More damage than we can repair ourselves.

Sorus didn't hesitate. She'd survived for so many years because she could make decisions when she needed to, and her instincts were good.

Pounding commands into her board, she jettisoned the entire proton cannon a.s.sembly.

At the same instant the last camera died in laser fire.

Ma.s.sive iron thunder rang throughout Soar Soar as an array of shaped charges went off simultaneously. As precise in their own way as Succorso's laser, they sheared bolts and welds, detached plates, sealed conduits, cauterized wiring. The whole ship staggered like a wounded beast when the big gun ripped free. as an array of shaped charges went off simultaneously. As precise in their own way as Succorso's laser, they sheared bolts and welds, detached plates, sealed conduits, cauterized wiring. The whole ship staggered like a wounded beast when the big gun ripped free.

But the screen was blank. Sorus didn't get to see the explosions tear Succorso in half; the spray of blood from his ruptured torso. She could imagine it, but she hadn't seen it.

Repercussions seemed to echo through the hull, spreading the violence. The data first shouted into his pickup, sealing bulkheads against the possibility of lost atmosphere; marshaling damage control teams. Everyone else stared at Sorus as if she were as crazy as Nick Succorso.

Communications told her he'd stopped transmitting.

That wasn't enough to comfort her.

Her nerves burned like laser fire with shock, nausea, and rage as she confronted Milos Taverner. Somehow, somewhere, if she ever got the chance, she was going to shoot him square in the center of his smug, pudgy face.

"Have you got the picture now, Taverner?" she rasped. "Have you figured it out?

"He set us up. Succorso set us up! set us up! I don't know why he thought damaging us like this was worth dying for," no, that was the wrong question, the damage was obviously worth doing, what she didn't know was why he'd taken it on himself, "but he tricked us into this. We've been playing his game all along. I don't know why he thought damaging us like this was worth dying for," no, that was the wrong question, the damage was obviously worth doing, what she didn't know was why he'd taken it on himself, "but he tricked us into this. We've been playing his game all along.

"He let us have the Vasaczk kid to suck us in. We thought we were ahead of him, but he was just laying bait. There won't be any sabotage. If Trumpet Trumpet acts hurt, it'll be another sham, that's all. acts hurt, it'll be another sham, that's all.

"Without that cannon, we're only about half as dangerous as we were a couple of minutes ago."

The Amnioni considered his alien priorities. "Yet Captain Succorso is now dead," he observed.

"Only because he didn't know I would jettison the cannon!" Her action had been almost as crazy as his; almost as desperate. And she hadn't seen the explosions. .h.i.t him-"Otherwise he would still be blazing away at us. In thirty seconds he would have breached the hull! Then we would be in real real trouble." trouble."

But yelling at Taverner gained nothing. With an effort, she restrained her fury, swallowed her nausea. "If you're really in contact with Calm Horizons" Calm Horizons" she finished, "you'd better make d.a.m.n sure she gets here in time to help us. We're going to need it." she finished, "you'd better make d.a.m.n sure she gets here in time to help us. We're going to need it."

She couldn't see Milos' eyes, but the angle of his head told her that he was consulting his strange box.

"Help will come, Captain Chatelaine," he p.r.o.nounced quietly. "Calm Horizons "Calm Horizons has already entered the Ma.s.sif-5 system." has already entered the Ma.s.sif-5 system."

Data and scan kept working as best they could. The rest of the bridge crew gaped at him in surprise. They hadn't believed that something like this was possible.

Slowly Taverner raised his head. "I argued against this," he explained for reasons Sorus didn't understand. "Something here"-in an oddly naive gesture, he touched his hand to his chest-"warns of danger. Such men as Nick Succorso and Angus Thermopyle are fatal. But the exigency of our requirements makes the risk necessary.

"The defensive will be in position to prevent Trumpet's Trumpet's escape from this asteroid swarm in less than an hour. If she attempts to flee by attaining adequate gap velocity, she will be destroyed. And if she seeks to evade or resist capture in the swarm, escape from this asteroid swarm in less than an hour. If she attempts to flee by attaining adequate gap velocity, she will be destroyed. And if she seeks to evade or resist capture in the swarm, Calm Horizons Calm Horizons and and Soar Soar will trap her between them. will trap her between them.

"I will coordinate communications," he concluded, "so that no mistakes will be made."

No mistakes. Right.

Sorus looked away from him to study her readouts. This whole situation was a mistake-disastrous from first to last. Succorso had outplayed her. Worse, Thermopyle was still doing it. She'd lost her best weapon, and all her gambles were being turned against her.

She wasn't ordinarily a woman who prayed; but now she begged her nameless stars to give her one good UMCP warship.

ANCILLARY.

DOc.u.mENTATION.

WARDEN DIOS.

BACKGROUND.

INFORMATION.

[These notes-among others-were found in Warden Dios' files when Data Acquisition Director Hashi Lebwohl succeeded at breaking the former UMCP director's private codes.]

Ioften think about how I got into this mess.

In a sense, of course, "how" doesn't matter. I'm here. I did it to myself. Dealing with it isn't optional. As long as I call myself a cop-and I've been doing that all my adult life-I don't have any choice. What it costs me is irrelevant. Especially when I consider the price humankind has already paid for my mistakes. And that price can only increase. Unless I find some way to really do my job.

I'm painfully familiar with the argument that despite its terrible flaw the present arrangement should be preserved because it's better than the alternatives. The lesser evil. After all, if I succeed in bringing about my own destruction, the UMCP will inevitably be what Hashi would probably call "unmanned." No one else knows the danger as well as I do, or can use our resources as effectively. No one else has my fatal gift for inspiring loyalty, or my rather ambiguous skill at pulling strings. Until whoever takes my place-Min Donner, G.o.d willing-has time to grow into the job, human s.p.a.ce will be vulnerable as never before.

But that argument doesn't move me. I reject the idea that the cops can serve humankind better by being stronger-but-corrupt than by being weaker-but-honest. Nothing corrupt can ever be truly strong. Look at Holt Fasner, He has every imaginable kind of power. On top of that, he's my boss. My master. And yet there's nothing he can do to stop me from bringing him down. If I fail, it won't be because he was strong enough to beat me. It will be because my proxies, Angus and Morn, have paid too high a price for my complicities-the corruption I've condoned in order to prevent Holt from seeing the truth.

That's why I don't resign. I simply can't leave the harm I've done for someone else to clean up.

Still I find myself thinking about the past, looking for hints which might help my successors avoid my mistakes.

All my life I've been obsessed by strength.

The foster family that raised me after my parents were killed lived in one of Earth's urban borderlands. On one side, the gutter-gangs ruled. On the other, saner civilization prevailed. And on the border between them, safety and violence struggled back and forth like tides as the balances of power shifted.

I thought then, as I think now, that the question was one of strength. Within their territories the gutter-gangs were strong. They imposed their own order. Elsewhere more benign structures were potent enough to resist encroachment. But in the borderlands everyone suffered because no one was strong enough to defy chaos.

Here, I thought, there should be cops. The borderlands needed men and women with the force to extract safety and order from the conflict-and the goodness to do their jobs without becoming just another kind of guttergang. There was no other cure.

In a sense, I've been fighting on behalf of the borderlands ever since. First the borderlands of Earth's...o...b..tal s.p.a.ce, where stations and corporations battled for sc.r.a.ps of wealth and survival, and no planetary authority had the strength to control them. And later the vaster borderlands created by contact with the Amnion, borderlands which now exist in virtually every place that can be reached by warships with gap drives.

In the specific borderland where I grew up, I did what I could to organize the homes and families around me for their own protection. I suppose I must have been trying to defend my foster parents from the deaths that took my mother and father. But we had no resources. We were good-at least I think so-but we weren't strong.

At the first opportunity, I allowed myself to be recruited by SMI Internal Security. I had no loyalty to s.p.a.ce Mines Inc itself-or even to the idea of trying to procure humankind's survival by doing research and exploiting resources in s.p.a.ce. On the other hand, I was enormously attracted by the work SMI IS was supposed to do, which was "to secure" the safety of SMI personnel, operations, and contracts in that one small section of the orbital borderland. I had goodness to spare-or so I imagined at the time. Recruitment by IS gave me access to the support and money, the equipment and people I needed to make my "virtue" useful.

Valuable work as far as it went. But it wouldn't have contented me for long if I hadn't learned that Holt Fasner was ambitious. For a man with my obsessions, SMI Internal Security's "turf" was simply too small. I knew I could do a better job-far better-if I had more to work with.

Holt had bigger dreams. He was in the process of expanding his domain, and therefore my "turf," at an exhilarating rate. In addition, he was already old. Perhaps that was why he seemed-this sounds impossibly naive, even when I admit it to no one but myself-he appeared wise to me. Certainly his profound understanding of the uses of power gave an impression of wisdom.

And during my early years with SMI IS I was still junior personnel, in spite of some fairly rapid promotions. Holt didn't trust me enough to let me see inside his decisions. As far as I could tell, IS was clean. Everything we did looked legitimate.

Finally my new prosthetic eye afflicted me with a kind of hubris. Or maybe it allowed an older hubris to come to the fore. IR vision enabled me to "read" people so well that I began to think I was infallible. An immaculate judge of truth.

I was young and driven. Though it shames me now to say it, I had an easy time convincing myself that there was no inherent conflict between Holt Fasner's dreams and my own-that, in fact, the benevolence of his dreams was demonstrated by the way they carried mine with them.

But I began to catch glimpses of the truth in the heady days after I became chief of Internal Security. That was the time of SMI's acquisition of Intertech after the Humanity Riots. The time of first contact and first trade with the Amnion. A borderland situation if ever there was one. I was in my element as never before when I was forced to recognize that IS didn't spend so much time and effort on corporate espionage simply in order to secure SMI from predators. Holt used stolen secrets to make himself a more effective predator.

For example, with information IS supplied, he exposed some of Sagittarius Exploration's political dealings, which left SagEx ripe for acquisition. And Internal Security's files on the "votes" who chartered corporations enabled him to engage in what he calls "surgical interventions" to protect SMI's interests.

Well, blackmail by any other name is still extortion. I was horrified. And confused. And d.a.m.n near drunk on the exhilaration of IS's growing "turf" and resources. The conflict threatened to tear me apart.

But Holt has a genius for these situations. He knows when to push and when to hold back. When to seduce and when to use force. He sat me down and confided a tailored version of his dream.

He dreamed, he said, of making SMI such a dominant player in human s.p.a.ce that IS would be the only viable candidate to serve as humankind's cops. If I gave him my support, IS would become the the police for all the borderlands between the stars. police for all the borderlands between the stars.

I was won over, in spite of my reservations. I believed him. Or rather, I chose to believe him. I needed some way out of the conflict between exhilaration and horror. My desire to think he was telling the truth was so intense it made me frantic.

But frantic men make mistakes. Mine was complicity. I let, even helped, Holt commit his secret crimes so that I could go on serving the public good.

That's no excuse, of course. It's simply a description. A hint. It shames me-but it's worth knowing.

Years pa.s.sed before I understood how badly I'd gone wrong, and by then there were no clean solutions left. I couldn't think of any way to undo the harm of my mistakes except by going ahead.

By pushing my complicity as far as it would go. And by doing everything in my power to turn that complicity against the man who taught me how to play this game.

HASHI.

By some alchemy which he hadn't expected and barely understood, his equanimity was restored by the warmth of Earth's sun on his head and shoulders as he stepped off the shuttle. How many years had it been since he'd last exposed himself to his native solar radiance? A dozen? More? Now it shone down on him out of a sky as clear as innocence. An azure expanse untainted by centuries of humankind's despoliation arched over him. Immanent and vast, it reminded him of something which men and women who lived on stations too easily forgot: his own littleness. Nothing that he encountered within UMCPHQ had the scale to dwarf him as this sky did. And of course the station's steel skin closed out the vaster dark so that little human minds like his wouldn't go mad with insignificance.

This warmth, this light, that sky: they were positively therapeutic. If Hashi Lebwohl proved himself stupid and met humiliation before several billions of his own kind, this light and that sky would take no notice. Reality in both its subatomic and its galactic manifestations would remain untroubled. He could only do what quarks and mesons did: ride the electron flux. Combine and recombine as occasion suggested.

Learn and-perhaps-serve.

His nagging sense of inadequacy seemed to melt off his shoulders in the heat of distant solar fire. By the time he and Koina reached the main entrances to the GCES complex and moved in out of the light, he'd recovered his poise; his openness of mind. He was prepared to observe what transpired, respond as he was able, glean what he could, and be content.

In the interim, Koina's two aides, Forrest Ing, and the communications tech had been absorbed into an entire retinue of guards and functionaries, newsdogs and ushers. She and Hashi were escorted like visiting potentates-which, in a sense, they were-into the main building and along the high, diplomatic halls until they gained the formal meeting chamber of the Governing Council for Earth and s.p.a.ce.

The room was easily large enough to hold a hundred or more people without undue crowding. This was a practical necessity. The Council comprised only twenty-one Members-twenty-two including President Abrim Len-each sitting at his or her place at the large, half-oval table which defined the lowest level of the hail, each with his or her own data terminal and stacks of hardcopy. But behind each Member sat tier after tier of aides and advisers, secretaries and advocates. And around the wall above the last seats stood the guards a.s.signed by UMCPED Chief of Security Mandich to protect this session-at least two dozen of them. The result was an aggregation of individuals and intentions which felt unwieldy, almost unmanageable, even though twenty-one was not an unreasonable number for such a body.

Koina had good timing. The session wasn't scheduled to start for another ten minutes: enough time for her to pay her courtesies and take her place; not enough for the Members or their aides to accost her with their private agendas.

As the doors admitted her and Hashi to the hall, leaving most of their new entourage behind, a wave of sound washed over them-the undifferentiated gabble of aides briefing their Members, Members issuing instructions to their secretaries, advisers arguing among themselves. The noise was abruptly cut off, however, when the two directors entered. The Members and most of their personnel would have noticed Koina Hannish's arrival; some would have stopped talking to acknowledge her. But Hashi Lebwohl's presence took them all by surprise. Recent events had made him an electric figure here. And he hadn't attended a GCES session in person for at least a dozen years.

He paused inside the entryway and scanned the startled hall as if the sudden silence were a mark of respect. All the Members were already in their places: two from each of Earth's six political subdivisions, one from each of the nine major stations. Hashi knew them as well as it was possible to know men and women he'd never met. Their dossiers had familiarized him with their names and predilections, their voting records and personal histories. And his prodigious memory supplied the same information for most of the aides and advisers. His own people in DA sometimes referred to him as "Data Storage with legs"-for good reason. If the need arose, the only people in the hall he couldn't have addressed by name were the guards.

Most of the Members were seated; but Abrim Len stood at the center of the table, bowing like a marionette to everyone who required his attention. With the exception of the President, Members were randomly a.s.signed new places for each session, to avoid any impression of favoritism. It was, therefore, a matter of chance that two vehement critics of the UMCP had seats beside the President: Sen Abdullah, the Eastern Union Senior Member, on his right, and United Western Bloc Junior Member Sigurd Carsin on his left. Nevertheless the coincidence didn't auger well.

Other faces were especially familiar for divergent reasons. Blaine Manse, the Member from Betelgeuse Primary, was renowned for her persistent and embarra.s.sing peccadilloes. Punjat Silat of the Combined Asian Islands and Peninsulas had produced fascinating-if admittedly speculative-writings on the philology of intelligence. Com-Mine Station Member Vest Martingale had played what she must have considered an excruciating role in the pa.s.sage of the Preempt Act.

Halfway down the table opposite Martingale rested Captain Sixten Vertigus, the old hero of humankind's first contact with the Amnion, and the reason for this extraordinary session. His frail head leaned against the back of his chair, and his eyes were closed: he was apparently asleep.

Maxim Igensard sat behind his sponsor, Martingale. More than ever the Special Counsel resembled a predator disguised as prey. Under other circ.u.mstances, his gray attire and undistinguished features might have caused him to blend into the crowd of aides and secretaries. Now, however, he radiated tension like a nuclear pile. Hashi suspected, or perhaps merely hoped, that when Igensard learned the nature of Captain Vertigus' legislation, he would-in the argot of UMCPHQ-"go critical."

Many other faces were known; but in the silence which his arrival had occasioned, Hashi found his gaze riding a frisson of excitement and apprehension along the table to its end. There he received a nervous shock of his own.

At the same moment Koina murmured, "Hashi," as if she were warning him.

In the last chair-a position notable for its lack of a data terminal or hardcopies-sat Cleatus Fane.

Holt Fasner's First Executive a.s.sistant: a man who was said to speak with the voice and hear with the ears of the great worm himself.

He was a rotund figure in any case, but by sheer force of personality he took up so much s.p.a.ce that he appeared even fatter. His eyes were the unreadable green of deep seas, and his plump lips smiled mercilessly. Beneath them an expanse of white beard concealed his neck and sternum. His whiskers were wiry rather than soft, however: his beard moved like a blade whenever he spoke or turned his head. Nevertheless he bore more than a pa.s.sing resemblance-as any number of people had remarked-to Santa Claus.

He met Hashi's surprised look and smiled benignly, as if he'd come to speak the Dragon's blessing on this chamber and all who did the work of governing humankind.

Father Christmas, dispenser of the UMC CEO's gifts.

But Hashi wasn't misled. Not coincidentally, Cleatus Fane also exacted his lord's punishments.

What was he doing here? Hashi had no difficulty imagining an answer. Abrim Len, bless his timid, conciliatory heart, may have informed Holt Fasner's Home Office that this extraordinary session had been called to consider legislation proposed by Captain Sixten Vertigus. Knowing the good captain's reputation, the Dragon would certainly have guessed that Sixten Vertigus' bill wasn't intended for his benefit. Hence he'd dispatched his most practiced and reliable subordinate to witness-and perhaps respond to-whatever the UWB Senior Member did.

The restrained clamor in the hall resumed as abruptly as it'd stopped: all at once everyone present found something compelling to say to his or her neighbors. Some of them were surely wondering what Hashi Lebwohl's appearance and Cleatus Fane's had to do with each other.

To cover his momentary lapse of composure, Hashi bowed in Cleatus' direction. His mouth shaped the words, "My dear First Executive a.s.sistant, how piquant to see you." Then he leaned toward Koina and whispered, "It appears that the stakes of the game have been raised." Hidden by the hubbub of the Members and their retinues, he asked, "Do you believe that Captain Vertigus will proceed under these circ.u.mstances?"

Koina looked at him, let him see that the corners of her mouth were smiling again-only the corners. Then she moved to descend the tiers toward her honorary place at the end of the half-oval table across from the great worm's representative.

Hashi followed behind her aides and Forrest Ing, noting as he pa.s.sed that Abrim Len had begun to put on dignity like a man who meant to a.s.sume his duties. However, he had no real interest in the President's posture, dignified or otherwise. Other questions held him; questions which gathered a new urgency from Fane's presence. What answer had Chief of Security Mandich given Forrest Ing? And when would Deputy Chief Ing deign to mention it to the DA director? Hashi couldn't risk expressing either his offended vanity or his legitimate concerns to the deputy chief in front of this a.s.semblage, but his instinct for caution had suddenly become stringent.

He could no longer say accurately that he expected nothing. Therefore his need to be prepared had grown stronger.

As Koina reached her chair, sat down, and commenced the ritual of logging onto the data terminal so that she could open a transmission channel to UMCPHQ in case she needed it, Hashi put his hand on the deputy chiefs arm to detain him.

"I am still waiting for a reply," he announced just loudly enough to be heard; just sharply enough to threaten Ing. "Sadly I do not wait well."

The man c.o.c.ked an uncertain eyebrow as if he couldn't remember what Hashi was talking about. Then he said quickly, "Forgive me, Director. I've been distracted."

Turning away, he snapped his fingers; and at once a young UMCPED Security ensign came forward from the rear of Koina's diminished entourage. Hashi hadn't noticed him earlier: he must have joined the PR director's retinue outside the hall. Although he must surely have been at least twenty years of age, his fine blond hair and pale skin made him appear almost prep.u.b.escent.

"Ensign Crender," Ing said by way of introduction, "you have your orders. You're here to do what Director Lebwohl tells you. Whatever Whatever he tells you." The deputy chief smiled coldly. "Within reason, of course." he tells you." The deputy chief smiled coldly. "Within reason, of course."

"Yes, sir." The ensign's voice nearly cracked. He looked frightened, as if he feared that Hashi might instruct him to draw his impact pistol and open fire on the Council.

Within reason? Within reason! reason!

Hashi restrained a rush of anger. Mandich, he swore in silence. Donner. Ing. Be warned. If this whelp fails me, the price will be laid on your heads. I will lay it there.

Brusquely he took the nearest seat at Koina's back. Then he closed his eyes and spent a moment experiencing the surge and pull of blood in his temples as if his pulse embodied the electron flux; calming himself with metaphors of uncertainty.

He looked up again as the Members and their people grew quiet. The session was about to start.