"Course lines on screen two," he ordered.

"Course lines on screen two," the AI responded.

He swallowed the taste of bile in his mouth. If he could have built a wider organization, trusted more people . . .

"Then you wouldn't have to do things like this?" he asked the empty air. "Be serious. You don't fight fanatics. You destroy them totally or you leave them alone. You didn't have a choice. Corson-what choice did he have?"

"Invalid inquiry. Please reformulate."

"Hades! Re-" He had almost told the AI to reformulate itself, but stopped as he realized he had no idea what such a drastic command might do to the artificial intelligence."Istvenn!"

He bit his lower lip, not quite hard enough to draw blood, as he watched the red line of the Hunter arcing down toward Iredesium. He forced himself to continue watching.

"Dampers on screens. Shield all sensitives," he added quietly.

"Shields and dampers in place."

The command had been early, many minutes before it would be necessary to protect the ship's equipment.

He could feel the nausea climbing back into his throat, and he swallowed again, still watching the screens. The red dashed line continued to drop toward the moon.

A pale blue line flashed into place above the screen representation of Iredesium.

"Class three screens triggered."

The pilot watched as the dashed red line penetrated the meteor shield without deflection and continued to dive for the target dome.

"Estimate one minute until detonation."

Ignoring the AI's statement, delivered in its impersonal feminine tone, ignoring his own urge to turn away from the information displayed on the screens, he forced himself to keep watching, glancing from the visual on the main screen to the smaller representational screen, then back to the visual.

"Detonation."

For several seconds both screens seemed unchanged. Then, on the representational screen, the dashed red line intersected the moon's surface. On the visual screen, Iredesium hung there, still showing half white, half black.

A pinflare of white flashed from the middle of the moon, spreading . . . and the visual screen blanked.

"Dampers on. Impact on target verified. Detonation height at two hundred meters, plus or minus fifty."

The man did not answer.

He had left the control couch for the fresher, where the slim contents of his stomach were emptying themselves into a small basin.

"Probability of damage within design envelope approaches unity."

"Plan beta," choked the man from the former crew section. "Plan beta."

He wiped his mouth and slowly straightened after splashing his face with a handful of cool water."For better or worse . . ."

His legs felt rubbery, but he walked back to the waiting control couch, still as silently as ever.

"Plot all in-system contacts on screen three."

He swallowed the bitter aftertaste and concentrated on the full screen array.

L.

THE SPECIALLY GUARDED and prepared convention hall was nearly full.

"We have a problem."

"We have more than a problem."

"You mean the Merhlin thing?"

"Count's close to a hundred now."

"A hundred? You sure about that?"

"Two arm councils nearly wiped out . . ."

"Nobody knows who they are . . . not even Imperial Intelligence . . . say Eye himself is worried."

The hooded figure at the end of the table let the talk continue.

"Said he threatened the Council itself . . ."

The other hooded figure, sitting taller and to the right of the chief assassin, leaned forward."Is the threat that serious?" His voice was low.

"You know the answer," came back the cool tones of the woman. "It is the same answer as always. If the group called Merhlin is totally fanatic and highly skilled and disciplined, the threat has to be taken seriously. Fanatics can destroy anything. But the chances of the kind of knowledge and discipline necessary mixed with fanaticism? Not to mention the human element. We've always had warnings of any large scale movements against us, and how could anyone take on the entire Guild without an enormous commitment of personnel and equipment?

"Besides, would anyone today stoop to destroy an entire resort of five thousand people, most of them not involved with us? Even if they would, it would take nuclear weapons or a fleet-sized laser, and those are weapons the Empire has destroyed systems to keep to itself."

"Order!" The command was simultaneous with the tap of the ancient handgun on the metal plate.

The conversations around the meeting hall died into a series of murmurs, and the murmurs into silence.

"The first order of business is the five year report."

The Guild delegates shifted restlessly in their seats, waiting for the routine business to pass and to hear what the Council had to say about the threat to the Guild itself.

"Delegate Beta . . ."

Like most participants, Delegate Beta did not wear a privacy cloak, opting instead for a simple synthflesh false face and wig, combined with a voice distorter.

"The summaries are presented on the screen for your review. As you may recall, the screen is rear-projection and nonimaging, which means that your portable equipment will not retain the images . . ." Delegate Beta launched into his summary of five years of Guild activities and financial accomplishments.

At the conclusion he received a mild round of applause, mainly for the brevity with which the summary had been presented.

"Second order of business . . . Delegate Gamma."

Delegate Gamma stood and moved toward the podium.

She never got there.

Sun-white light seared through the roofing of the meeting hall, as well as through the rest of the Iredesium Resort Complex Red, reducing all but the heaviest metals to their basic atomic forms, turning ten square kays into a shimmering and cooling lake of molten stone and metal standing on an airless plain.

LI.

"WE'VE IDENTIFIED THE cause.

Eye inclined his hooded head, but said nothing.

"Class two hellburner. Surface burst."

"Where did they get it?"

"Who got it?"

"Got what?"

At the commotion, Eye raised one hand. The noise died down.

"Please summarize from the beginning, Commodore."

"We're not entirely certain, but it appears as though the Iredesium Red Pleasure Dome was the site of the Guild's Five Year Conference. We usually find out several months afterward, although they try to keep it hushed.

"The so-called Merhlin group had apparently threatened the Guild with virtual extinction. We don't know what the Guild position was, but they didn't take the threat seriously enough. Class two hellburner went up ten minutes after the conference started, the part that everyone was required to attend. Casualties over six thousand. Probably only five hundred official Guild delegates; another two, three hundred might have been lower grade assassins . . . ."

The commodore waited for a moment, but there were no questions or interruptions.

"Definitely an I.S.S. weapon. Media faxers are already saying that it was. Delivery method unknown, but the tracked velocity was compatible with warship launch. It could have come from a private yacht, but the Iredesium complex has been choked with them this season-more than a hundred registered, and that's half of all the Imperial private ships.

"There were also three Service ships present in system-Bismarck, Saladin, and Martel. All their weaponry is fully accounted for."

The Admiral of the Fleet, to Eye's right, coughed.

"Are any of the media suggesting that it was an Imperial effort to destroy the Guild?"

"No. The Free Fax is implying that the destruction of Guild leadership with I.S.S. weapons implies either tacit Service agreement or extremely loose controls on nuclear equipment by the Service. In either case, a full-fledged investigation is necessary."

"Just what we need." The sotto voce comment came from the corner of the room farthest from Eye, but neither the Intelligence Chief nor the Admiral of the Fleet acknowledged the truth of the remark or the speaker.

"Any favorable commentary?"

"The RadRight had an ed-blip.. They said they wished the Imperial Government had acted with such dispatch years ago."

"Wonderful."

"What is the real probability that this was accomplished by the Merhlin group?"

"One, we don't know if Merhlin represents a group or an individual with vast resources. Two, while Merhlin threatened to destroy the Guild and is reputed to have carried out close to a hundred assassinations of Guild agents in past years, we have no proof, even indirect or heresay, that the attack was in fact carried out by Merhlin. Three, if it was, I doubt that we will hear of Merhlin again. Nor will we if it was not. Four, now that the Guild has been reduced to several hundred scattered agents, the Imperial Government will face extraordinary criticism if we fail to finish the job. Five, this will result in greater economic stability within the Empire and probably short-term expansion of Imperial spheres of influence."

"In short," finished Eye, "we have no choice but to turn this terrible tragedy into an Imperial benefit. That solves one problem and leaves two. While we may never hear the name Merhlin again, whoever Merhlin is has the capability to find out information we don't. He or she also has no compunctions about acting when necessary. And no conscience. What do we intend to do about it?

"Second, we need someone to blame, and it can't be Merhlin. How could we admit that some unknown power can do what we can't, that they knew what we couldn't guess? So whom do we blame to get on with the job?"

"No one, ser. We will blame the anarchists and claim that the Guild and the anarchists collided. We have taken steps to round up the necessary accessories, and we will. And, in the future, enemies of the government can be tagged as anarchists, like those who murdered six thousand people at Iredesium."

"It might work," reflected Eye. "It might at that. But don't collect too many dissidents. We can't have this seen as a pretext to tighter social control."

"What about Merhlin?" asked the Admiral of the Fleet.

"We keep looking, quietly. I don't think we'll find him or her. Merhlin got what he or she or they wanted. But people forget. Especially, they forget faceless tragedies. Who got seared at Iredesium? Assassins, cold-blooded killers, and playboys and joy-girls. Who's going to feel sorry for them for long? How can you create outrage about them?"

LII.

CLICK. CLICK. CLICK.

The single set of footsteps echoed in the sub-zero chill of what would have been dawn, had the sun not been lost behind clouds that filtered fine snow over the hills and frozen lakes.

Click. Click.

The footsteps halted on the smooth stone before a marble wall. On the wall were rows of gray metal plaques, each the color of gun metal glinting in the dim light.

The man's eyes centered on the last three plaques, picking out the names.

"Corson MacGregor Ingmarr."

"Mark Heimdall Ingmarr."

"Allison Illsa Ingmarr."

He repeated the names to himself silently, then continued to stand, looking at the three names, ignoring the long rows of plaques above them, ignoring the blank space of the stone below them.

An occasional flake of snow drifted in from his left, under the flat marble roof and between the square and smooth columns that upheld the stone edifice, but he paid the weather no attention.