The Dark Imbalance (25 page)

“The only way the common features could be missing was if they were somehow removed and replaced with new, maybe random, sequences. But I can’t see why anyone would want to do that. The introns are ignored, for the most part, since they serve little or no function.”

“But if someone
did
have the capability to do this, might they want to do it to conceal the origins of a new Caste?”

“They might.” The woman shrugged. “But, again, I can’t see why. Only the High Humans have this sort of technology—and why would they create a new Caste just to kill us? There must be many more certain ways to do that.”

Roche nodded. The woman had raised an interesting point, and allowed Roche to assert her presence in the meeting. Satisfied that the council knew that she was not going to sit back and let Nemeth railroad her to whatever conclusion he was hoping for, she indicated for him to continue.

He nodded with exaggerated politeness. “Thank you,” he said. “Now, having ascertained that Adoni Cane is in fact one of the enemy, several questions arise that cannot be easily answered. Why he chose to ally himself with Morgan Roche at all is one such issue; why he chose to risk his own life to save hers and that of her companions would be another. These were key sticking points at Roche’s last appearance before this council, and they have yet to be resolved. The possibility also remains that he is in fact still working for the enemy—a possibility which cannot be completely discounted, and
must
be the context within which his replies to our questions are considered.

“Do you understand what I am saying, Adoni Cane?”

“Of course I understand you.” Cane’s expression didn’t change, but Roche noted the contempt in his tone.

If Nemeth heard it, he ignored it.

“Very well,” he said. “We’ll proceed. Tell me, Adoni Cane,
do
you possess epsense abilities?”

“In the sense that I can make myself heard to a reave? Yes, I do. But if you are asking whether I can actually read minds or stop people’s hearts—then no, I don’t.”

“And you are certain of this?”

“I would hardly be unaware of such an ability,” said Cane.

“Morgan?” Nemeth turned to her, asking her to corroborate Cane’s statement.

“Obviously I don’t know what goes on inside his head,” she said, “but I haven’t seen anything to suggest that he’s a reave of any kind.”

“His shield?” Nemeth suggested.

“It
could
be innate. I’ve never seen him hurt anyone that way, or even been addressed by him that way. He has never tried to influence my decisions—”

“Are you sure of that?” Nemeth was quick to jump on this.

“Positive.” She was certain Maii would have alerted her to any mental tampering, had it occurred.

“Then what makes you think an epsense link could be responsible for the chaos that has broken out around us? Either the link exists, and therefore Cane has it, or it doesn’t exist and he is as mute as he appears to be.”

Roche remembered the conversations she’d had with Maii and Cane immediately prior to coming to the
Phlegethon
the first time. “Like his shields, the link could be innate. Before his death, the Olmahoi
irikeii
expressed the opinion that the clone warriors were like him: absorbers of thought—
all
thought, from all around them. This would include each other’s thoughts, of course, assuming they can penetrate each other’s shields. That would turn an innate ability to absorb thought into a means of communicating with each other.”

Nemeth frowned. “Wouldn’t this make them some kind of collective mind?”

Roche shrugged. “I raise it merely as an hypothesis to be tested.”

“But how could we possibly test it?”

“Maybe we already have, inadvertently,” she said. “By alerting one clone warrior to the knowledge that we can now find them, we may be alerting the others and—”

“You cannot produce the phenomenon you are attempting to explain as evidence to support your hypothesis,” said a voice from the crowd.

Roche looked around and saw Salton Trezise stepping forward to confront her.

“How do you plan to prove your argument?” he continued. “We need more data. How do you propose we go about getting it?”

Roche glanced at Nemeth, who looked furious at the interruption but didn’t himself in turn interrupt. An intrigued sussurrus spread through the fane.

“I have no specific experiment in mind,” Roche admitted. “That’s why I’m here, to talk to the council.”

“Well, maybe it’s time the council started asking the right questions, instead of skirting the issue. Tell me, Roche, have you personally ever seen anything in the time that you have known Adoni Cane to suggest that he shares a connection with the other clone warriors?”

Roche thought about this for a second. “Only once,” she said. “When we arrived in Sol System. Jelena Heidik, the clone warrior we were following, knew exactly when we would arrive and where we were headed. That information could have been transmitted through such a link.”

“But is it possible that this information could have been obtained through other means?”

“Yes, it’s possible—”

“Then such evidence is circumstantial,
not
conclusive, and comes from a source one might describe as unreliable:
you
.”

He smiled broadly, but Roche didn’t respond. Nemeth stepped forward to regain control, but Trezise refused to stop.

“And what about you?” Trezise asked, turning to Cane. “Do you share a connection with the others?”

“No,” said Cane bluntly.

“You’re not aware of any such a connection? Or are you saying that such a connection does not exist?”

“It doesn’t exist.”

“Good, because I’d hate to think the enemy was listening in on us.” He turned to Roche again. “Did you think about that when you brought him here? That if such a link
did
exist, he could broadcast every word we said to the enemy in this system?”

“
You
suggested it,” she said.

“Yes, I did—and not because I believed your crazy theory, but rather to clear this matter up once and for all. It’s time this nonsense was laid to rest and we returned to serious business.”

A dissatisfied mutter from the crowd echoed his words. Rey Nemeth took advantage of the slight pause to break in:

“What are you suggesting, Trezise?”

“I am suggesting that we are wasting our time here!” he said loudly. “That
Morgan Roche
is wasting our time, and that you, Nemeth, are letting her!” He turned to the crowd. “It is not any mysterious epsense link which will allow the enemy to win; it is meetings such as this! While we stand around here listening to
her
outrageous claims and
his
pontificating, we are doing the enemy’s work for them!”

Nemeth drew himself up. “What exactly are you accusing me of, Trezise? Collaboration with the enemy?”

“I accuse you of nothing more than incompetence, Councilor. Morgan Roche came to us with vague hints and rumors and she was rightly rejected.
You,
however, took it upon yourself to pursue her cause in another forum. Perhaps at the time the gamble seemed justified, but her reports now reveal how disastrous that course of action was.”

Roche felt Maii’s anger boiling over, but she forced herself to remain calm as Trezise ranted on.

“Then she returns, spouting even more wild allegations. They serve no purpose. Worse—they actively impede any progress we might make toward ascertaining the truth! Word about today’s ‘exercise’ could just as easily have spread by means of ordinary Human spies and hyperspace communications. There is no need to hypothesize beyond that. All we have to do is look for those spies and the problem will be solved. But no, instead we’re off in search of phantoms, while the very real enemy continues to work among us!”

“Not any more,” said Nemeth. “The five she helped us locate
were
clone warriors. There is no doubt of that.”

“I don’t dispute this,” said Trezise. “But how many
more
might there be, that she
hasn’t
told us about? We have only her word that the ship is now clean.”

“There has been no overt move against us—”

“Yet.”
Trezise turned to Esko Murnane. “And
you
! Bad enough that Assistant Vice Primate Nemeth should already have wasted so much of the council’s time—but you had to give him more. You encouraged this ‘exercise’ which has brought the entire Sol System to war. Do you call this progress? Thousands are dying every minute!”

Trezise turned to address the council as a whole. “I call for a vote of no-confidence in the leadership and guidance of Esko Murnane and Rey Nemeth!”

Roche understood, then, why Trezise had asked for her to appear in front of the council.

She glanced at the Heresiarch, who was watching the proceedings with a frown. The crowd was unsettled; she heard confusion and anger in the mingled voices surrounding her. How a no-confidence vote would go she couldn’t guess, but the fact that it had been called was bad enough. Even if it failed to get rid of Murnane or Nemeth, it had placed Trezise firmly in the minds of the councilors, and it would disrupt normal proceedings for some time.

This was his chance to seize power, and he wasn’t going to waste it. He wasn’t interested in her testimony one way or the other. She was just a tool to help him get what he wanted.

She was being used yet again—and the worst thing was that she had to go along with it. Regardless of who ran the council, it was still her best chance to do any good in the system. She knew the ship was clear of the enemy, and she also knew that whether Cane was himself telling the truth, he was still their best hope of learning anything new about the enemy.

<1 understand. Give me a minute.>

Roche returned her attention to Trezise. His expression was guarded, outwardly restrained, but she could see the delight behind his eyes. He was pleased with his work, was relishing the growing dissent about the room. The council wasn’t entirely on his side—but he had upset the balance; he’d had a direct effect on its mood. Where Nemeth had been simply power-hungry, Trezise looked like he was enjoying the disruption purely for its own sake.

Murnane tried to quiet the crowd, but to no avail. There was too much tension in the air now for it to be so easily quelled. Even when Nemeth added his voice to the call for calm, the racket continued. Trezise took a step back and smiled openly at the chaos.

Then a single, clear chime cut through the noise. A Heterodox officer ran through the crowd to talk to the Heresiarch, whose face instantly became grim.

The bell chimed a second time. As the Heresiarch headed for the adytum, the officer came to the font and spoke to Murnane. Roche wasn’t close enough to hear what was being said, even though the noise of the crowd was finally ebbing.

After the third chiming of the bell, Murnane stepped forward to address the council.

“We are under attack,” he said simply. “The Heresiarch has been called to attend to the vessel. This meeting is therefore adjourned until the emergency is past.”

The crowd erupted once again, thousands of voices shouting out in a mix of fear and anger. Robed officials stepped into the fane and moved among them, trying to get the people to head toward the exits. Roche saw scuffles break out in a number of places.

she said.

the AI said.

She tried to call Kajic, but a precautionary scrambling system was in place. Ana Vereine
?> she asked, concerned.

A hand came down on her shoulder. “We should leave,” said Cane.

She looked around. Haid, Maii, and Vri were being herded toward an exit on the far side of the fane, and the containment team was closing in around the font.

Maii called, her voice faint through jamming of a mental sort. The council’s reaves, it seemed, weren’t taking any chances, either.

“You go back to the ship too,” she told Cane. “You’re not a prisoner. They’ll take you there and let you go.” She directed the words at the leader of the containment team, who nodded. “Wait for the others. I won’t be long.”

Cane hesitated for a moment, then nodded and was led away by the squad of soldiers.

Roche approached Murnane, who stood, looking stunned and confused, with one hand on the font supporting him. Trezise was arguing loudly with him.

“This is exactly what I said would happen if we allowed Exotics into the council meetings! We’ve become caught up in someone else’s dispute!”

“Our ftl drones are being destroyed across the system,” Murnane said. “This is a coordinated assault, not a random skirmish.”

“All the more reason to resolve this issue
now—”

“No!”
Then, more calmly, meeting Roche’s eye, Murnane said: “I don’t think talking will resolve anything anymore.”

He turned and walked away. Trezise glared at her, then followed.

Roche was at a loss for a moment. She had hoped to find out how she could help, but the fane was rapidly emptying. Nemeth had gone with the others. The only ones remaining were a handful of Exotics trying to get closer to her, and a ring of guards around the central area keeping them at bay.

it said.