Hon Garii crossed beside her and went forward to the counter. He examined a small screen set into the machinery. Leaning forward to press a long bar, he spoke at last.
"Lady Terese, I have done as you commanded and brought you here."
"What is that chart?" she asked.
Without looking up, he touched another bar. "The program now running will overlay the current territorial boundaries of the Empire onto the Mushai's chart."
The Mushai? The traitor? Garii straightened. The screen changed. In the second before he turned, she understood.
A second territory was now demarked in blue. This territory was much smaller than the first, was entirely contained within the first. This territory Tess recognized immediately: the Chapalii Empire, including its subject states. It was a map she knew very well, having seen it often enough in her brother's study when she was a child. But what territory did the first one-that huge expanse of red-demark?
"What information do you desire, Lady Terese?"
She stared as the screen scrolled forward through its data banks. "Leave this on."
A planet, twisting in the void. The continents of Rhui traced in brown. Da-o Enti, the screen displayed. Type 2.7.14. Subsector Diaga 110101. Property of Tai-en Mushai.
Tai-en Mushai. The Mushai, the mythical Chapalii traitor who had destroyed the legendary first empire of the Chapalii-an empire ten times the size and power of the one her brother battled. A legend, the Chapalii said, because of course their empire had never fallen, could not fall. A legend about the fall of a mythical Golden Age. So they said.
The screen scrolled forward: graphics, shipping charts, energy centers, trade and military tables, statistics, all in the same archaic but recognizable script she had seen on the arch. As the data fed across the screen, she knew it was no legend. Hundreds, perhaps thousands of years ago, the Chapalii Empire had been twice the size of the empire Earth and her League were subject to now. Tai-en Mushai had broken that empire, had gathered together the information necessary to destroy it. And that information was here, in this computer.
Garii stepped forward, full into the backlight generated by the screen. "Lady Terese. We must not linger here. If Cha Ishii should arrive, he will not be pleased to discover you here."
Tess drew her knife but kept it pressed hard against her thigh, hiding it from him. "Do you expect him?"
"No."
' 'I need a copy of everything in that data bank.'' Her grip tightened on the knife. This was the real, the final, test of his loyalty to her.
He did not answer for a moment. It was too dim to tell his color, but his face shadowed, as if something were passing above him. "As you will, Tai-endi," he said, so softly that she almost did not hear him.
He turned to the bank under the screen. She approached, close enough to watch him work but not too close. But he did not hesitate. He pressed a small cylinder into a round slot and two red bars on the counter shuddered and changed to orange. On the screen appeared the upright black cylinder that stood for "memory." In such a static culture, evidently some Chapalii standards had not changed over the centuries. Figures scrolled on beneath it. Garii stood silent, hands on the bank, neither looking at her nor speaking. She could not begin to guess what he was thinking.
When three chimes sounded in sequence, he lifted his head. A circle appeared around the cylinder sign on the screen: finished, saved.
"Take it out," Tess whispered, but he was already pulling the cylinder out of the slot. Four Chapalii glyphs had been burned in red onto the cylinder's shiny black surface, but the cylinder was too small and she was too far away to read what they said. In a few seconds, the letters faded to a dim outline, and at last to nothing, dissolved into black.
Garii lifted up the cylinder, pivoted, and, bowing, offered it to her as easily as if the information contained in that cylinder was nothing more than a ship's menu for the week. She resisted the temptation to snatch it out of his hand and instead stepped forward carefully and halted an arm's length from him.
Standing so long in one place, she had forgotten how cold the room was. The floor burned like ice on the soles of her feet. Garii watched her, his skin as pale as frost. He said nothing, but he blinked once, a thin membrane like an inner eyelid flicking down over his opaque eyes. She put out her hand. He gave her the cylinder. It was still warm.
"Now, erase the transaction."
He turned back to the bank and leaned forward to touch bars. She took a step away from him. Taking advantage of his attention being turned elsewhere, she slipped her hand down the neck of her tunic and tucked the cylinder securely into her understrap. Straightened her tunic. Garii continued keying bars in some complex configuration. Above, the screen scrolled more slowly now through its data. As she stood, taking slow breaths in and out, in and out, trying to calm her racing heart, she looked up and caught in her breath again.
Rhui was on the screen. An Imperial catalog number appeared below it. Obscure. So primitive that it would be expensive to exploit. The sector of space it lay in had been assigned to the ducal holdings of Tai-en Mushai. Except that the League Exploratory Survey had discovered Rhui. The Chapalii had never disputed the claim.
The Mushai's private records came up. Points of light appeared like lonely beacons at a few places on the planet. Building sites? Landing points? New figures appeared, humanoid figures, cross-screened with a second planet. Tess drew in her breath sharply. That second planet was as familiar to her as her own hand.
Sites, indeed. Dispersion sites. Seeding sites. The Tai-en Mushai had seeded this planet with human stock. Earth stock. An obscure, barbaric planet, unwanted by the First Empire. What better place to contemplate, breed, and commence rebellion? What better material to do it with?
But the Mushai had died, perhaps in battle. The First Empire must have fallen with him, leaving Rhui to the ancient cycles of human civilization. And his center of operations, well-hidden, had remained lost, untouched until the Second Chapalii Empire-centuries? millennia? later-had ceded this unimportant planet and system to the rebel they wished to placate. Until the Second Empire realized what it had overlooked. How long ago had it been?
Rhui's image turned. A bright rectangle flashed, the site of the great lord's palace: the shrine of Morava. Tess pressed her free hand to her chest, feeling the cylinder where it lay between her breasts. It was no longer than her fingers, not more than three centimeters in diameter. Garii still examined the counter, not watching her.
Tess raised her hand. With the flourish accorded only to those of the very highest rank, she bowed to the Mushai's screen, to the rebel, long dead. With respect, and with ironic gratitude for the gift he had given her, his human heir.
As if in answer, a chime rang from one of the consoles. A bar of white light over the screen clicked on then off. Garii straightened abruptly. Tess heard the scrape of a shoe on the hard floor.
She whirled. The passage behind was so dark that at first she could only see a dim shape against blackness. It stepped forward, thin, almost awkward in its delicate, long-limbed slenderness.
It was Cha Ishii. He held one of their laser-knives in his hand, its bores shining red. It was pointed at her. "This is indeed a surprise, Lady Terese." He inclined his head deferentially but the knife did not waver.
"Did you know I was here?" she asked.
"Yes." He took one step toward her, and his gaze flicked to Hon Garii and then back to her. "I was so informed." His face colored, but in the dimness she could not make out the shade. A moment later she was blinded by a flash of light.