Heirs of Empire

than he could blame her for it, but she was right. He’d done the best he could.

Tears burned, and he wiped them angrily. All those years. Those millennia while she’d slept in stasis. He and the rest of Nergal’s crew had rotated themselves in and out of stasis, using it to spin their own lives out beyond mortal imagination in their war against Anu, yet he hadn’t been able to let her do the same. He’d kept her in stasis, for he’d been unable not to, and his weakness was his deepest shame. Yet he’d lost too much, given too much, to change it. Her mother had never escaped from the original mutiny aboard Dahak, and he’d almost lost ’Tanni, as well, when her child’s mind broke under the horrors of that blood-soaked day.

No, he told himself bitterly, he had lost that child that day. When one of his own Terra-born granddaughters managed to heal her, somehow, she’d been someone else, someone who’d survived only by walling herself off utterly from the broken person she once had been. A person who never again spoke Universal, but only the fifteenth-century English she’d learned. One who never, ever again called him “Poppa,” but only “Father.”

He’d been unable to risk that person again, unable to bring himself to lose her twice, and so, against her will, he’d sent her back into stasis and kept her there another five hundred years, until Nergal’s dwindling manpower forced him to release her from it. He’d turned her into a symbol, his defiant challenge to the universe which had taken all he loved. He … would … not … lose … her … again!

And so he hadn’t. He’d kept her safe, and in doing so, he’d robbed her of so much. Of the foster mother who’d saved her mind, of her chance to fight by his side for all those centuries—of her right to live her own life on her own terms. He knew, knew to the depths of his soul, how unspeakably lucky he was that, somehow, she’d learned to love him once more when he finally did release her. It was a reward his selfish cowardice could never deserve, and, oh Maker of Grace and Mercy, he was so proud of her. Yet he could never undo what he’d done, and of all the bitter regrets of his endless life, that knowledge was the bitterest of all.

Planetary Duke Horus closed his eyes and inhaled sharply, then shook himself and walked slowly from his daughter’s apartment in silence.

Chapter Forty-Two

“Got a second, Ma’am?”

Esther Steinberg stood in the door of Ninhursag’s office once more, and Ninhursag’s eyebrows rose in surprise. It was the middle of the night, and Steinberg had been off duty for hours. But then she frowned. The commander was in civvies, and from the looks of things she’d dressed in a hurry.

“Of course I do. What’s on your mind?”

Steinberg stepped inside the door and waited for it to close behind her before she spoke.

“It’s those mat-trans records, Ma’am.”

“What about them? I thought you and Dahak cleared all of them.”

“We did, Ma’am. We found a couple of small anomalies, but we tracked those down, and aside from that, everything was right on the money.”

“So?”

“I guess it’s just that curiosity bump again, Ma’am, but I haven’t been able to get them out of my mind.” Steinberg smiled crookedly. “I’ve been going back over them on my own time, and, well, I’ve found a new discrepancy.”

“One Dahak missed?” Ninhursag couldn’t keep from sounding skeptical.

“No, Ma’am. A new discrepancy.”

“New?” Ninhursag jerked upright in her chair. “What d’you mean, ‘new,’ Esther?”

“You know we’ve been pulling regular updates on the mat-trans logs ever since you put me on the project?” Ninhursag nodded impatiently, and Steinberg shrugged. “Well, I started playing with the data—more out of frustration at not finding any answers than anything else—and I had my personal computer run a check for anomalies within the database. Any sort of conflict between downloads from the mat- trans computers on a generational basis, as well as a pure content one.”

“And?”

“I just finished the last one, Ma’am, and one of the log entries in my original download doesn’t match the version in the most recent one.”

“What?” Ninhursag frowned again. “What do you mean, ‘doesn’t match’?”

“I mean, Ma’am, that according to the mat-trans facility records, I have two different logs with precisely the same time and date stamp, both completely official by every test I can run, that say two different things. It’s only a small variation, but it shouldn’t be there.”

“Corrupted data?” Ninhursag murmured, and Steinberg shook her head.

“No, Ma’am. Different data. That’s why I came straight over.” Her mouth tightened in a firm line. “I may be paranoid, Admiral, but the only reason I can think of for the difference is that between the time we pulled the first log and the time we got the latest update, someone changed the entry. And under the circumstances, I thought I should tell you. Fast.”

* * *

“Esther’s right,” Ninhursag said grimly. She and the commander sat in Colin’s Palace office. Steinberg looked acutely uncomfortable at being in such close proximity to her Emperor, but she met Colin’s searching look squarely as he rubbed his bristly chin. “I double-checked her work, and so did Dahak. Someone definitely changed the entry, and that, Colin, took someone with a hell of a lot of juice.”

“Are you telling me,” Colin said very carefully, “that the goddamned bomb is sitting directly under the Palace right this instant?”

“I’m telling you something is sitting under the Palace.” Ninhursag’s voice was flat. “And whatever it is, it isn’t the statue that left Narhan. The mass readings matched perfectly in the first log entry, but they’re off by over twenty percent in the second one. You have any idea why else that might be?”

“But, good God, ’Hursag, how could anyone make a switch? And if they pulled it off in the first place without our catching it, why change the logs so anyone who checked would know they had?”

“I don’t know that yet, but I think we’re going to have to reconsider our theory that Mister X and the Sword of God are two totally separate threats. I find it extremely hard to believe the Sword just coincidentally blew up the officer who oversaw the statue’s transit here the very night he did it. If Esther hadn’t caught the discrepancy in masses, we never would have connected the two events; now it hits me right in the eye.”

“Agreed. Agreed.” Colin leaned back with a worried frown. “Dahak?”

“My remotes are only now getting into position, Colin,” Dahak’s mellow voice replied from thin air. “It is most fortunate Commander Steinberg pursued this line of inquiry. It would never have occurred to me—I have what I believe humans call a blind spot in that I assume that data, once entered, will not subsequently metamorphose— and the Palace’s security systems would almost certainly have prevented our orbital scans from detecting anything. Even now—”

He broke off so suddenly Colin blinked.

“Dahak?” There was no response, and his voice sharpened. “Dahak?“

“Colin, I have made a grave error,” the computer said abruptly.

“An error?”

“I should not have inserted my remotes so promptly. I fear my scan systems have just activated the bomb.”

“The bomb?” Even now Colin hadn’t truly believed, not with his emotions, and his