She was rewarded by the sound of the safety snapping off. "Die," said the man, pointing the gun at her heart- then dropping the weapon and throwing his hands over his face, staggering back as the carbine's muzzle vanished in a blast of flame.

The blast echoed off the stairs and out over the jungle.

"Can we talk?" said Zahava as the other recovered, rubbing his eyes.

"What about?" said L'Kor. Best chance is to make whoever was in that ship shoot me, he thought desperately, pinpoints of light still dancing in his vision. Anything would be better than that that.

"About the occupation," she said, wondering if everyone here was this slow. Or had he just been through a lot? "About the ships."

A sudden rush of anger banished L'Kor's suicidal intent. "Murderer," he hissed, stepping toward her, fists clenched. "Butcher."

Zahava stepped back, shocked by his hate. "I'm not with them," she said. "They're combine ships, either allied with the AIs or taken over ..." Seeing his sullen incomprehension, she stopped. Someone has to give up something, she thought.

L'Kor didn't flinch as she drew her weapon. I am the wind, he thought, recalling a s.n.a.t.c.h of poetry old when the Empire was young. I am the wind and none . . .

His detachment was broken as Zahava extended her blaster to him, grips first.

Disbelieving, Major L'Kor took the weapon, staring from it to Zahava.

"My name's Tal," she said. "Zahava Tal. What's yours?"

"That's not the whole story, Major," she concluded. "That would take the rest of the night. But it's most of what applies to D'Lin."

"I see," said L'Kor, sipping the t'ata from his field cup. "And call me S'Ta. But it doesn't explain why these . . . these things, these AIs, have seized this small, backward world. Or what we can do about it." He bit into a biscuit, savoring it, his first real food in weeks.

"Something the AIs and the S'Cotar found out on my world, S'Ta," said the Terran. "We primitives bite hard."

They sat around a small fire amid the moss-hung ruins of R'Actol's palace, a roof of stars overhead, the shri cacophony of the tropical rain forest all around. As L'Kx wolfed down another biscuit, Zahava sniffed the night ai There was an indefinable essence to it. Fecund, si decided-the smell of jungle and antiquity.

What a monstrosity this place must have been, si: thought. As if the Greeks had built the Parthenon along tr scale of the Temple of Karnak-the center-ringed columi might kindly be called pregnant Doric-and thrown i some Aztec tiling.

Built to daunt, she decided, sipping her t'ata. But tin had done finer work than the builders, sculpting the Imperial edifice into an enchanted ruin, a place whe shadow and starlight evoked the shades of Empire ai Destiny.

Empire and Dust, thought Zahava, looking up at tl alien stars. And will I ever see John again? she wondere She turned at the crackle of brush and flame-L'K was throwing more scrub on the fire. The flames flan high, sending tall shadows dancing across the ruins.

"It's doing it to you, isn't it?" smiled the major, lea ing back, head on his rucksack. He sighed, hands clasp behind his head. "It's a melancholy place," he said befo she could answer. "We used to camp here when I was boy-play marines and R'Actolians after supper, and tin go to bed, dreaming that the starships had come back."

Zahava tossed her t'ata into the brush. "Well, they' come back, haven't they?" she said.

L'Kor nodded grimly.

"How'd it happen?" she asked.

Based in the harbor town of S'Hlur, the 103rd was paramilitary battalion, charged with police and custoi duties in the northern half of R'Tol. There'd been no n trouble since the last of the pirate villages had been era cated, in L'Kor's grandfather's time. Eleven years out the academy and the major was looking forward to a transfer to P'Rid and the Exarch's Guard-a certain promotion to colonel second.

The silver ships had ended that, sweeping in from the ocean at dawn, blasting the sleeping town, burying many of the garrison in their burning barracks, making strafing runs along the narrow streets.

L'Kor and G'Sol had been rallying the survivors, readying for a second attack, when it came-machines: small, wedge-shaped machines that flew silently over the makeshift barricades and knifed through the troopers, spewing blaster bolts and tumbling decapitated bodies about the compound.

Standing astride an overturned truck, L'Kor had emptied first his pistol and then an automatic rifle into the machines. The bullets pinged off the dull blue metal, leaving it unblemished. A near miss had exploded into the truck, throwing L'Kor to the ground, stunned. As G'Sol helped him up, old Sergeant N'San, just a week from retirement, had scrambled up the west wall to the battalion's lone antiaircraft gun. Swinging the gun down and around, he'd sent a stream of cannon sh.e.l.ls tearing into the machines as they'd gathered for a final sweep.

L'Kor used the few moments the sergeant bought to get everyone over the demolished south wall and into the jungle. As they'd reached cover, the antiaircraft position and most of the west wall had exploded behind them, adding its acrid smoke to the pall that hung over the slaughter.

"That's not the worst of it," said the major, staring into the waning fire. "G'Sol and I, we watched from the bush-they . . . they mutilated our dead."

"Mutilated?" asked Zahava. "How?"

"Gla.s.s or plastic domes." He held his hands apart. "This round. They came streaming from one of those silver ships ..."

"A shuttle," said Zahava.

"From a shuttle," he nodded. "Whenever one came to a body, the dome would split. One half would drop over the head. It would flash red, dissolve the cranium-hair, bone, top of the ears. Then ... it would remove the brain." L'Kor looked ill. "G'Sol swore she could hear a sucking noise when it happened." He shook his head, biting his lower lip. "Imagination. We were too far away."

"Then the other half of the sphere would close over the brain," said Zahava, "and carry it back to the shuttle. Right?"

The major nodded.

What do the AIs want with human brains? wondered the Terran.

"Our exarch, Y'Gar, has sealed the capital," said L'Kor. "The radio says there's a plague loose, and the population has been reporting for inoculations for the last week. No mention of this raid." He spat into the fire. "We think Y'Gar's sold out to these AIs. We can get into the city. In fact, we were getting ready to pay Y'Gar an unfriendly visit when you arrived."

"Don't let me stop . . . We?" said Zahava, looking around.

"Why do they mutilate our dead?" said Captain G'Sol, stepping into the small circle of light, carbine pointed at the Terran. Behind her, in the shadows, Zahava saw other figures, the dull glint of steel in their hands.

"She's all right, Captain," said L'Kor, standing. "She gave me her weapon, which I returned."

The carbine lowered. "Why do they mutilate our dead?" G'Sol repeated in a softer tone.

"I don't know," said Zahava, also rising. "They're machines, served by other machines. They've no need to brainstrip the dead, unless . . . No"-she shook her head.

"What?" said captain and major together.

"There's a type of ship that uses human brains-but the only one left is a harmless derelict."

"Mindslavers," said G'Sol.

"How did you know?" asked the Terran.

The major grinned humorlessly. "This is D'Lin, Zahava.

We're standing in the ruins of the quadrant governor's palace. The last governor was S'Helia R'Actol, creator of the R'Actolian biofabs. The R'Actolians created-"

"The first mindslaver," said Zahava, nodding. "Of course you'd know. But that still doesn't explain what the AIs need human brains for.''

"AIs?" said G'Sol, looking from Zahava to L'Kor.

"Artificial intelligence," said L'Kor. "Machines that think, kill and don't like people-our friends from the attack. You missed an interesting discussion, S'Yin."

"I'd like to join your visit to the exarch," said Zahava. "If he's betrayed you, he'll have some answers. You're not too squeamish about how you put the questions, are you?"

They just looked at her.

"I see you're not," she said.

"What can you contribute?" asked G'Sol.

A blur of motion, Zahava pivoted, drew and fired. A vine-choked pillar exploded in flame, the echo rolling out over the jungle. "How about a few hundred blasters and provisions?" she said, turning and reholstering.

L'Kor laughed-an honest, open laugh-and held out his hand. "Welcome to the One hundred and third, Zahava Tal."

A sullen red sun was rising by the time they were ready, blasters and ship's stores distributed, breakfast eaten. Only forty of the troopers were fit enough for combat-L'Kor was leaving the rest behind with the surviving medic.

"You know what to do?" said Zahava, clipping the communicator to her belt. She stood alone in the lifepod, the rest a.s.sembling outside.

"Protect the encampment and await your signal," said the lifepod. "I am not to acknowledge any communications, from either you or our own vessels, unless such vessels are approaching this planet. If summoned, I am to come in low and fast, avoiding detection, firing at targets of opportunity."

"You're a very versatile lifepod, thirty-six," said Zahava, taking an M32 blastrifle from the arms rack and slinging it over her shoulder.

"How versatile should a lifepod be?" asked the machine as Zahava walked to the airlock.

The Terran opened the airlock, looking back at the command console as sunlight swept in. "Was your programming augmented for this trip, thirty-six?" she asked. "Because my being at this place, at this time, reeks of a setup."

"If such were true," said the lifepod, "it's unlikely I would be allowed to acknowledge it."

"We're ready!" L'Kor called from the foot of the ladder. "Boat's waiting!"

"We'll talk later," said Zahava, leaving.

"Luck," said the lifepod as the airlock hissed shut.

Looks like Sidon, thought Zahava, remembering another war and another world as they slipped into the shattered harbor town. Then the breeze turned onsh.o.r.e, bringing the stench of death, and she knew it was worse.

The troopers stole through the town with the silent precision of trained infiltrators, moving quickly on the harbor and the boat slips.

S'Hlur had been a weathered gray town of squat stone buildings and narrow stone streets-a thick, solid town, its edges worn by time and storms-a place that would have sat quietly hunkered down before the sea another thousand years.

Most of the cottages and shops lay shattered, blasted by fusion fire that had left the streets and blocks in tumbled ruin. A few untouched buildings stood in grotesque contrast amid the rubble.

Gray and bloated, corpses lay everywhere-streets, shops, doorways-plump red insects feeding in the black-green rot of empty brainpans. The only sounds were along the harbor: the gentle slap of ocean against the ancient sea wall, the rhythmic creak and groan of wooden docks tugged by moored boats.

Sputtering, an engine caught, breaking the silence. Running the length of the seawall, the troops and Zahava came to the garrison's dock. A big wooden launch stood waiting in its slip, propellers churning.

"Quickly, quickly," called L'Kor as everyone boarded, three at a time. He and a corporal cast off fore and aft, boarding as the engine roared higher.

Turning into a stiff headwind, they ran for the harbor entrance. Reaching the ocean, they slammed keen-prowed into a heavy sea, the water splashing over the gunnels.

The sea and the lingering stench in her throat was too much for Zahava-she hung over the side most of the short voyage.

Late in the morning they made landfall along a deserted stretch of coast. Dragging the launch into the brush, they draped it in camouflage netting and moved off into the jungle, forty silent, vengeful men and women.

Zahava tugged her backpack tighter and followed, very grateful that she wasn't Exarch Y'Gar.

14.

"There is a problem, Exarch."

Y'Gar looked up from his reports. What seemed a blue-uniformed captain of the Exarch's Guard stood before the ruler of D'Lin, pistol on his hip, black boots gleaming.

"Problem?" said Y'Gar. He touched the neat pile of papers on his desk. "Processing is almost complete. There's been no resistance, little suspicion ..."

"The problem isn't on D'Lin," said the AI. "Yet. Our ships intercepted an incoming craft of Fleet origin. It was destroyed."

"Fleet? The K'Ronarin Fleet?" said Y'Gar, alarmed. "But you said they never came into this quadrant-that it was prohibited."

"A prohibition that's been rescinded, it seems," said the AI. "Where one has come, more will follow. We haven't enough ships to stand off a flotilla-not until our vanguard arrives. We must finish operations tomorrow morning."

"a.s.semble and process, what, a thousand people? By noon?" Y'Gar shook his head. "Logistically impossible. We're not a machine society, U'Kal. Notification alone requires an entire day."

The AI walked to the gla.s.s doors, hands clasped behind his back. Outside, beyond the patio, gardeners labored under the tropical sun, tr.i.m.m.i.n.g the topiary, tending the rows of flowers that bloomed in exotic profusion. U'Kal appreciated the geometric design of the flower beds, but found the colors distracting. He turned back to Y'Gar.

"Announce that you are moving all school-aged children in the city to a place of safety-T'Lor or one of the southern islands. Take them directly from school to processing, first thing in the morning. Harvesting them will bring us to thirty thousand and complete our mission on D'Lin."

The exarch stared down at his hands. He was a tall man, balding, losing a lifelong battle to the fat girdling his waist. He twisted the ring of office on his right hand, thumb stroking the ancient crest of starship-and-sun. "You want me to help you brainstrip children," he said.

"Conscience, Y'Gar," said U'Kal, returning to the desk, "is a severe impediment to discipline and order. We do not tolerate it."

"But . . ."

"But what?" said the AI commander. "We've replaced your Guard with our own units, wiped the outlying garrisons, imposed communications closure, quarantine and curfew within the city. Five to eight hundred people a day have been a.s.sembling for 'inoculation and transport.' Your people have no defenses, no communications, no mobility," he said, ticking them off on his fingers. "This world is ours, Y'Gar." U'Kal leaned across the desk, his perfect face a foot from the exarch's. "As are you. You are to prevent panic. Panic is inefficient; our time limited."

The exarch shrank from those cold blue eyes. "Very well, U'Kal. But this will torch it. Despite the communications closure, parents will want to talk with their children- certainly a reasonable request." He pointed at the AI. "You've got to get me off-world before howling mobs storm this Residence!"

"Don't be afraid, Y'Gar." The AI straightened up, hands behind his back. "We keep our word-even to vermin."

"Pretty, isn't it?" said L'Kor, handing the binoculars to Zahava. They lay on a gra.s.sy hillside, just beyond the brush, looking into the valley below.

Zahava adjusted the focus. The Residence lights were coming on, long windows flaring soft yellow beneath a brilliant lavender sunset. It was as elegant as the palace had been ugly, a tropical Versailles of lush, fountained gardens surrounding a white, double-winged manse, the whole ringed by the black metal pickets of a tall ornamental fence.

"Very pretty," said Zahava. "Why not just walk in and take over?"

"We're going," said the major, "now that I know it's not swarming with troops or AIs."