"All right, I believe that covers just about everything," he said quietly, "but before we close, Cohanna has something to report. 'Hanna?"
Cohanna looked down at her hands with uncharacteristic sadness for a moment, then cleared her throat.
"I wish Isis were here to tell you this herself, but she wasn't up to the trip. However—" she raised her eyes "—I'm pleased to announce that the first free Narhani female in seventy-eight million years was born at oh-two-thirty-four Greenwich time this morning." A soft sound of surprise ran around the table, and Cohanna smiled mistily. "Isis was there, and she's named the child 'Eve.' So far as we can tell, she's absolutely healthy."
Gerald Hatcher's quiet voice broke the long, still silence.
"I never really believed you could do it, 'Hanna."
"I didn't." Cohanna's voice was very soft. "Isis did."
There was another moment of silence before Vlad Chernikov spoke again, and his earlier levity had vanished.
"How is Isis, 'Tanni?" he asked gently.
"Not well, Vlad," Jiltanith said sadly. "She faileth quickly, and so Father doth stay at her side. She feeleth no pain, and she hath seen her life's work yield its fruit, yet do I fear her time is short."
"I am sorry to hear that." Vlad looked around the silent table for a moment, then back at Jiltanith. "Please tell her how proud we are of her... and give her our love."
"I shall," Jiltanith said softly.
Francine Hilgemann activated her antisnooping devices before taking the new Bible from its package. Her security systems were every bit as good as those of the Imperial government (since they'd come from government sources), which meant she was as safe from observation as anyone could be, and she inhaled the rich smell of printer's ink appreciatively as she opened the book. She'd always loved beauty, and she was both amused and genuinely pleased by the effect neural computer feeds had produced on the printing industry. Man had rediscovered that books were treasures, not simply a means of conveying information, and the volume she held was a masterpiece of the printer's art.
She leafed through it admiringly, then paused at the Lamentations of Jeremiah. The tissue-thin paper slid out with pleasing ease—unlike the last time, when some idiot had used glue and wrecked two pages of Leviticus.
She unfolded the sheets, careful of their fragility, and spread them on her blotter. Datachips were far smaller and easier to hide. She and her allies knew that, but they also knew few modern security people thought in terms of anything as clumsy as written messages, which meant few looked for them. And, of course, data that was never in electronic storage couldn't be extracted from electronic storage by a computer named Dahak.
She got out her code book, translated the message, and read through it slowly twice, committing it to memory. Then she burned the sheets, ground the ash to powder, and leaned back to consider the news.
MacIntyre and his crowd were finally ready to begin on Stepmother, and she agreed with her ally's assessment. By rights, Stepmother ought to represent an enormous threat to their long-term plans, but that could be changed. With a little luck and a great deal of hard work, the "threat" was going to become the advantage that let them bring off the most ambitious coup d'etat in human history, instead.
She gnawed her thumbnail thoughtfully. In many ways, she'd prefer to strike now, but Stepmother had to be closer to completion. Not complete, but within sight of it. That gave them their time frame, and she was beginning to understand the purpose that godawful gravitonic warhead would serve. Her eyes gleamed appreciatively as she considered the implications. It would be their very own Reichstag fire, and the Narhani gave them such a splendid "internal threat" to justify the "special powers" their candidate for the crown would invoke to insure Stepmother got finished the right way.
But that was for the future. For now, there was this latest news about the Narhani to consider, and she pondered it carefully. Officially, she was simply the general secretary of the Church's coequal bishops—but then, Josef Stalin had been "simply" the General Secretary of the Central Committee, hadn't he?—and it would be her job to soothe her flock's anxiety when the information was officially released. Still, the Achuultani were the Spawn of the Anti-Christ, and with a little care, her soothing assurance that Narhani weren't really Achuultani—except, perhaps, in a purely technical sense, which, of course, loyal subjects of the Imperium could never hold against their fellow subjects when no one could prove they had Satanic origins—would convey exactly the opposite message. Add a particularly earnest pastoral letter reminding the faithful of their duty to pray for the Emperor's guidance in these troubled times, and the anti-Narhani ferment would bubble along very nicely, thank you.
And, in the meantime, there were those other members of her flock whom she would see got the news in somewhat less soothing form.
The Reverend Robert Stevens sat in the dingy room beneath his church and watched the shocked eyes of the men and women seated around him. He felt their horror rising with his own, and more than one face was ashen.
"Are you sure, Father Bob?" Alice Hughes asked hoarsely.
"Yes, Alice." Stevens' grating, high-pitched voice was ill-suited to prayers or sermons, but God had given him a mission which put such paltry burdens into their proper perspective. "You know I can't reveal my source's identity—" in fact, he had no idea who the ultimate source was, though its information had always proven reliable "—but I'm sure."
"God forgive them," Tom Mason whispered. "How could they actually help the Anti-Christ's spawn breed?"
"Oh, come on, Tom!" Yance Jackson's lip curled and his green eyes blazed. "We've known the answer to that ever since they started cloning their precious 'Narhani.' " He made the name a curse. "They've been corrupted."
"But how?" Alice asked hesitantly. "They fought the Achuultani as God's own champions! How could they do that... and then do this?"
"It's this new technology," Jackson growled. "Don't you see, where fear couldn't tempt them, power has. They've set themselves up as gods!"
"I'm afraid Yance is right," Stevens said sadly. "They were God's champions, Alice, but Satan knows that as well as we do. He couldn't defeat them when they fought in His armor, so Satan's turned to temptation, seducing where he couldn't conquer. And this—" he tapped the piece of paper on the table before them "—is the proof he's succeeded."
"And so is the name they've given this demon of theirs," Jackson said harshly. " 'Eve!' It should've been 'Lilith'!"
Stevens nodded even more sadly, but a new fire kindled in his eyes.
"The Emperor and his Council have fallen into evil," cold certitude cleansed his voice of sorrow, "and God-fearing people are under no obligation to obey evil rulers." He reached out to the people sitting on either side of him, and more hands rose, joining in a circle of faith under the humming fluorescent light. Stevens felt their belief feeding his own, making it strong, and a fierce sense of purpose filled him.
"The time is coming, brothers and sisters," he told them. "The time of fire, when the Lord shall call us to smite the ungodly in His name, and we must be strong to do His will. For the Armageddon is truly upon us, and we—" his eyes swept around the circle, glittering with an inner flame "—are the true Sword of God!"