“NNnnnnno!” Marya stuttered, pointing. Her brother half-turned, cut off the medic’s protest with an angry gesture.
“You need rest,” he said. The words were banal, not the tone, and there were . . . yes, tears at the corners of his eyes.
Tears are for later, she thought, and felt a flat calm return. A deep breath in.
“Liii-sten,” she said slowly. “Therrre is a bbbbiological . . . ”
CENTRAL OFFICE, ARCHONAL PALACE
ARCHONA
DOMINATION OF THE DRAKA
NOVEMBER 4, 1998: 0500 HOURS
“So.” Eric von Shrakenberg looked around the circle of the table. “Is that the consensus?”
Louise Gayner snorted and snapped a thumbnail against the crackle finish of her perscomp. The others glanced sidelong at each other; the Supreme General Staff representatives, the Directors of War and Security, the Council members. No teleconferencing, not for this. A dozen human beings, and they were all those who must be consulted in this matter.
Silence. Nods. At last the head of the Staff spoke:
“Excellence, we’ve already lost twenty percent of our capacity to this damned comp-plague, and there’ll be mo’. Must be mo’. The Stone Dogs are our only hope. If we lose that there’s nothin’. There’s no time, Excellence; every moment we wait is a nail in our coffin.”
The Archon looked down at his fingers. They’re waiting for my decision, my choice. The thought was hilarious, enough so that he did not know whether laughter or nausea would be more fitting. All my life I’ve wanted to set us free, he thought. Free from a way of life based on death. Now my only chance of it is to inflict more death than the combined totals of every despot and warlord in the whole mad-dog slaughterhouse we call human history. Could it be Yolande’s fault? Could it be anyone’s fault that it had come to this, the whole of human history narrowing down to this point? Ten thousand generations, living, rearing their children, working, dreaming, going down to dust, and now . . . He would say the words, and they would lie like a sword across all time, no matter the outcome. If there were humans at all, a generation hence, they would call this the decisive moment. The ultimate power, and in his hands.
A leader is someone who manages to keep ahead of the pack, he knew bitterly, feeling the cold carnivore eyes on him. There was exactly one practical choice he could make, within the iron framework of the Domination’s logic, and the Draka were nothing if not a practical people. Or he could refuse it, and the only difference would be that he would be safely dead in twenty minutes. For a second’s brief temptation he wished he could; it would spare him the consequences, at least.
No. At seventh and last, I am a von Shrakenberg, and I have my duty. Besides that, if nothing else it would give Gayner too much pleasure.
“Activate the Stone Dogs,” he said; his voice had the blank dispassion of a recording. “Force Condition Eight. Service to the State.”
“Glory to the Race,” came the reply. There was another brief pause, as if the men and women gathered around the table were caught in the huge inertia of history, the avalanche they were about to unloose. Then they rose and left, one by one.
Gayner was the last. Eric watched her with hooded eyes as she snapped the perscomp shut; time had scored his old enemy more heavily than he, for all his extra years. Only traces of red in the gray-white hair, and there were spots on her hands.
“Happy?” he said, at last. There was a curious intimacy to a perfect hatred, like a long marriage.
“Not particularly,” she replied, straightening her cravat. Their eyes met. “The Yankees . . . that’s not personal. They’re cattle.” Then she smiled. “You, on the other hand. Ahhh, come the day, that will make me happy.”
“Nice to know Ah can afford anothah human being such satisfaction,” he said. There was no particular hurry now; neither of them was much involved in implementation. The snow was moving down the slope. Still glacial slow, but there was no stopping it. “Headin’ fo’ y’ bunker?”
“No.” She looked up at the wall. “I’ve got a trans-sonic waitin’. I’ll sit this one out in Luanda. Home.” Gayner looked at him again. “But don’t worry. I’ll be back.”
* * *
DOMINATION SPACE COMMAND PLATFORM MOURNBLADE
LOW EARTH ORBIT
NOVEMBER 4, 1998: 0900 HOURS
The commander of the battle platform looked up sharply. “That’s the code,” he said. His second nodded, confirming. They were in the center of the platform, and the Chiliarch allowed himself a moment’s pride; this was the newest and best of Space Command’s orbital fists.
“Initiate Zebra,” he said.
There was heavy tension on the command bridge, but no confusion, no panic. This was what they had trained long years for; if any of the operators at their consoles were thinking of homes and families below, it made no difference to the cool professionalism of their teamwork.
“Preparin’ fo’ launch,” the Weapons Officer said.
The commander touched his screen.
[Detonation sequence activated]
“What the fuck—that’s not the launch protocol.” There was controlled alarm in his voice. “Weapons, pull that sequence!”
Frantic activity. “Suh, it’s not responding. The central comp’s not acceptin’ input.”
[Ten seconds]
A warning sent through Security crept into the Chiliarch’s mind. “Dump the core, over to dispersed operation.” A sound of protest from the Infosystems Officer; that would reduce their combat capacity by nine-tenths. “Do it, do it now.”
“Initiatin’ . . . suh, it won’t respond. Null board.”
“Get in there and slag the core, physically, now.”
[Seven seconds]
Fingers were prying at access panels. Hands tore bunches of wire free, and sparks flickered blue.
[Five seconds]
Sections of screen were going dark. He could see globes of fire rising and flattening against the upper atmosphere, down below on Earth. Vortexes of black cloud were gathering.
[Three seconds]
Even now there was no panic. Desperate effort . . . Impossible, he decided. The Chiliarch closed his eyes, called up a certain day. He was small again, and his father was lifting him . . .
[Two seconds]
. . . up so high toward the tree . . .
[One second]
. . . with Mother smiling, and . . .
[Detonation]
* * *
DONOVAN HOUSE DEEP SHELTER
FEDERAL CAPITAL DISTRICT
NEW YORK CITY
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
NOVEMBER 4, 1998
“This had better be worth it, compadre,” Carmen Hiero said, fastening her robe. It was the early hours of the morning, and she reached grumpily for the coffee. Then she saw her aide’s face, and gulped without tasting. “Something more about those broadcasts?”
“No, still just harmless modulated signals,” the aide said. “But there’s something else . . . Madam President, the chairman’s gone to the Denver War Room.” Thousands of feet under a mountain; she felt something clutch at her windpipe. That was where the real decisions would be made, as was right and proper; the Alliance was sovereign, not the member states. “Please, the briefing’s being prepared.” It was a short walk to the War Room; even after all these years, she still found the salutes a little incongruous for an elderly Sonoran lady in a housecoat.