"People didn't have any work to go to," Sowazi explained. "But they kept the factories up just the same."
"Are you trying to say that you've got a turnkey operation?" Sten asked. "That all you have to do is give the word and you can start building ships and weapons again?"
The little tendrils below Truiz's eyes wriggled with pleasure. "We can be up and running in one E-week," she said. "Then bring on your troops."
Now all Sten needed was the opening.
The pale, slender Grb'chev towered over Cind. The splash of red across the smooth skull throbbed with curiosity. "Your request is most unusual," he said. "Few humans have ever come to this place."
Cind looked about the small building whose mirrored walls reflected the sprawling gardens surrounding it. "I can't imagine why," she said, "it's such a lovely place."
The Grb'chev touched a switch and the door slid open. He escorted her inside. "Sr. Kyes had a love for beauty," he said. "Especially understated beauty."
Cind's smile was humble. "I've learned about that side of Sr. Kyes in my studies," she said, "He was quite a complex being. Even for a Grb'chev."
"Even for a Grb'chev," her escort agreed. "But this leads me back to my first remark. In our culture, Sr.
Kyes is a hero. His intelligence, inventiveness, and business acumen have already taken on mythlike characteristics.
"We've converted his old headquarters into a museum. A shrine, for some." Cind and her escort were pacing through the museum's cheery foyer. "But I would think only someone of our culture would appreciate Sr. Kyes."
"Then I apologize for my species," Cind said. "After all, no one would argue that the Grb'chev are easily among the most intelligent beings in the Empire."
"This is true," her escort said. There was no modesty necessary.
"And Sr. Kyes was arguably the most intelligent Grb'chev in this age," Cind said.
"Some say, of all time," the escort said.
"Then, how could any reasonable being—especially a student such as myself—not want to see firsthand how Sr. Kyes lived and worked?"
"You are a very bright young woman," her escort said. Another switch brought another door open. They stepped into the library. Across the way, a figure worked at a monitor. A human.
"This is a most fortunate day for you and your research," her escort said as he spied the figure. "As I said before, only a few humans share your interest in Sr. Kyes. One of them has a position on the museum's staff. And to my surprise, your visit happily coincides with his shift day." Her escort tapped the figure on a shoulder.
The man turned. An expectant smile on his face.
"Ms. Cind, allow me to introduce you to one of our senior researchers... Sr. Lagguth."
Lagguth rose, and put out a hand. They shook. "Pleased to meet you," he said. "It is a pleasure I almost missed. This is my normal rest day. But one of my colleagues called in ill."
"A happy coincidence," the escort said.
"Yes. A happy coincidence," Cind echoed, looking her quarry up and down.
It was no coincidence at all. And for Lagguth, it certainly wasn't going to be happy.
Lagguth had suffered through countless nights of torment, envisioning the hard-faced beings who would come to get him. They were always large. Always dressed in black. Sometimes they came with drawn guns. Sometimes with bloody fangs. But they always said the same thing: "You know too much, Lagguth. And for this, you must die."
The woman confronting him now was that nightmare, but in a disarmingly soft package. She had no visible weapon. And small, bright teeth instead of fangs.
"You know too much, Lagguth," Cind said. "And if you don't help me... they'll kill you for it."
"I was just a functionary," Lagguth groaned.
"I wouldn't call being the head of the privy council's AM2 bureau a mere functionary," Cind scoffed.
"I had no power. No authority. I followed orders. That's all. I did nothing to harm anyone!"
"Your very presence meant you conspired with the Emperor's assassins," Cind said. "As for authority... Thousands of beings whose loved ones died of cold or starvation from lack of fuel might want to have a word with you for the authority you did exercise."
There was nothing Lagguth could say. He bowed his head.
"So. Speak to me, Lagguth. Or I'll drop the word. And either the Emperor's goons will get you, or the mob. I almost feel sorry for you, you poor excuse for a life-form."
"You'll speak up for me?" Lagguth begged. "You'll tell Sr. Sten I cooperated?‘
Cind let her voice soften. "Yes. I'll speak up for you." Then—cracking the whip: "Now. Tell me, Lagguth! Tell me everything!"
Lagguth talked. He told her about the strange program he'd set up for Sr. Kyes. Its ostensible purpose was to search for where the Emperor hid his AM2. This was what Kyes told his fellow members of the privy council, at least.
"But I got the idea he really wasn't all that interested in AM2. His search was much deeper than that. Highly personal."
"In what way?" Cind asked.
"Well, we did gather together everything that was known about AM2. From composition, to the few known courses AM2 shipments followed before they so mysteriously stopped. We fed it into this marvel of a computer he'd developed."
He pointed to a small terminal in one corner of the library. "That's linked to it," he said. "It's still functional. But, sadly, it can only be one of a kind. I doubt any being in several lifetimes would ever be able to decipher the program he created to run it."
Cind prodded him away from reveries of Kyes's genius. "Go on. I don't have much time."
"Yes. As I said, we fed in all that data on AM2. But we also fed in everything that was known about the Emperor. We had help on this from Sr. Poyndex."
Cind's eyes widened. "Poyndex. He was in on this?"
"Absolutely," Lagguth said. "He got something on Kyes. I don't know what. But, Kyes turned that knowledge back on him. Pulled him into our circle. It was he who made Poyndex a member of the privy council. So, obviously some kind of a bargain was made."
"Obviously," Cind said. The detail of the deal was interesting, but she doubted it was of any use. "Okay. So you fed all kinds of raw data into the computer. Then what? What did Kyes learn?"
"I'm not sure," Lagguth said. "But I do know he learned something. He suddenly became very excited. He was a being, you realize, who rarely showed any kind of emotion. Anyway, he became excited. Ordered the program shut down. And then he left. In a great hurry."
"Where did he go?" Cind wanted to know.
"Again, I'm ignorant. Except that I know he left Prime. For some far place. And when he returned... his brain... had died."
Cind knew what this meant. The Grb'chev were the only known example of a higher species created by symbiosis. Their bodies—large, handsome things—originated in an exceedingly dimwitted race. Their "brains" were actually the result of a sort of virus that settled into the brute's plentiful sinus passages. And prospered into tremendous intellect.
The curse of the Grb'chev is that the "brain" had a near-absolute lifespan of 126 years. Kyes was one of the few examples on record of a Grb'chev brain that had lived a few years longer. The tragedy was the body lived happily and moronically on for at least another one hundred years.
Cind had seen many examples of this living death shambling through the streets of the Grb'chev's home world. Constant and horrifying reminders of what each member of this species faced
Cind pointed to the terminal. "Have you tried to learn what Kyes was doing, during those final days?"
Lagguth hesitated. Then he sadly shook his head. "I'm not a very brave person," he said. He croaked laughter. "In case you haven't guessed. I've been frightened every day of my life someone—like you... or worse—would find me. And I'd be killed, or brain burned for the little I know.