Empire from the Ashes

by David Weber

  "You may." Tsien allowed a smile to cross his own habitually immobile face. It was hardly proper, but there was no getting around it. For all their differences, he and this American were too much alike to be enemies.

  "And, as you would say, Gerald, my name is Tao-ling," he murmured, and crystal sang gently as their glasses touched.

  Out of deference to the still unenhanced Terra-born Council members, Horus had the news footage played directly rather than relayed through his neural feed. Not that it made it any better.

  The report ended and the Terran tri-vid unit sank back into the wall amid the silence. The thirty men and women in his conference room looked at one another, but he noted that none of them looked directly at him.

  "What I want to know, ladies and gentlemen," he said finally, his voice shattering the hush, "is how that was allowed to happen?"

  One or two Councilors flinched, though he hadn't raised his voice. He hadn't had to. The screams and thunder of automatic weapons as the armored vehicles moved in had made his point for him.

  "It was not 'allowed,' " a voice said finally. "It was inevitable."

  Horus's cocked head encouraged the speaker to continue, and Sophia Pariani leaned forward to meet his eyes. Her Italian accent was more than usually pronounced, but there was no apology in her expression.

  "There is no doubt that the situation was clumsily handled, but there will be more 'situations,' Governor, and not merely in Africa. Already the world economy has been disrupted by the changes we have effected; as the further and greater changes which lie ahead become evident, more and more of the common men and women of the world will react as those people did."

  "Sophia's right, Horus." This time it was Sarhantha, one of his ten fellow survivors from Nergal's crew. "We ought to've seen it coming. In fact, we did; we just didn't expect it so soon because we'd forgotten how many people are crammed into this world. Hard and fast as we're working, only a small minority are actively involved in the defense projects or the military. All the majority see is that their governments have been supplanted, their planet is threatened by a menace they don't truly comprehend and are none too sure they believe in, and their economies are in the process of catastrophic disruption. This particular riot was touched off by a combination of hunger, inflation, and unemployment—regional factors that pre-date our involvement but have grown only worse since we assumed power—and the realization that even those with skilled trades will soon find their skills obsolete."

  "But there'll be other factors soon enough." Councilor Abner Johnson spoke with a sharp New England twang despite his matte-black complexion. "People're people, Governor. The vested interests are going to object—strenuously—once they get reorganized. Their economic and political power's about to go belly-up, and some of them're stupid enough to fight. And don't forget the religious aspect. We're sitting on a powder keg in Iran and Syria, but we've got our own nuts, and you people represent a pretty unappetizing affront to their comfortable little preconceptions." He smiled humorlessly.

  " 'Mycos? Birhat?' You don't really think God created planets with names like that, do you? If you could at least've come from a planet named 'Eden' it might've helped, but as it is—!" Johnson shrugged. "Once they get organized, we'll have a real lunatic fringe!"

  "Comrade Johnson is correct, Comrade Governor." Commissar Hsu Yin's oddly British accent was almost musical after Johnson's twang. "We may debate the causes of Third World poverty—" she eyed her capitalist fellows calmly "—but it exists. Ignorance and fear will be greatest there, violence more quickly acceptable, yet this is only the beginning. When the First World realizes that it is in precisely the same situation the violence may grow even worse. We may as well prepare for the worst... and whatever we anticipate will most assuredly fall short of what will actually happen."

  "Granted. But this violent suppression—"

  "Was the work of the local authorities," Geb put in. "And before you condemn them, what else could they do? There were almost ten thousand people in that mob, and if a lot of them were unarmed women and children, a lot were neither female, young, nor unarmed. At least they had the sense to call us in as soon as they'd restored order, even if it was under martial law. I've diverted a dozen Shirut-class atmospheric conveyers to haul in foodstuffs from North America. That should take the worst edge off the situation, but if the local authorities hadn't 'suppressed' the disturbances, however they did it, simply feeding them wouldn't even begin to help, and you know it."

  There were mutters of agreement, and Horus noted that the Terra-born were considerably more vehement than the Imperials. Were they right? It was their planet, and Maker knew the disruptions were only beginning. He knew they were sanctioning expediency, but wasn't that another way to describe pragmatism? And in a situation like the present one...

  "All right," he sighed finally, "I don't like it, but you may be right." He turned to Gustav van Gelder, Councilor for Planetary Security. "Gus, I want you and Geb to increase the priority for getting stun guns into the hands of local authorities. And I want more of our enhancement capacity diverted to police personnel. Isis, you and Myko deal with that."

  Doctor Isis Tudor, his own Terra-born daughter and now Councilor for Biosciences, glanced at her ex-mutineer assistant with a sort of resigned desperation. Isis was over eighty; even enhancement could only slow her gradual decay and eliminate aches and pains, but her mind was quick and clear. Now she nodded, and he knew she'd find the capacity... somehow.

  "Until we can get local peace-keepers enhanced," Horus went on, "I'll have General Hatcher set up mixed-nationality response teams out of his military personnel. I don't like it—the situation's going to be bad enough without 'aliens' popping up to quell resistance to our 'tyrannical' ways—but a dozen troopers in combat armor could have stopped this business with a tenth the casualties, especially if they'd had stun guns."

  Heads nodded, and he suppressed a sigh. Problems, problems! Why hadn't he made sufficient allowance for what would happen once Imperial technology came to Terra in earnest? Now he felt altogether too much like a warden rather than a governor, but whatever happened, he had to hold things together—by main force, if necessary—until the Achuultani had been stopped. If they could be—

  He chopped off that thought automatically and turned to Christine Redhorse, Councilor for Agriculture.

  "All right. On to the next problem. Christine, I'd like you to share your report on the wheat harvest with us, and then..."

  Most of Horus's Council had departed, leaving him alone with his defense planners and engineers. Whatever else happened, theirs was the absolutely critical responsibility, and they were doing better than Horus had hoped. They were actually ahead of schedule on almost a fifth of the PDCs, although the fortifications slated for the Asian Alliance were only now getting underway.

  One by one, the remaining Councilors completed their business and left. In the end, only Geb remained, and Horus smiled wearily at his oldest living friend as the two of them leaned back and propped their heels on the conference table almost in unison.

  "Maker!" Horus groaned. "It was easier fighting Anu!"

  "Easier, but not as satisfying." Geb sipped his coffee, then made a face. It was barely warm, and he rose and circled the table, shaking each insulated carafe until he found one that was still partly full and returned to his chair.

  "True, true," Horus agreed. "At least this time we think we've got a chance of winning. That makes a pleasant change."

  "From your lips to the Maker's ears," Geb responded fervently, and Horus laughed. He reached out a long arm for Geb's carafe and poured more coffee into his own cup.

  "Watch it," he advised his friend. "Remember Abner's religious fanatics."

  "They won't care what I say or how I say it. Just being what I am is going to offend them."

  "Probably." Horus sipped, then frowned. "By the way, there was something I've been meaning to ask you."

  "And what might that be, oh dauntless leade
r?"

  "I found an anomaly in the data base the other day." Geb raised an eyebrow, and Horus shrugged. "Probably nothing, but I hit a priority suppression code I can't understand."

  "Oh?" If Geb's voice was just a shade too level Horus didn't notice.

  "I was running through the data we pulled out of Anu's enclave computers, and Colin's imposed a lock-out on some of the visual records."

  "He has?"

  "Yep. It piqued my interest, so I ran an analysis. He's put every visual image of Inanna under a security lock only he can release. Or, no, not all of them; only for the last century or so."

  "He must have had a reason," Geb suggested.

  "I don't doubt it, but I was hoping you might have some idea what it was. You were Chief Prosecutor—did he say anything to you about why he did it?"

  "Even if he had, I wouldn't be free to talk about it, but I probably wouldn't have worried. It couldn't have had much bearing on the trials, whatever his reasoning. She wasn't around to be tried, after all."

  "I know, I know, but it bothers me, Geb." Horus drummed gently on the table. "She was Anu's number two, the one who did all those hideous brain transplants for him. Maker only knows how many Terra-born and Imperials she personally slaughtered along the way! It just seems... odd."

  "If it bothers you, ask him about it when he gets back," Geb suggested. He finished his coffee and rose. "For now, though, I've got to saddle back up, my friend. I'm due to inspect the work at Minya Konka this afternoon."

  He waved a cheerful farewell and strode down the hall to the elevator whistling, but the merry little tune died the instant the doors closed. The old Imperial seemed to sag around his bioenhanced bones, and he leaned his forehead against the mirrored surface of the inner doors.

  Maker of Man and Mercy, he prayed silently, don't let him ask Colin. Please don't let him ask Colin!

  Tears burned, and he wiped them angrily, but he couldn't wipe away the memory which had driven him to Colin before the courts martial to beg him to suppress the visuals on Inanna. He'd been ready to go down on his knees, but he hadn't needed to. If anything, Colin's horror had surpassed his own.

  Against his will, Geb relived those moments on deck ninety of the sublight battleship Osir, the very heart of Anu's enclave. Those terrible moments after Colin and 'Tanni had gone up the crawl way to face Anu, leaving behind a mangled body 'Tanni's energy gun had cut almost in half. A body which had been Commander Inanna's, but only because its brain had been ripped away, its original owner murdered and its flesh stolen to make a new, young host for the mutinous medical officer.

  Geb had used his own energy gun to obliterate every trace of that body, for once it had belonged to one of his closest friends, to a beautiful woman named Tanisis... Horus's wife... and Jiltanith's own mother.

  CHAPTER SIX

  Fifty Chinese paratroopers in Imperial black snapped to attention as the band struck up, and Marshal Tsien Tao-ling, Vice Chief of Staff for Operations to the Lieutenant Governor of Earth, watched them with an anxiety he had not wasted upon ceremonial in decades. This was his superior's first official visit to China in the five months since the Asian Alliance had surrendered to the inevitable, and he wanted—demanded—for all to go flawlessly.

  It did. General Gerald Hatcher appeared in the hatch of his cutter and started down the ramp, followed by his personal aide and a very small staff.

  "Preeee-sent arms!"

  Energy guns snapped up. The honor guard, drawn from the first batch of Asian personnel to be bioenhanced, handled their massive weapons with panache, and Tsien noted the perfection of their drill without a smile as he and Hatcher exchanged salutes. The twinkle in the American's brown eyes betrayed his own amused tolerance for ceremonial only to those who knew him very well, and it still surprised Tsien just a bit that he had become one of those few people.

  "Good to see you, Tao-ling," Hatcher said under cover of the martial music, and Tsien responded with a millimetric smile before the brief moment of privacy disappeared into the waiting tide of military protocol.

  Gerald Hatcher placed his cap in his lap and leaned back as the city of Ch'engtu fell away astern. The cutter headed for Minya Konka, the mountain which had been ripped apart to hold PDC Huan-Ti, and he grimaced as he ran a finger around the tight collar of his tunic.

  He lowered his hand, wondering once again if it had been wise to adopt Imperial uniform. While it had the decided advantage of not belonging to any of the rival militaries they were trying to merge, it looked disturbingly like the uniform of the SS. Not surprisingly, considering. He'd done what he could to lessen the similarities—exaggerating the size of the starbursts the Nazis had replaced with skulls, restoring the serrated hisanth leaves to the lapels, adopting the authorized variation of gold braid in place of silver—but the over-all impact still bothered him.

  He put the thought aside—again—and turned to Tsien.

  "It looks like your people've done a great job, Tao-ling. I wish you didn't have to spend so much time in Beijing to do it, but I'm impressed."

  "I spend too little time here as it is, Gerald." Tsien gave a very slight shrug. "It is even worse than it was while you and I were enemies. There are at least eight too few hours in every day."

  "Tell me about it!" Hatcher laughed. "If we work like dogs for another six months, you and I may finally be able to hand over to someone else long enough to get our own biotechnics."

  "True. I must confess, however, that the speed with which we are moving almost frightens me. There is too little time for proper coordination. Too many projects require attention, and I have no time to know my officers."

  "I know. We're better off than you are because of how Nergal's people infiltrated our militaries before we even knew about them. I don't envy your having to start from scratch."

  "We will manage," Tsien said, and Hatcher took him at his word. The huge Chinese officer had lost at least five kilos since their first meeting, yet it only made him even more fearsome, as if he were being worn down to elemental gristle and bone. And whatever else came of the fusion with the Asian Alliance, Hatcher was almost prayerfully grateful that it had brought him Tsien Tao-ling.

  The cutter dropped toward the dust-spewing wound which had once been a mountain top, and Hatcher checked his breathing mask. He hated using it, but the dust alone would make it welcome, and the fact that PDC Huan-Ti was located at an altitude of almost seventy-five hundred meters made it necessary. He felt a bit better when he saw Tsien reaching for his own mask... and suppressed a spurt of envy as Major Allen Germaine ignored his. It must be nice, he thought sourly as he regarded his bioenhanced aide.

  They grounded, and thin, cold air, bitter with dust, swirled through the hatch. Hatcher hastily clipped on his mask, and his uniform's collar was a suddenly minor consideration as the Imperial fabric adjusted to maintain a comfortable body temperature and he led the way out into the ear-splitting, dust-spouting, eye-bewildering bedlam of yet another of Geb's mighty projects.

  Tsien followed Hatcher, hiding his impatience. He hated inspection tours, and only the fact that Hatcher hated them just as badly let him face this time-consuming parade with a semblance of inner peace. That and the fact that, time-consuming or no, it also played its part. Morale, the motivation of their human material, was all important, and nothing better convinced people of the importance of their tasks than to see their commanders inspecting their work.

  Yet despite his impatience, Tsien was deeply impressed. Enough Imperial equipment was becoming available to strain the enhancement centers' ability to provide operators, and the result was amazing for someone who had grown up with purely Terran technology. The main excavation was almost finished—indeed, the central control rooms were structurally complete, awaiting installation of the computer core—and the shield generators were already being built. Incredible.

  He bent to listen to an engineer, and movement caught the corner of his eye as a breath-masked officer disappeared behind a heap of building
material, waving one hand as he spoke to another officer at his side. There was something familiar about the small figure, but the engineer was still talking, and Tsien returned his attention to him.

  "I'm impressed, Geban," Hatcher said, and Huan-Ti's chief engineer grinned. The burly ex-mutineer was barely a hundred and fifty centimeters tall, but he looked as if he could have picked up a hover jeep one-handed—before enhancement.

  "Really impressed," Hatcher repeated as the control room door closed off the cacophony beyond. "You're—what, four weeks ahead of schedule?"

  "Almost five, General," Geban replied with simple pride. "With just a little luck, I'm going to bring this job in at least two months early."

  "Outstanding!" Hatcher slapped Geban's shoulder, and Tsien hid a smile. He would never understand how Hatcher's informality with subordinates could work so well, yet it did. Not simply with Westerners who might be accustomed to such things, either. Tsien had seen exactly the same broad smile on the faces of Chinese and Thai peasants.

  "In that case," Hatcher said, turning to the marshal, "I think we—"

  A thunderous concussion drowned his words and threw him from his feet.

  Diego McMurphy was a Mexican-Irish explosives genius from Texas. Off-shore oil rigs and dams, vertol terminals and apartment complexes—he'd seen them all, but this was the most damnable, bone-breaking, challenging, wonderful project he'd ever been involved with, and the fact that he was buying his right to a full set of biotechnic implants was only icing on the cake. Which is why he was happy as he waved his crew forward to set the charges on the unfinished western face of Magazine Twelve.

  He died a happy man, and six hundred and eighty-six other men and women died with him. They died because one of McMurphy's men activated his rock drill, and that man didn't know someone had wired his controls to eleven hundred kilos of Imperial blasting compound.