This Day All Gods Die (73 page)

Vertigus gaped at the speakers. Most of the sheep did the same. His voice cracked as he demanded, "On whose authority?"

"On mine," she snapped. "I'm in command here." A woman on the brink of an abyss. "I have the bridge. I stopped taking Warden Dios' orders when he abandoned me to Nick Succorso. We're responding to Calm Horizons on my authority.

"Ask UMCPHQ Center," she finished. "They'll confirm it."

If Cleatus hadn't been forewarned, he would have been as shocked as the votes. Fortunately he was ready. He'd known for some time that Hyland commanded Punisher. By intuition he'd grasped the implications.

A mere ensign had arrogated to herself the responsibility for humankind's survival. And for keeping the Council alive.

Exactly the opening he needed.

Before anyone in the room could speak, the speakers emitted the metallic pop of a toggled pickup.

"I'll confirm it," a new voice barked; another woman.

Cleatus recognized her as soon as she said her name.

"This is Min Donner, UMCP Acting Director, aboard Punisher. Ensign Morn Hyland is in command of this vessel, She and Captain Thermopyle took the bridge when they came aboard.

"And it's a damn good thing they did." Intensity clanged like iron in her voice, but Cleatus couldn't interpret it. Fury?

Desperation? "She's negotiated an arrangement that may actually keep you alive. Which is more than I could have done. If it were up to me, we would all have fried by now."

Vertigus struggled to control his chagrin. "Acting Director, this is Captain Vertigus. What arrangement?"

I swear, Holt spat, every idiot in human space works for Ward. He's pulling too many strings. If we don't start to cut them soon—

He didn't finish the warning. He didn't need to. Cleatus understood him perfectly.

As if she were stifling curses, Donner replied, "Calm Horizons has agreed to leave without shooting at us. Morn has agreed to let them have Davies Hyland, Vector Shaheed, and Trumpet. Captain Ubikwe is using the command module to keep our part of the bargain.

"Davies is her son," she asserted. She must have thought that was important.

Before Vertigus—

or Len—

could challenge her, she

snapped, "Donner out," and silenced her pickup with a violent click.

Cleatus feared that Punisher's transmission had been cut off. But the cavernous hiss and spatter of the speakers told him the channel was still open.

Go! Holt ordered. Now!

Cleatus jumped. For the moment, at least, Vertigus was too shaken to find words. And Len seemed to founder in confusion. None of the other Members knew what to do.

The FEA didn't say a word; didn't give Len any excuse to remove him. Leaping to his feet, he flung his hand like a mute shout at the President.

Hannish opened her mouth to object, then bit it shut again.

Under the circumstances, Len couldn't refuse. His gaze flinched and wavered in alarm. Apparently he needed his grip on the podium to keep him upright.

"Ensign Hyland—

" The words stuck in his throat. He swallowed thickly, then tried again. "Ensign, will you answer a question from UMC First Executive Assistant Cleatus Fane?"

The damn woman may have thought she no longer had anything to fear. "We're on a countdown here, Mr. President." Already her attention seemed to be elsewhere. "He's got two minutes.''

Len turned a look like a groan at Cleatus. "Mr. Fane."

Cleatus fought down his squirming trepidation. Quietly, hiding his hopes, he asked, "Ensign Hyland, you said Director Dios 'sounds all right.' I get the impression you aren't sure.

Why not? What're you worried about?"

That got her. She hesitated again. The background noise of the speakers suggested groping.

His heart thudded without mercy while he waited.

Abruptly she answered, "The Amnion have a special mutagen, Mr. Fane." Her voice had changed. It carried an ache Cleatus couldn't name. "A delayed-reaction mutagen. It doesn't start to work until ten minutes or so after it's been injected. And they have an antidote. It's not a cure. It just keeps the mutagen inert. As long as you have the antidote in your system, you don't mutate. As soon as it runs out, you turn into an Amnioni.

"They use this mutagen for blackmail. They inject you with it. Then you do what they say, or they don't give you the antidote. We know about it because it was done to one of us.

Ciro Vasaczk."

She paused, groping again, then admitted softly, "We're concerned that Director Dios may be under that kind of pressure.

"He says he has a suicide capsule. I don't doubt him. But I'm not sure even that would be enough to protect him."

There Cleatus identified the change in her voice. It was a note of farewell. She'd already given up hope for Warden Dios.

Good-bye.

And good riddance.

That was all Cleatus needed from her.

He remained on his feet, even though his question had been answered, and votes around him flapped their arms like scarecrows. From the knotted tension in his guts to the throbbing pulse in his temples, he was sure that Hyland hadn't told the truth; not the whole truth.

He believed her "concern" for Dios. He knew that much of what she'd said was dangerously accurate. But she'd stated more than once that she felt pressed for time. She'd just announced, We're on a countdown here. Earlier she'd said, We have fifty-six minutes left. I need the time. And she hadn't explained why.

If her side of her bargain with Calm Horizons could be fulfilled by her kid, Shaheed, and Trumpet, what else did she have to do? What countdown was she talking about?

She was keeping secrets. Plotting something. Lying—

He conveyed this to Holt; but it didn't disturb him. In fact, he was counting on it. Let her try any desperate trick she could think of: on Calm Horizons; on UMCPHQ; on Holt.

Cleatus didn't care. Not as long as she shut up and let him get to work.

There was a moment of confusion while Len scanned the room, trying to decide which of the sheep he should recognize next. Then Hyland took the choice away from him.

"Mr. President," she announced roughly, "I can't afford any more time. I hope I can tell my story in more detail when this is over."

Before Len could reply, she said, "Punisher out."

At once her transmission disappeared from the speakers.

Cold space punctuated by particle noise took its place until Len's aide closed the channel. Then the Council's link to the contest of ships far overhead was gone.

Finally!

The sheep turned glazed, vacuous stares toward each other, stunned by their own incomprehension. Vertigus fumbled at a console he apparently didn't know how to use. Hannish watched Len with her legs poised under her, no doubt champing for a chance to point out how neatly Hyland's story supported hers. Burnish and Manse consulted urgently with each other. Martingale hissed fury at her aides like a woman who wanted to tell the entire created universe that Com-Mine had been maligned. Carsin kept her horrified gaze on her Senior Member, Vertigus, as if she thought he might start to show signs of mutation.

Cleatus' downlink told him that Punisher's command module was thirty-eight minutes away from Calm Horizons.

"Mr. President," he ventured, "may I address the Council?"

He'd lost ground; a lot of it. That was obvious. Anything which confirmed Hannish's facts suggested the illogical implication that her conclusions were also accurate. Most of the votes were too stupid to tell the difference between evidence and inference. Martingale had gone over to the enemy. Carsin was wavering. Hell, even Igensard had collapsed.

But Morn Hyland had given Cleatus the opening he needed.

With an air of defeat, Len conceded the floor. He seemed to be the only one in the room besides Cleatus who'd grasped the significance of Hyland's last revelation.

"Thank you, Mr. President." This time the FEA left his place and ascended the dais. Now it was essential for him to dominate the Council. He took any advantage he could get: elevation; physical presence; fear.

With an effort of will that made him sweat, he kept his tone mild. He would lose even more ground if any hint of his underlying desperation showed; if he betrayed by any word or inflection or gesture that he was fighting for his life.

Some of the votes were hostile. But most of them were simply frightened; scared out of their small minds by proton cannon and mutation and treason. Deliberately Cleatus set himself to direct their fear where it would do the most good.

"Members, it's time for action." The voice of reason, stating the irrefutable, pointing out the inevitable. "Ensign Hyland's story has made that obvious. It's urgent that you reach a decision now. As she said herself, if you don't act before Punisher's command module and Trumpet reach Calm Horizons, nothing you do will make a difference.

"You don't need me to tell you that it's the task of this body and this session to make a difference."

Determined to succeed, he forced himself to relax against the podium.

"You have two choices. Only two, that I can see. The UWB Senior Member's Bill of Severance. Or my proposal to decharter the UMCP so that they can be rechartered with a new director. You must pass one or the other.

"Unfortunately"—

Cleatus sighed with false regret—

"I

think a Bill of Severance has just ceased to be an option."

He was the Dragon's First Executive Assistant. Even his enemies didn't presume to treat him the way Hannish had been treated: interrupted and hectored at every turn. Only Len had dared insult him—

and the weak little man clearly had no intention of doing so again. The votes who were dependent on the UMC hung on his every word, waiting for him to save them from their dilemma. Those who weren't actively hostile gave him a chance to persuade them. And the rest didn't risk offending him.

With nothing except Holt's voice to distract him, Cleatus was allowed to speak for his master unimpeded.

"The whole point of such a bill," he explained, "is that it preserves the present hierarchy, operations, and personnel of the UMCP. It shifts accountability from the UMC to the GCES. Everything else is maintained intact.

"In other words," he stated heavily, "Warden Dios remains as director."

He sighed again. "Well, you heard Ensign Hyland. She's

'concerned' that Director Dios is being blackmailed. And I, for one, take her concerns seriously. I think she knows what she's talking about.

"To be injected with a delayed-reaction mutagen would be a terrible thing. But it would be even more terrible to let a man in that condition keep his job."

Good, Holt murmured. Don't stop.

In case the sheep weren't scared enough, Cleatus asked,

"Do any of you think you could stand up to that kind of blackmail? Do you think Warden Dios can? For myself, I'm not sure.

"If you aren't sure," he asserted, "it would be inexcusable to let him stay on as director."

Vertigus fluttered an arm like a drowning man; tried to inject a protest. The idiot refused to give up. Even Hannish had enough sense to hang her head; but Vertigus went on floundering.

Cleatus talked over him.

"Captain Vertigus wants to suggest an alternative. Perhaps an amendment to his Bill, stipulating that Min Donner assumes the position of UMCP director until the immediate crisis is past, and Warden Dios can go to a lab for some blood-work." The look on Sixten's face showed that Cleatus had guessed right. "I'm sorry, that isn't good enough. Min Donner is aboard Punisher, a ship she doesn't command. Her own life is in the hands of renegade cops who may or may not be telling us the truth about what they want.

"In fact," he digressed, "we have reason to think they are not. I'll get to that in a minute."

Then he resumed, "My point is this. If she can't control her own movements, or make her own decisions, she certainly can't take charge of the UMCP.

"And who else is there?" Grimly he restrained his impulse to shout the sheep into flight. "Director Lebwohl? Do you want him to command our defense? No, I'm afraid a Bill of Severance is no longer a viable alternative."

Argue with that, you silly bastards. I dare you.

Enough, Holt pronounced. They're convinced. Unless they're too stupid to live. Go on before you lose them.

Cleatus swore mutely at the voice in his ear; but he obeyed.

"On the other side"—

visceral outrage gave his voice an

edge he couldn't suppress—

"Director Hannish has raised

some rather distressing objections to my proposal. She blames virtually every crime the cops have committed on Holt Fasner.

"For her part, Ensign Hyland doesn't go quite so far. She only accuses Holt Fasner of wanting her dead so she can't testify that Captain Thermopyle was framed—

of wanting her

dead so badly that he ordered Director Dios to give control over DA's welded cyborg to Nick Succorso.

"I'll respond to those charges."

He paused to let his anger grow. If he couldn't contain it, he might as well use it. Still he chose his words carefully.

"I think we'll have to take Director Hannish's facts as given. Ensign Hyland has confirmed a number of them. And since she's safely sequestered aboard Punisher, we can't examine her evidence. Because we have so little time left, we must assume that Director Hannish, at least, has told us the truth."

As it appears to her, Holt prompted unnecessarily.

"As it appears to her," Cleatus intoned.

"I've already talked about this. I don't want to belabor the obvious. Everything Director Hannish has revealed was supplied by Director Dios—

the man directly responsible for

the crimes she reports. And she can't prove any of her charges.

They're all based on inference and distrust.

"Do you believe her? As I said earlier, consider the source. Warden Dios betrayed Com-Mine Security, framed Angus Thermopyle, tricked you into passing the Preempt Act.

He suppressed an effective antimutagen and maneuvered the Amnion into committing an act of war. And now he's been caught. He's stuck in a mess of his own making. So of course he wants to pin the blame on someone else. That's his only hope." The FEA's tone hinted at bloodshed. "He knows he'll be executed if he can't convince you he was just following orders.