This Day All Gods Die (33 page)

in lives, in ships, in stations, in

manufacturing capacity. This you know.

"To prevent a conflict which must be catastrophic for you, will you consent to come aboard Calm Horizons?"

In an instant all of Center was on its feet. The CO Room burst into a babble of protest, quickly stilled. Hashi Lebwohl gazed at Warden with bemused speculation in his eyes. Even now he seemed to wish for a show of surprise from his director.

Warden ignored them. Between one heartbeat and the next, he found that he had come face-to-face with his true doom.

Go aboard Calm Horizons? Confront the Amnion alone; risk mutation?

For what?

For time, he answered himself grimly. For lives. And for freedom from the UMC. For Morn and Koina, Angus Thermopyle, and Sixten Vertigus. Humankind's future was at stake in a sense entirely different than the one Marc Vestabule intended.

The UMCP director had been prepared for his own death ever since he'd turned against Holt Fasner. Still he temporized.

He had to: if he agreed too readily, he would be misunderstood—

by UMCPHQ as well as by the Amnion.

"Are you out of your mind?" he croaked into his pickup as if he had trouble recovering his voice. "You come here."

Vestabule had anticipated this counter. Again he was ready.

"That is not acceptable. If I am apart from Calm Horizons, I am powerless. You may choose to kill me, knowing that no other Amnioni aboard this vessel is able to replace me. If you are apart from your station, you retain all the strength of your ships and platforms. Your position remains intact in your absence. If we are to discuss"—

still the word discomfited

him—

"we must meet on equal terms.

"This system is yours, Warden Dios. You must come to me."

"No," a tech breathed. Another said the same more loudly: "No." In a moment half a dozen men and women from Center added their protests: "No. No."

Warden toggled his pickup with a blow of his fist, then slashed a harsh gesture to silence his people before their rejection could take over UMCPHQ's operational heart. Half rising from his seat so that he could look out across Center, he shouted deliberately, "This isn't a democracy, people! I make these decisions! You do your jobs—

I'll do mine!"

Quiet fell like a shutter on the room. In a rush the techs resumed their stations, bent over their tasks.

The nearest officer came to the open CO Room door.

"Sorry, sir," he offered uncomfortably. "They just—

it's just

that they—

"

"I understand," Warden growled back. "Don't worry about it."

"Yes, sir." The officer left the door and began to make a show of supervising the people under his command.

Warden took a deep breath to steady himself, then hit his pickup toggle. "You say you want me to go there, Calm Horizons. Under what conditions?"

"Warden Dios," the former human being answered promptly, "you will come to us alone and unarmed. We will hold our discussion under any physical conditions which you consider necessary or comfortable. When we have attained mutual understanding and agreement, you will return to your station."

"Will you let me remain in contact with UMCPHQ Center?"

"No. You will not speak to your station until our discussion is concluded."

At the edge of his vision, Warden saw Hashi mouth, This is a trap. But he already knew that. He concentrated on his pickup; on the crackling transmission which linked him to his doom.

"Calm Horizons, you are Amnion. I'm human." The most irreconcilable of differences. "How can I trust you?"

"Because we are Amnion, Warden Dios," Vestabule replied flatly. "Unlike humankind, we bargain openly. Also we fulfill our bargains.

"There is this in addition, however. We gain nothing by harming you. If we kill you, another will take your place, and hostilities will continue as before. And if we enforce your mutation, so that you become one of us, the transformation will be detected by your station. Mutation will cause elisions of memory which will betray you. At the same time there will be unavoidable alterations in both your method and your manner of speaking, alterations which your station's instruments will recognize. You would become one of us, but your station would no longer obey you, and so we would gain nothing."

Vestabule paused, then added, "You will ask what I offer in exchange. I offer time, Warden Dios. The benefit of delay is yours. As your ships draw closer, our peril grows. Every passing hour diminishes the harm we will be able to commit before we are slain.

"I accept this in the name of discussion. You must accept a similar hazard.''

The Amnioni may no longer have been vulnerable to apprehension, suspense, or eagerness. Without discernible inflection, he concluded, "What is your answer, Warden Dios?"

Roughly Warden closed his pickup. Instead of replying, he took a moment to consider the nature of his dread.

Vestabule's arguments were about what he might have expected. They were also realistic. The Amnioni had a clear grasp on his tactical situation: that was obvious. In a strangely human sense, he knew what he was doing.

No amount of delay would spare Suka Bator. Or UMCPHQ.

Risk mutation—

?

That, however, wasn't the true name of Warden's fear.

His dread ran deeper.

His complex, insidious attack on Holt Fasner may have brought about the ruin of his own desires. He'd created a disaster which might cost far more lives, resources, and hope than humankind could afford. A battle now, here, would effectively undo his long preparations: it would neutralize Koina and Morn, confirm the Dragon's power. In a full-scale war, with UMCPHQ and the GCES gone, the planet would have no one left to trust except Holt. And Warden was sure that Holt would do everything in his power to seize the situation—

This is no ordinary fear of death, Norna had warned. He wants to live forever. Haven't I seen it? Why do you think he keeps me damned here? I've spent fifty years paying for what I see.

Warden Dios had no choice. He desperately needed the time Vestabule offered him. Weighed against humankind's future, the cost to himself was too slight to be measured.

The CO Room techs—

and half of Center—

watched him

as if they held their collective breath while he punched the toggle to activate his pickup.

"Calm Horizons, this is Warden Dios." He required all his force of will to keep his voice steady. "I'll do what you want. I'll come to you." A mutter of dismay and protest spread outward from the CO Room, but he ignored it. Instead he added sharply, "Under one condition."

"Warden Dios, this is Marc Vestabule," the Amnioni returned almost at once. "What is your condition?"

Swallowing panic and old shame, Warden took the next step along his chosen path.

"Calm Horizons, there are other stations hailing you. So far our scan says you haven't responded to them. My condition is that you talk to me. No one else." If I'm responsible for all this, I will by God be responsible. I won't have the ground cut out from under me. "If you reply to any transmission that doesn't come from this station, our discussion is over, and we will kill you as fast as we can."

His demand appeared to surprise Vestabule. Without warning, Calm Horizons' transmission vanished from the intervening void: the speakers reported silence and cold static.

Apparently the Amnioni had stopped to deliberate. Try as he did, Warden simply couldn't think like an alien. He must have struck a nerve he didn't understand; called himself into question somehow.

Biting down curses, he waited for Vestabule's response.

When the former human being replied at last, his tone was as oddly inflected as before; difficult to interpret. Nevertheless it conveyed an unexpected note of caution.

"Warden Dios, permit me to quote you. 'In a state of war I am the highest authority in human space. I will make the decisions which determine the outcome of your incursion.' Do you say now that you did not speak factually? Is there another authority which might countermand you? If there is, then I must speak with that authority, not with you."

Oh, shit! Whatever prescience Warden had must have deserted him: he hadn't foreseen this. Possible failures churned in his guts; numberless deaths; treason beyond redemption—

"Let me quote you," he retorted, acid with fear. "You said that you 'retain certain resources of memory, language, and comprehension.' Maybe you can remember that there are always factions in human politics. By law the authority is mine. That doesn't mean other people won't try to make you think you should talk to them instead.

"But no matter who they are, or what they offer you, they can't control this station. They can't control our ships. Our defenses take their orders from me. If you make a deal with someone else, it won't mean anything. I am the director of the United Mining Companies Police, and I will decide whether you live or die."

Believe that, he demanded mutely; uselessly. I can't think like you. Prove you can think like me.

Apparently Vestabule wasn't convinced. "Warden Dios,"

he stated carefully, "we are being hailed by the United Mining Companies, in the name of Chief Executive Officer Holt Fasner. Is the United Mining Companies Police not a subsidiary unit of the United Mining Companies? Does Holt Fasner's authority not transcend yours?"

Warden swore under his breath, then snapped into his pickup, "Listen to me, Calm Horizons. I'm not going to spend the next several hours teaching a course in human politics."

He let anger mount in his voice until it became as heavy as a club. "You'll just have to take my word for it.

"You've been 'invested with decisiveness.' So have I.

Warfare is the UMCP's job, my job. Holt Fasner can't prevent our ships from opening fire. I can.

"You say you have something you want to discuss. You say we have to discuss it in person. That's your problem, not mine. You can talk to me about it right now. You can put it on general broadcast and 'discuss' it with the whole solar system.

Or you can accept my condition and get what you say you want."

Grimly he finished, "Just make up your mind."

Raising his fist, he poised it to strike his pickup silent.

Some of the CO Room techs looked like they were praying. Others shook their heads dumbly. A persistent shuffling of feet from Center gave the impression that most of the staff had left their stations.

Warden wanted to look up, see what was happening; but Marc Vestabule's silence held him. His fist hung, paralyzed, over his pickup toggle. In another moment his hand would start to shake.

Without warning the Amnioni answered.

"Very well, Warden Dios." Vestabule's way of speaking was too stilted to suggest concession. "This vessel will respond to transmissions from no station except your own. In return, you will come to us alone and unarmed so that we may hold our discussion in person."

Warden's heart lurched as if he'd been given a reprieve; as if he were eager for a chance to risk his fate aboard Calm Horizons. "I agree," he replied brusquely. "Dios out."

Instead of punching his pickup, he toggled it with a gentle tap.

When he raised his head, he saw the entire staff of Center crowded at the CO Room door.

What—

? Despite all his years of discipline and concealment and will, he was too surprised to speak.

For reasons known only to himself, Hashi put on an air of lugubrious indignation. He may have feigned vexation to conceal amusement. Facing the nearest officer, an earnest man with a deceptively youthful face and a sergeant's insignia, the DA director demanded, "What is the meaning of this, young man?"

The sergeant didn't so much as glance at Hashi: his gaze clung to Warden like an appeal.

There was too much at stake: Warden needed a minute to pull himself together. Roughly he scrubbed at his face with both hands, trying to force his fear and urgency back from the surface so that they wouldn't show; trying to rub away the sensation that he'd been touched by death. With an effort, he reminded himself that these were his people; that it was their job to serve him, just as it was his job to serve them; that they hung by his fate.

Slowly he lifted his chin and met the eyes staring at him.

They were somber and distressed, hurt by a shared need which he couldn't identify, perhaps because he was so full of his own. The strength of their combined emotional aura seemed to cry out against him. Some of the women and at least a few of the men had to blink back tears.

"Sergeant—

" He cleared his throat. Ordinarily he knew all his people; but now for the life of him he couldn't recollect the young man's name. So much focused dismay confused his defenses. "Maybe you'd better tell me what this is about."

Stiff with awkwardness, the sergeant could barely speak.

"Please don't think we're shirking, sir." His larynx bobbed convulsively. "We'll work twice as hard in just a minute. But I need—

we want—

"

With a visible effort, he mastered his chagrin. "It's like this, sir. You can't go. It's wrong. They're Amnion. They destroy people—

like they destroyed that Marc Vestabule. We need you here. If you go, they'll turn you into one of them, and then we're lost. We won't have anything to hope for.

"We would rather die fighting for you."

A throaty murmur of agreement from the techs made it clear that he spoke for everyone in the CO Room as well as in Center.

A bitter retort swelled in Warden's chest, driven by the pressure of his essential terror. He wanted to shout or wail, What do you mean, you won't have anything to hope for if I'm lost? What kind of miracles do you expect from me?

Before his grief and shame became strong enough to cripple his self-command, however, another emotion surpassed them: a strange pride, unfamiliar and unbidden, that his people cared for him so much; depended on him so completely.

In another life—

a life without the fatal mistake of trusting Holt Fasner—

one moment like this would have been enough to make everything worthwhile. He might have been able to believe he'd earned it.