"Stop!"
Bruen was jolted, shivering again, wishing the blasting voice could be muted in some way to dull the shearing edge of pain.
A long moment passed before the Mag Comm ordered:
"You will prepare a report on atheism and submit it to me through the machine. You will be thorough, complete, with documentation of what you know."
"It will be done," Bruen assented earnestly.
"In the meantime, these are my orders: Kaspa, according to your report, has been quiet for too long. The time has come to retake the city. You will lay your plans and see to that. Once you reported you had enough strength to defeat a Regan Division in the field. One is currently being sent to
take Vespa. You will destroy it-and your Sinklar Fist. His power grows. He seems too competent. You should fear what he is made from.
"Within the next Regan year, I must see strikes made against Sassa. They take their God-Emperor too seriously. The Regan heresy of Etarian religion is less dangerous, but it, too, has grown too strong. Conflict must be initiated between the powers in order that their social control be blunted.
"I have reviewed the report you have submitted. You have not found the Lord Commander. Time is growing short, Bruen. "
"Great One, we believe we have located the Lord Commander. In fact, we are working at this very moment to-"
"This time there can be no failure as in the past. Since he is away from his security, you will kill him immediately! Understood?"
Bruen shook from the booming power in the pronouncement.
"It… it is understood, Great One."
"I am tired of failures with the Lord Commander. A pause. "Are your Seddi following the Way? I am worried, Bruen. First you tell me of heretical probability gone astray when the Way teaches that with sufficient information, all actions can be predicted. Then you tell me of a human ability to disbelieve-a fact totally illogical given your species' history and nature. Such information I find most difficult to assimilate. Our plans are delicate. There is no room for so many errors. We must have predictability! So much is at stake, how can I trust you? Are you and your kind truly irrational as was declared so long ago?"
"We follow the Way, Great One," Bruen insisted, dedicating himself to the sincerity of the statement while fear stole along his nerves.
"Beware, Bruen. You and your humans dangle by a thread. The time has come to see the implementation of the Way throughout Free Space. It is your only chance! Beware! BEWARE!"
Silence, blissful silence, echoed in Bruen's brain. He sagged, mind blank, body limp in the chair. A pounding began that lanced through his parietals to the core of his brain.
Hands lifted the golden globe gently from his head as Bruen blinked up into the dim light, barely aware of the ominous luminescence of the machine where it filled the wall before him.
"As was declared so long ago?" A slip? And you didn't know about atheism,
you God-cursed machine? First, you declare the Seddi to be heretics and try to instill a Godless philosophy-but without a knowledge of atheism? Curious! Next, you would have our agents provoke an inevitable war between Sassa and Rega, knowing full well they must devastate most of Free Space. Why, machine? What is your vile purpose?
You threaten us, claiming humanity hangs by a thread. Bruen pursed his lips, frowning. What thread do we hang by, machine? One you control? Or one we can take into our own hands? So many unanswered questions-and my time is so short. I no longer control events, they have taken control of me.
"Are you all right?" one of the Initiates asked, his young face lined with worry. He bent over Bruen, tall, blond, muscular, a slight scar healing across his face-a token of the fighting in Kaspa. He wore it proudly, a badge of service to the order. The other, a medium-height, burly man with dark skin and kinky hair, wore a grim expression as if the tension in the room had sapped him, too. His black eyes reflected wariness.
"Yes," Bruen gasped, voice wavering as he winced from the headache.
The Initiates slipped strong arms under him and bore him up through the maze of tunnels.
"Take me to Hyde's room," Bruen whispered.
He closed his eyes, feeling the familiar bends and turns of the passages as he was brought upward. The tension in the young men crackled like electricity above his sagging age-lined flesh.
"We are here, Magister," the black-skinned Initiate whispered, as they settled him in a seat. Bowing, they turned to leave.
"Stay," Bruen croaked. "It is time you took the place of
Masters. You have studied long and hard. Not to know at this late stage of the game is penance you do not deserve."
He looked up to see a quickening in their eyes as they glanced at each other.
Hyde lay prostrate in his bed, face washed of any color. He turned his head weakly. "And?"
Briefly Bruen reported the session, then added: "We must plan. Something is very wrong. We will need our best minds to determine the course of action we must take. "
"Wrong how?" Hyde asked and broke into a fit of coughing.
"So wrong the machine is beginning to ask questions." Bruen shivered uncontrollably. "Too much is awry. I have come to believe everything is now at stake… everything. "
"But you fooled the machine again, Magister?" the scarred Initiate inquired, voice subdued.
"Yes, I fooled the machine again." Bruen grimaced at the weary tone in his own voice. "But you two must comb the records and submit a report to the machine on atheism. Somehow I get the impression the machine never knew. Why? What sort of a weakness does that denote?"
The black Initiate's face brightened slightly. "Then the machine is not omniscient!"
"No. We've known that for a long time. Indeed, we play a dicey game here. When it orders-as it has done in the past-we can do little to chart the margins of its power. When it questions, we can at least gain a glimmering of its abilities. "
"So long as it isn't outsmarting us," Hyde reminded, convulsing in a coughing fit. He expectorated into a worn crock beside his bed.
"That is always a possibility." Bruen blinked against the headache. If only the sessions with the machine didn't drain him so. "The Mag Comm, however, isn't the only one capable of misinformation. At lying, no one can beat a human!"
"But the machine is acting uncertain?" Hyde continued between wheezing breaths.
"Yes, it is. And that, old friend, is most unsettling. For the first time, the machine is beginning to formulate threats. Until we know the extent of its powers, we must heed them with a great deal of fear. "
"And it ordered us to step up the war?" Hyde wiped a
thin-skinned hand over purple lips to catch a spinner of saliva that leaked
past.
Bruen nodded. "Yes, not only that, but it slipped again. It knows a Regan Division under Sinklar Fist is about to take the field. We are not its only source of Free Space information. "
Hyde's face fell, dull blue eyes concerned. "Better to know-but too bad for all of that. Our position becomes even more tenuous. "
Bruen nodded, looking up at the two young men, pondering.
"You will need to contact Butla Ret," Hyde broke into another coughing fit. "He is the only one we can count on. He is the only one capable of taking the field. He must be our legs and arms now."
"I will do so," Bruen patted Hyde's swollen legs. "Let us pray we are not too late, old friend. "
"Yes," Hyde gasped, fluid-filled lungs heaving. "This should have come upon us fifteen years ago."
"But it didn't," Bruen sighed. "We must deal with it now. " He looked up at the young men to emphasize his words. "If we make a mistake, young gentlemen, it will be our last.
Skyla Lyma ducked into the pitch-blackness of the alley, aware of the stalker. She slipped silently through the darkness, feeling with her feet. Stealing to one side, she waited, sand-coated brick under her fingers as she felt her way along. Her nerves had been on edge ever since Ily Takka showed up at the Warden's pens. Curse it all, it had been too close. And as Ily flew off, she'd looked her right in the eye. If it hadn't been for the veil, I'd already be dead meat.