"Staffa?" Kaylla called. "Bruen would like to speak with you."
Wilm hesitated at the door, distrust in his very posture.
"Go, Wilm." Bruen flipped a hand weakly as if shooing a fly. "For God's sake, he'd have killed me by now were that his purpose." A faint smiled crossed his age-purpled lips. "And besides," his voice dropped. "He and I must talk. So much must be decided."
Wilm's jaw flared, muscles tensed. He gave a curt nod and backed reluctantly from the room. Staffa ignored the man as he entered and pulled up a heavy chair crafted from thick branches. He settled himself into its seat of interwoven leather straps.
"The Mag Comm is a most interesting machine, eh?" Bruen asked.
"I've never seen anything like it. What does it draw power from?"
"Not sure, really." Bruen wiped his face with a cloth from beside the pallet. "We have speculated its power comes from some atomic reaction fed by the planet's core. That, or it may pump water into the magma and use steam to spin turbines. We really don't know. It's so… alien."
"Has it been here as long as the Seddi?"
"Longer. But the records don't tell us that it acted the way it does now. You see, it used to be passive, nothing more than a curious machine." Bruen went on to explain the Mag Comm's return to life on that day long ago.
"And you have been misleading it over the years?" Staffa asked, thinking: Like empires, the machine, too, fears these Seddi. What purpose is served by suppressing their teachings? What can be so dangerous about a philosophy of shared God Mind and ethics?
"Yes. We've lied to it. Such a delicate game. This time, this time it almost managed to break past my defenses. I think. think it knows."
"Then why do you talk to it?" Staffa propped himself on an elbow. "Why continue this sham? Ignore it! What power does it have?" The helmet's prickle along his scalp remained in his memory.
Bruen's laugh sounded harsh in the silence. "Hyde and I tried that once. The machine cut us off. All the lights here, the ventilation, the water and comm are controlled by it. Further, its computational powers are greater by far than anything in the Regan sphere of influence. The boards are unlike anything we make. Alien… yet so powerful a tool. I've never been sure we could risk its loss.
"For example, ask it to compute the probability of Rega obtaining military control of Free Space, and it will tell you."
"I could tell you," Staffa grunted.
"Not like the Mag Comm," Bruen disagreed wearily. "It will make an instantaneous computation of every imaginable factor down to the military contribution of fishing provinces on Riparious. No human mind can deal with the tons of data the Mag Comm wields. No human could think to program a system to handle the complete societal outputs of an empire like the Mag Comm can."
Staffa pulled at his black beard. And yet it is a construct, as I am. An artifact, a thing made for a purpose. How different are we?
Bruen closed his eyes, head nodding on his small pillow. "Believe me, we fear it, Lord Commander. But I suppose it is a weakness among the Seddi that we crave such power of intellect — no matter what the risk. An addiction, if you will."
"A vile monstrosity, if you will," Staffa countered.
Silence.
"Why are you really here, Staffa kar Therma?" Bruen's eyes stayed closed,
his expression that of a man in pain.
Staffa leaned back in the chair, lacing his fingers together, legs outstretched on stone polished smooth through eons. "I originally started out to find my son. And on the way I realized that to do so, I had to find myself."
"Awareness?"
"Yes. awareness."
Bruen's eyebrows lifted over his still closed eyes. To himself he added, "And there is the reason it all fell apart, Hyde, my old friend. Here is the missing piece. Who would have ever guessed the Lord Commander wasn't aware?"
"Pardon me?"
"We worked long and hard to get you, Staffa kar Therma. Oh, we tried so hard. You see, you were the key."
"The key?"
"To survival." Bruen took a deep breath. "As the Lord Commander of the Companions, you would have broken Rega, correct?"
"Was it that apparent?"
"To the Mag Comm, yes. We, of course, spent years checking and cross-checking the data on our own. Oh, we knew your whole plan — possibly before you did. We couldn't allow it. Your steel fist would have crushed the aspirations of the human spirit — provided sufficient resources to support civilization had survived the war."
"And how could you have stopped me and my Companions?"
Bruen grinned, the wrinkles on his face shifting. "By throwing a revolution on Targa."
"I don't. you mean this whole rebellion was. But how? How did you think you could get me by a revolt on Targa?"
"But that was our brilliance! We had an assassin, a very special assassin, trained from birth just to kill you."
"And where is this assassin now, Bruen? Should I be looking over my shoulder? Perhaps walk with my blaster ready? Fear my food?" Staffa tensed in the chair, eyes suddenly going to the door.
"Relax, Lord Commander. I'm afraid it all came undone.
We planned on your running to Targa to pick up a few last Regan credits. The contract would have also provided an opportunity to scout Regan preparedness and allay their fears. You might have finished Targa and gone straight for the Regan capital — a mark of your strategic ability. There were too many opportunities for you to use the Targan campaign to your benefit. Only you didn't come. much to our intense mystification."
Staffa closed his eyes and shook his head. "All that just to get an assassin within range to kill me?"
Bruen filled his lungs again. "All those people dead. Everything undone because you yourself changed. What happened on Myklene? What did the Praetor tell you? How much?"
"Enough."
"Kaylla recounted most of your conversations with her." Bruen worked his mouth. "What of your son, Staffa? Do you think you would know him after all these years? You only saw him once as a baby."
"I'd know him, Bruen. No matter where he is, I'd know him by sight." He paused. "The Praetor told me he was here, on Targa, left with the Seddi Priests years ago."
"He was. We sent him elsewhere."
"Why?" Staffa demanded. "Where is he? How can I find him? Tell me, Bruen. The Seddi wouldn't lose track of so valuable an asset."
"Easy, Lord Commander. You must remember, at the time we considered you the greatest threat to the continued existence of humankind. We hated you, feared you as much, or more, than that demon machine in the basement."
"Where's my son?"
"Don't look at me like that. We did nothing to harm him. In fact, in a moment of weakness, I sent him, tiny thing that he was, to Rega — and safety. I didn't hold his ancestry against him. I believed him innocent." A pained frown cut Bruen's forehead and he sighed miserably.
"Then he lived through my bombardment?"
"He lived."
Staffa's eyes narrowed and he dropped his head into his hands. "Thank the Blessed Gods. I… I killed Chrysla on Myklene. Damn the Praetor! I never would have suspected he was behind her kidnapping years ago. I…"
"He was a most insidious sort." Bruen reached up to massage his temples.
"But yes, your son lives. We placed him in a state institution on Rega. He did very well. In fact, he excelled at his chosen field. He was still there when we prodded the Targans into revolt. I imagine he will be safe as long as Rega is."
"Thank God," Staffa sighed, a light filling his face.
"No. I think you had better thank the quanta instead."