hundred thousand years ..."

"Only seventy thousand."

"... orchestrated the destruction of millions, created those hideous biofabs, and now what? You're saying it was for the good of all?" He found himself with his hand on his blaster.

Guan-Sharick said nothing, merely looked at him with those cool green eyes.

"Fine," said John, taking his hand from his sidearm. "You're a healer. What are you trying to heal?"

"Think I'm crazy, don't you?" she said.

"Pretty much, yeah," he said.

She smiled. "Let's see if I can convince you otherwise, Harrison." Opening one of the desk drawers, she took out an amber-colored bottle. "S'Tanian brandy." Reaching into another drawer, she took out four glasses and touched the door entry. "You must be tired of listening on your communicators," she called. "That corridor pulls an awful draft."

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 captain, "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.