her face. “You’re a magician, Ezr. How’d you get everyone calmed down?”
“I… I guess Trixia just trusts me.” That was an innermost hope phrased as diffident speculation.
Rita pulled her head out of the doorway to look up and down the corridor. “Yeah. But you know, after you got her back to work? All the others just quietly returned to their rooms. These translator types have more control functionality than military zips. All you have to do is convince the alpha member, and everyone falls into line.” She grinned. “But I guess we’ve seen this before, the way the translators can control the rote-layer zips. They’re the keystone components, all right.”
“Trixia is a person!” All the Focused are people, you damn slaver!
“I know, Ezr. Sorry. Really, I understand…. Trixia and the other translators do seem to be different. You have to be pretty special to translate natural languages. Of all—of all the Focused, the translators seem the closest to being real people…. Look, I’ll take care of buttoning things down and let Bil Phuong know things are under control.”
“Okay,” Ezr replied, his voice stiff.
Rita backed out of the room. The cell door slid shut. After a moment, he heard other doors thumping shut along the corridor.
Trixia sat hunched over her keyboard, oblivious of the opinions just rendered. Ezr watched her for some seconds, thinking about her future, thinking about how he would finally save her. Even after forty years of Lurk, the translators couldn’t masquerade real-time voice comm with the Spiders. Tomas Nau would gain no advantage by having his translators down by Arachna… yet. Once the world was conquered, Trixia and the others would be the voice of the conqueror.
But that time will not come.Pham and Ezr’s plan was proceeding down its own schedule. Except for a few old systems, a few electromechanical backups, the Qeng Ho localizers could have total control. Pham and Ezr were finally moving toward real sabotage—most important the Hammerfest wireless-power cutoff. That switch was an almost pure mechanical link, immune to all subtlety. But Pham had one more use for localizers. True grit. These last few Msecs, they had built up layers of grit near that switch, and set up similar sabotage in other old systems, and aboard theInvisibleHand. The last hundred seconds would involve flagrant risk. It was a trick that they could try only once, when Nau and his gang were most distracted with their own takeover.
If the sabotage worked—whenit worked—the Qeng Ho localizers would rule.And our time will come.
FORTY-NINE
Hrunkner Unnerby spent a lot of time at Lands Command; it was essentially the home base of his construction operations. Perhaps ten times a year he visited the inner sanctums of Accord Intelligence. He talked with General Smith every day by email; he saw her at staff meetings. Their meeting at Calorica—was that five years ago already—had been not cordial but at least an honest sharing of anxiety. But for seventeen years… for all the time since Gokna died… he had never been in General Smith’s private office.
The General had a new aide, someone young and oophase. Hrunkner barely noticed. He stepped into the silence of the chief’s den. The place was as big as he remembered, with open-storied nooks and isolated perches. For the moment he seemed to be alone. This had been Strut Greenval’s office, before Smith. It had been the Intelligence chief’s innermost den for two generations before that. Those previous occupants would scarcely recognize it now. There was even more comm and computer gear than in Sherk’s office in Princeton. One side of the room was a full vision display, as elaborate as any videomancy. Just now it was receiving from cameras topside: Royal Falls had stilled more than two years ago. He could see all the way up the valley. The hills were stark and cooling; there was CO2frost in the heights. But nearby… the colors beyond red leaked from buildings, flared bright in the exhaust of street traffic. For a moment, Hrunk just stared, thinking what this scene must have been like just one generation earlier, five years into the last Dark. Hell, this room would have been abandoned by then. Greenval’s people would have been stuck up in their little command cave, breathing stuffy air, listening for the last radio messages, wondering if Hrunk and Sherk would survive in their submarine deepness. A few more days and Greenval would have closed down his operation, and the Great War would have been frozen in its own deadly sleep.
But in this generation, we just go on and on, headed for the most terriblewar of all time.
Behind him, he saw the General step silently into the room. “Sergeant, please sit down.” Smith gestured to the perch in front of her desk.
Unnerby pulled his attention away from the view, and sat. Smith’s -shaped desk was piled with hardcopy reports and five or six small reading displays, three alight. Two showed abstract designs, similar to the pictures that Sherkaner had lost himself in.So she does still humor him.
The General’s smile seemed stiff, forced, and so it might be sincere. “I call you Sergeant. What a fantasy rank. But… thank you for coming.”
“Of course, ma’am.” Why did she call me down here? Maybe his wild scheme for the Northeast had a chance. Maybe— “Have you seen my excavation proposals, General? With nuclear explosives we could dig shielded caves, and quickly. The Northeast shales would be ideal. Give me the bombs and in one hundred days I could protect most of the agri and people there.” The words just tumbled out. The expense would be enormous, out of range of the Crown or free financing. The General would have to take emergency powers, Covenant or no. And even then, it would not make a happy ending. But if—when—the war came, it could save millions.
Victory Smith raised one hand, gently. “Hrunk, we don’t have a hundred days. One way or another, I expect things will be settled in less than three.” She gestured to one of the little displays. “I just got word that Honored Pedure is actually at Southmost in person, orchestrating things.”
“Well, damn her. If she lights off a Southmost attack, she’ll fry too.”
“That’s why we’re probably safe until she leaves.”
“I’ve heard rumors, ma’am. Our external intelligence is in the garbage? Thract has been cashiered?” The stories just grew and grew. There were terrible suspicions of Kindred agents at the heart of Intelligence. Deepest crypto was being used on the most routine transmissions. Where the enemy had not succeeded with direct threats, they might now win simply because of the panic and confusion that were everywhere.
Smith’s head jerked angrily. “That’s right. We’ve been outmaneuvered in the South. But we still have assets there, people who depended on me… people I have let down.” That last was almost inaudible, and Hrunk doubted it was addressed to him. She was silent for a moment, then straightened. “You’re something of an expert on the Southmost substructure, aren’t you, Sergeant?”
“I designed it; supervised most of the construction.” And that had been when the South and the Accord had been as friendly as different nation-states ever got.
The General edged back and forth on her perch. Her arms trembled. “Sergeant… even now, I can’t stand the sight of you. I think you know that.”
Hrunk lowered his head.I know. Oh, yes.
“But for simple things, I trust you. And, oh, by the Deep, just now I need you! An order would be meaningless… but will you help me with Southmost?” The words seemed to be wrung from her.
You have to ask? Hrunkner raised his hands. “Of course.”
Evidently, the quick response had not been expected. Smith just gobbled for a second. “Do you understand? This will put you at risk, in personal service to me.”
“Yes, yes. I have always wanted to help.” I’ve always wanted to makethings right again.
The General stared at him a moment more. Then: “Thank you, Sergeant.” She tapped something into her desk. “Tim Downing”—that young new aide?—“will get you the detailed analysis later. The short of it is, there’s only one reason Pedure would be down there in Southmost: The issue there is not decided. She doesn’t have all the key people entrapped. Some members of the Southland Parliament have requested I come down to talk.”
“But… it should be the King that goes for something like this.”
“Yes. It seems that a number of traditions are being broken in this new Dark.”
“You can’t go, ma’am.” Somewhere in the back of his mind, something chuckled at the violation of noncom etiquette.
“You aren’t the only person with that advice…. The last thing Strut Greenval said to me, not two hundred yards from where we’re sitting now, was something similar.” She stopped, silent with memories. “Funny. Strut had
