Tazh stood in the wreckage that had been his Operations Center, fists clenched, watching the action on two of the remaining monitors while the idiot in the corner continued to whimper and shake.
“Air Strike Two, they're disabling your missiles electronically—you untrac pup. Move in over the lower one and put a couple of Packers on it. Stop them, damn it. Stop them."
The attacking vehicle added some altitude and flew over Six. It took up a position directly above Twenty-three. Two Packer Bombs dropped from its belly, the aim flawless.
At the instant of release, a small door on the back of Twenty-three swung open and the two falling canisters vaporized in a flash that blinded anyone whose eyes were unprotected and lit up the sky over New London. The AAV that had released the bombs jerked in the shockwave, then rolled toward the ground in a tight spiral until the pilot regained control.
“Two, get out of there and wait for One and Three. Hit that lower one from three sides with missiles armed for impact—no guidance."
They can't be allowed to take my cores.
Tazh knew now—knew what this was all about, and he swore on his Ancient that they would not get away with it. As long as they didn't have the cores they couldn't use the weapon, and without it they were vulnerable. He was sure of it.
Three of the AAVs formed up in a triangular pattern around Twenty-three and unleashed a salvo of six missiles just as the hatch locked shut over the third cylinder. All six bored straight in to Twenty-three's hull. Twenty-three lurched violently from the shock, began to roll, then stabilized while the attackers maneuvered themselves in for the kill. Then, out of nowhere, five more shuttles arrived, adding their rumbling to the already deafening noise.
Tazh stood, stiff-legged, in the shambles of the Ops room, his anger was white-hot. There were now seven growling behemoths over the Keep and radar revealed another four approaching fast from the south. He was under full attack. This was not the way it was supposed to be. He'd planned it to the minutest detail. His forces were to have caught the enemy off guard on the ground and decimated them in a single, devastating attack—there was to be no one left alive. That was how it was supposed to have played—not like this. Not like this.
“Launch all air units,” he shouted. “I want them stopped—do you hear me? Stop them now."
The attacks against the shuttles were ineffective, but Tazh was determined not to let those shagrats get the cores. He might not get them for himself but, by the Ancients, neither would they.
“One, Two, and Three, run interference for the others, and the rest of you put every Packer you have on that platform—destroy those cylinders—all of them."
The first AAV to make a pass at the rack successfully destroyed three of the cores. As the second was on its way in, a voice was heard simultaneously on all Cadre frequencies—all heard the message that came from Twenty-three.
“Colonel Tazh, do not force us to term your people. That isn't what we want but, as you have seen, we are capable of doing so. You have no weapons that can harm us, but we can destroy you and your army—utterly. If you force us, nothing will be left. The choice is yours."
The Cadre vehicle approaching the rack veered right and took up a station north of the Keep, while all the others moved off in various directions to positions their pilots must have thought were safe.
Tazh's rage flared, and he growled into the com, “I don't know who the hell you are, you rotten shagrat, but I'll have your carcass hanging on my wall before you take those cores. They're mine, damn it—mine."
“Those cores,” the voice replied calmly, “are the property of the remaining seeds of the Ancients aboard the La Paz, which is on its way here now to reclaim them. Your enlightenment is flawed, Tazh—you have received distorted messages and have misinterpreted them. Think, man—allow your mind to escape the loop it's in and try to see the truth."
What Tazh was hearing, all were hearing.
“Tazh, this is Lang. Can you hear me?"
“Yeah, I hear you."
“Please, Tazh, listen to reason and understand that your position is weak—untenable. There is no support available that could arrive in time to do any good."
“You're the one who's weak, Lang. I've seen it. You back off and don't make the hard decisions that must be made, and I have been carrying the whole damned load, old man. I've been making the decisions to further the cause while you ... you have been content to allow the fatherless untracs to undermine the Pazian culture—the Gamma line—and turn our home over to a seething, slobbering mongrel race. It is you who has been watering down the movement—you and your liberal ideas."
“Tazh, listen to me—please. Maybe my ideas are too liberal in your view, but my field games experience is vastly superior to yours. Look around you. Your position is impossible, and you can't hope to fight them without losing everything we need in that sector—I can see that from here. What you can do is let them go ahead with what it is they are doing, and we will have another day at it. Do you understand what I'm telling you?"
“You old fool. Another day? Another day for what? If I give in now there will be no tomorrow for us. They'll have the use of the weapon, and the untracs will be free to take over Paz. I know. I've seen it. My dreams have shown me the way. We must cleanse Paz of the untracs and all those who would help them poison us with non-onners—cross-lots, taking us nowhere but down. That's what we have to do before it's too late ... bury them all."
“What is it you're saying, Tazh? Where did you ever get such strange notions?"
“Tazh,” the voice from the shuttle said. “The Fathers never wanted anything like that. Their idea—their dream—was to colonize Paz and have it grow into a credit to their memory. The Ancient Record spells it out in painstaking detail, and the untracs play a central role in that dream. Don't you see—"
“If that is so, then their dream is a nightmare for those of us who care. Those inferior bloodworms will bring about the end of the Gamma man—the true inheritor of the Fathers. The others are weeds in our garden, and it's my destiny to purify that garden. If I don't, the helix unravels and the race dies under the heel of a no-history, no-lineage, inferior beast. Open the gun door,” he shouted. There was no response. He was—alone. All his men had fled while he was raving at everyone and everything. Only the coward in the corner had stayed behind.
“Damn them all,” he muttered and activated the door mechanism himself. A glance at the sensors showed eleven shuttles taking turns at robbing him of his cores. His AAVs were gone, thousands of bodies were melting away to the south—running—leaving him to decide the future of an entire planet. Tazh was up to it, and decide he would.
He slapped the useless flesh huddled in the corner and handed him a Popper. “Do the right thing, damn you. Do the right thing."
The young man took the pistol from Tazh and pointed the blunt muzzle at Tazh's face, the barrel wobbling up, down, left, right, then, laughing hysterically, aimed it into his own chest and pulled the trigger. Tazh smiled at the rigid body convulsing like a marionette on loose strings, then headed for the door.
“Tazh? Tazh, can you hear me?” the voice from the shuttle said, but there was no one to listen.
* * * *
Two minutes after the final core was taken from the rack, huge jets of fire and smoke erupted from all the openings in the Mount Cafferty communal shelter as the self-destruct triggered. In silent horror Niki watched from Twenty-three while all the ground below turned into a raging inferno.
“General Lang,” Niki said, “are you still on the frequency?"
“Yes, I am. And what ... what of Tazh? What has happened there?"
“The entire complex went up in flames, and I assume he termed along with the others who were still in there."
“No, not Tazh. He's there, somewhere, believe me. We must all watch our backs now. He is a dangerous man and quite insane, I'm afraid."
“So I gathered. I propose a meeting between you and myself. There is information
in the Ancient Record and some personal revelations I would like to discuss with you. Maybe, after our meeting, you can talk to Tazh—if he's still alive—get him to listen to reason."
“There will be no talking with Tazh, and reason is beyond him now—he has stepped well beyond thinking as a rational human being. This meeting, Mr. Kaznov, what would be the purpose?"
“Just for you to hear and consider what I have discovered about the Fathers and their intent."
“Surely, there is more to it than that."
“As a gesture of goodwill, I would appreciate you moving your people back from the Vaskez line. Their presence could trigger a confrontation with more disastrous consequences than what has taken place here."
“For a threat like that you have to have made some concessions with someone—or you have more in mind than what you have stated on the surface."
“You haven't addressed my request, General."
“Oh, yes—that. What are you offering in return for my withdrawing from the Vaskez and agreeing to meet with you?"
“You will have live men and working machinery,” Niki said with a touch of sarcasm in his voice. “You will also learn the truth—if you are man enough to hear it."
“Your truth, mm-hmm. Well, at any rate, I suppose, when faced with an overwhelming force and nothing to gain, the move of wisdom would be to comply with your wishes. I will have my men removed from the Vaskez line, and I agree to the meeting. Now, who are you?"
“I am Niki Kaznov of Nurusha."
“The Delta—my enigma—the one for whom we have been searching all this time. Well, well, well. So, you have decided to side with Twelve Points, have you?"
“I side with no one. My allegiance is to the Fathers and their unfinished work—a work you need to come to understand. Who knows? You may even come to embrace it."
“Yes, yes—the Fathers. I am looking forward to meeting you, Mr. Kaznov, so that I may see with my own eyes the shadow that moves in my dreams. As for the rest, I am a reasonable man who is willing to listen. Tell me where and when."
“Go to Ganeden. You may bring four personal guards with you, if you feel it is necessary—they won't be challenged. There is a deserted building near the town center, called Proctor Terrace. Be waiting there at the third hour of the second day of the coming period; that's four days from now. You will be contacted by an individual who has nothing to do with any of the groups—an independent observer, nothing more. Is that agreeable?"
“Have I any other choice?"
“No."
“Then it is agreeable. Until then, Mr. Kaznov."
* * * *
Shan sat staring at the digits on the link screen counting down toward the time for Niki's call. Through the east window an early morning Vegamwun painted the city in a featureless gray without shadows as it barely penetrated the ice fog. A haze that was thickened by the exhausts of heating systems running at full throttle to dispel a deepening chill as Paz retreated farther and farther from their life-giving star. Shan didn't like the idea of being left out of the retrieval process, but Niki had insisted that he would be more valuable in the city and he had promised to call at ten past first hour.
When the link sounded, Shan leaned forward and keyed the receive anxiously. Niki's image, drawn and weary, appeared on the screen. Shan breathed his relief and turned up the volume.
“Right on time, Niki. Did you get them?"
“That's a long story, Bo, but it's all recorded for you. We were able to get out eighty-seven, but we lost two of the shuttles to what we—well, Twenty-three says were computer problems. There was some resistance, but nothing the shuttles were unable to handle."
“Everyone is okay?"
“Yes. All of us are exhausted from too much adrenaline and not enough sleep—but we're all right. Listen, Bo, I want you to find out who's running the Generation. It is imperative I make contact with that person in two days or less."
“Don't you ever do anything that's easy?” Shan said as he read through his contact list on the other monitor. He found no one who could provide such information, with the possible exception of Davil Sharp. “I don't think I can do that. Not that fast, anyway."
“You have to, Bo. It's important I talk to the person running that group."
“Uh-huh. The only person I am aware of who may have that information is Sharp, but I honestly doubt he knows that much. Besides, the group has probably gone shagrat-deep after all that has happened."
“You said it true. All right, I have an idea, but you'll need to be careful about what you say. Do you know Brand Harko?"
“Law Apps. Old Stoneface. I've interviewed him a few times, but I wouldn't say I know the man. Why?"
“Call him. Tell him you want to talk about the Twenty-three incident. Don't mention any names on the link—just that you need to talk to him. He will understand."
“If this is such a big secret, why are you talking to me about it on the link?"
“The shuttles are in what Twenty-three says is ‘synchronization set’ and ‘phase adjustment’ with the cores, so the computers are tied up with that for the next sixteen hours, minimum."
Shan didn't have the faintest idea what this was about and his bewilderment must have shown.
“I know, Bo. I don't understand it completely, either, but enough time has elapsed that the cores and the main propulsion engines need to be brought into synch with one another."
“Of course. Why didn't I think of that,” Shan said with a laugh. “You know, Niki, as soon as I call Harko, they'll be on my fuzzy, too."
“That's precisely why you're going to buy a ticket to Ganeden and pack your bag before you call him. You're going to have to move fast after that."
“Niki, it's four degrees here at midday—and you want me to go to Ganeden?"
“Wear a heavy coat, Bo. See you there."
* * * *
Pasko weed and trash now filled Bander's Park but, when he had still been a ward at the onners house—over there where a street had been—the caregivers would bring them here for midday break. All the onners would share head-over-heels rolls in the clean, trimmed sangrass that was always more blue than the sky, and they would play on devices designed to keep the attention of a five-year-old long after the caretakers wanted to leave. Adults could never understand the importance of one more express ride on the hi-chute, or one more climb out on a cashow branch too thin.
The devices were still there, rusted into the trash-covered pasko weed that had choked the sangrass into oblivion. The onners were gone, the people were gone, too—the result of a plate shift ten years ago. This whole section of New London had been destroyed, replaced by a sheer, thirty meter slip just beyond the southern edge of the park, his favorite park, a park that was the only evidence remaining that the area had once been populated.
Shan stood for a moment, shivering in the cold, listening to the haunting echoes of onners at play, caretakers screaming in a futile effort to maintain control. Then he found the fattest cashow, the only thing that the knee-high pasko couldn't strangle, and tried to hide—without success—from a breeze that couldn't make up its mind which way it wanted to blow and from the ice crystals cutting at his cheeks.
“Albo Shan?"
The voice sounded much closer than it was, as Harko's words came riding the wind to Shan's ineffective refuge.
“Yeah, I'm Shan, but I'm not coming out from behind this tree."
“Shan, I don't have time for foolishness. Get over here and join me in the transport."
Shan eased out around the edge of the two-meter thick trunk until he could see a large Enforcement van, shrouded in a cloud of vapor generated by its warm presence and docked at the northern boundary of the park.
It was pleasant inside the van, and Shan, without the slightest hesitation, accepted the steaming cup of massak Harko handed him.
“I told you to meet me at the park, Shan, not in it. Ah, now ... now I remember, you worked on the Flanders case while it was hot. As I
recall, you grilled me pretty hard on that one and didn't do me any favors when your story came out in the Journal.” Harko smiled a finely tuned you-can-trust-me at Shan, the kind of smile Shan had seen many times.
He wasn't about to be taken in by it this time, either.
“I'm not one of your suspects, you know. I'm only here to pass along a message from Niki. He said you would know who he is and what this is about. Was he right?"
“Yeah, he was. What's your seed lot number, Shan?"
“What?"
“Your seed lot number."
“Kappa six—why?"
“Curiosity, Shan, connected to some research I've been doing on lots and occupations. What's the message?"
“He needs to make contact with the current leader of the Generation."
“The hell you say."
“No, that's it."
“I'm not so sure I can do that, Shan. You're a reporter—a ruthless one—and that's a piece of information I don't want made public. Not just yet."
“I gave Niki my word that I wouldn't release anything until the Twelve Points finish whatever it is they're doing, and I'll extend the same promise to you—not one word until you say it's okay."
Harko screwed his face up into what looked like pain and said, “Not good enough, Shan. The stuff I have has implications not even your more than adequate imagination could conjure up—sorry."
“What implications?"
“Things that could change our world. No, Shan."
“Listen to me, Chief Harko. The information Niki's going to give me will do that, and more. He said it will change the face of Paz, with the name or without it, and he needs that name to help him complete his work. If he doesn't get it, his work will be completed, regardless, and your problems will only grow."
“What work would that be, Shan?"
“I ... I don't know, but he wants the name.” Shan thought hard about what he was going to say next, then blurted it out. “I've seen the power he possesses, first hand, and I don't think I'd want to create any more trouble for him than he already has."
“Why, Albo Shan, shame be on you. Would you be attempting to intimidate me with some kind of threat?"
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