He still needed somebody to analyze Mahoney's files. At first he'd considered Alex, but he needed the Scotsman mobile and heading up his intelligence branch.
The worst thing about beginning a revolution, he thought, was being so light in the ass when it came to Available Personnel.
What little he could think of, and what he could logically carry out, given his limitations, was being done. An image crossed his mind: a huge massed ball of collapsed material from the heart of a pulsar. Hung from a cable. And Sten was a midget, swatting at that ball with a feather.
Very good, he told himself. Any other mental images occur to you that'll cheer you up?
There was one. Hunt up Kilgour and Cind and chew on a bit of stregg. Two, actually. Chasing Kilgour out after a while and nibbling on Cind's toes for a month or so.
Cheered, he sought out his compatriots in revolution.
He found them packing.
Cind explained. She might speak for the Bhor, but they were an engine—actually a juggernaut—that mostly ran of itself. Her other ostensible duty, bodyguarding Sten, was already well covered by the Gurkhas.
Besides, she had suddenly felt her horizons open, even before Otho had used his ploy—and was starting to see the limitations in just being a headbanger and tactical leader of headbangers.
She had become interested in AM2, and found a possibly unique avenue of exploration, Cind went on. The privy council had looked very hard for the material, and found nothing. She was investigating-—as best she could from this distance and without being able to get near Prime—any trail they had gone down.
"A‘ firs'," Alex interrupted, "when th‘ lass told me aboot th' notion, Ah crook't a wee brow an‘ wonder't why, since th' council went up blind alleys, ‘stablished, what's th' in'trest?
"An‘ a course Cind remind't me thae's no better way't' save time thae't‘ know whae y'r pred'cessor did wrong, an' y‘ noo hae't' waste time duplicatin‘ th' effort."
Cind continued.
The initial investigation hadn't produced much of interest, and she was wondering if maybe the time was wasted. Then she ran across, in a declassified overview of the council's final months, that they'd appointed a special energy czar—with the title of AM2 secretary. A Sr. Lagguth, who had suddenly vanished not too long after the first full-member meeting of the council in some time, a meeting, rumor had it, that was an emergency called to deal with the AM2 crisis.
"So," Sten wondered. "He probably stood up, announced ‘I ain't got none,' and they geeked him."
"Maybe," Cind said. "But he was taken under Kyes's wing first."
Kyes. The ET artificial-intelligence specialist, who'd also dis-appeared, shortly after the council lifted Poyndex from his post as head of Mercury to a seat on the council itself. No explanation for that disappearance, either.
Sten had, in fact, investigated as part of his general work investigating the council. He'd discovered that Kyes's race was symbiotic, its real intelligence provided by a parasite. In time, the parasite claimed its due, and a Grb'chev went into drooling senility. Kyes, well past that well-known age, had most likely been discovered one fine morning watching sunlight crawl across a windowsill, murmuring "It's shiny," and been quietly medevacked to the Grb'chev Home for the Terminally Bewildered.
"Possibly," Cind allowed. "The Cult of the Eternal Emperor believes he was taken directly to commune with the Holy Spheres, whatever the hell they are.
"However, consider what we have here. Kyes, a computer genius, and his cohort, another specialist in the field. Both interested in AM2. Oh yes. One further thing. When Kyes became Lagguth's rabbi, all data that the council had stored on AM2 was removed. It vanished, too."
"Uh-uh," Sten said, alarm signals going off. "I think your report's a mickey. The Emperor had somebody wipe those files— after his return. And then put out the fiche you're using as disinformation."
"Could be," she said. "However, I'm off to Lagguth's home world. Just to ask some dumb questions. Unless you have something better in mind?"
Sten did—but it wouldn't further any cause beyond his own morale.
"And you're going with her," he inquired of Alex.
"Thae's a big clottin‘ naaaaaay, ae i' Ah was a foalin't mare. Ah'm off't‘ see th' weasand. Or whae Ah hope i‘ th' Emp's windpipe, at any rate.
"Th‘ lass' thinkin't makit a wee bit ae sense, Sten. An' Ah took th‘ same tactic. 'Cept Ah went peepin't aboot th‘ Emp. Y' rec'lect whae we were i‘ th' Altaics, oop't‘ our pits i' ter'rists, y‘ were skreekin't frae th' Emp and c'dnae get a response? A'ter Iskra massacreed th‘ students?"
Sten did. Very well. He had made call after call on the secure hotline between the embassy and the Imperial palace on Prime. The Emperor, he had been told, was indisposed.
"I always thought," Sten said, "that he was just ducking me.
For some reason I never figured out, and haven't really considered since."
"Aye. Mayhap th‘ Emp dinnae want't' chat wi‘ y', lad. But Ah took th‘ trouble ae checkin't. Thae's still secure h'nes onto Prime, i' y‘ hae old friends who retired frae Mantis't' a sin'cure wi‘ Imperial Communications, aye? An' more mates who've gone hit‘ private security.
"In'trestin‘ thing Ah hae discovered. Aboot th' same time, though no one's runnin't ae timetable, th‘ Emp wen'‘t' Earth. Wi‘ no notice, wi' no fanfare."
"Why?"
"Ah c'd nae find e'en a theory. But i‘ dinnae wash thae he'd gie himself a fishin't vacation whae th' drakh's hittin‘ th' fan e'erywhere. Th‘ lad's nae prone't' kenn'dy oot ae th‘ wee'est prov'cation.
"An‘ one other wee thing Ah hae heard, fraw m' sources wi'in th‘ Emp's soldiery. At aboot th' same time ae th‘ Emp wae goin't fishin, some laddies frae th' service wae detached, on spec'l duties,‘t' th‘ Imperial HousehoF itself. EOD laddies."
EOD—explosive ordnance disposal. Bomb-defusing and countermeasure experts. Why would the Emperor want them on Earth? Sten thought for a moment, then nodded. It was time to filter somebody onto Earth and find out what the hell had happened.
"Ah'm away," Alex said, seeing the nod. "Altho‘ Ah dinnae hae pleasure i' this. Thae's bad thoughts oop thae, i‘ th' mist an‘ th' fog."
There were. Sten had led an assassination team against the privy council onto Earth, where they'd held a summit meeting at a palatial retreat up Oregon Province's Umpqua River from the Emperor's old fishing grounds.
Of the ten beings in the contact team, Sten had been the only survivor. And all of them had been longtime Mantis operatives, friends as well as fellow operatives, of Sten and Alex.
Another place, like Vulcan, with blood-drenched memories.
"Are you looking for anything in particular?"
"Ah hae no leads. Just wanderin‘ aroun' keepin't m‘ nose up i' th‘ air an' m‘ arse doon. Ah ask't Sr. Wild i' Ah c'd borrow a wee ship an‘ a pilot.
"He's loan't me ae zoomie, an‘ a pilot he's claim't b' be one ae his slinkiest. Human lass, nam'd Hotsco. Wild's sayin't she volunteer'd. So we ken she's brain-damag't.
"Ah hae spokit't‘ her. Pretty, i' y're fond ae th‘ slender las-sies wi' wee hips an‘ boobies an' a waist y‘ can span wi' one paw. M'self, Ah always fear't Ah'd gie romantic an‘ snappit such a one i' half. But, since she's noo hard on most human eyeballs, Ah'll us't th‘ old deep-i'-love duo ae m‘ cover. I' any-body'd believe this Hotsco, wi‘ her hair hangin't doon't' below her waist an‘ flashin't eyes, hae an' int'rest i‘ a tub like m'self, aye?"
Bhor Intelligence would monitor Alex's work while he was gone, and he had appointed Marl, his agent-in-training and the Bhor Police Intelligence Specialist, Constable Paen, as acting case officers on his personal project, the counteragent program he was running through the successfully doubled Hohne. The Imperial spy had seen the light, just as Alex had predicted to Marl, after only a few cycles at the bottom of one of the Bhor's more colorful prisons.