Heirs of Empire

logic, whoever perpetrated it did so in a most rational fashion.” The computer’s voice was as mellow as ever, but they all heard its anger. “At present, this would appear to be the first step in an attempt to decapitate the Imperium, and if that is, indeed, the case, Horus becomes a logical target only in the endgame of the conspiracy.”

“Umm.” Ninhursag rubbed her forehead. “I don’t know, Dahak. You may be right, but you’re a bit prone to believe everyone operates on the basis of logic. And whoever it is did go for the kids first.”

“True, yet analysis suggests this was a crime of opportunity. Security for the twins was very tight, however it might appear to the uninformed. In the Bia System, they were attended by my own scanners at all times and, save for their field trips, continuously guarded by other security arrangements, as well. I do not say it would have been impossible to assassinate them, but it would have been difficult—and it could not have been done without being recognized as an act of murder. In this instance, the killer was able to strike when they were beyond my own surveillance or that of any regular security agency. Moreover, had you not pursued your own intuition in the matter of the Cruz family’s murders, the fact that Sean and Harriet’s deaths had been deliberately contrived would never have been known.”

“That makes sense,” Adrienne said slowly, “but I can’t shake the feeling that there was more behind it.”

“Indeed there was,” Dahak agreed. “The twins were not murdered for personal motives, My Lady, but for who—and what—they were. For whatever reason, our enemy elected to strike at the succession. It is for this reason I believe it to be the start of an effort to destroy the monarchy.”

“Which does make Horus a target,” Colin sighed. “Oh, crap!”

“That is an incorrect assumption. Horus is a member of the imperial family, true, but he is not your heir. He would become a potential heir only should you and ’Tanni die without issue, and with all due respect, I believe the Assembly of Nobles would be unlikely to select one of Horus’s advanced years as Emperor. Mother might do so if she were required to execute Case Omega yet again, but she would do so only if there were no Assembly of Nobles to discharge that function. Moreover, Horus would not be the first choice even under Case Omega. The proper successor choice under Case Omega would be Admiral Hatcher, as CNO, followed by Star Marshal Tsien. Horus, as the highest civil official of the Imperium, would become the legal heir only if both of the Imperium’s senior military officers were also dead. In addition, any open attack upon Horus would clearly risk awakening the suspicion the twins’ ‘accidental’ deaths were intended to avoid. Thus any attempt to kill him before killing you, ’Tanni, Admiral Hatcher, and Star Marshal Tsien would be pointless unless we are, indeed, dealing with an irrational individual.”

“I hate it when you get this way, Dahak,” Colin complained, and several of the angry people around the table surprised themselves by smiling.

“Maybe, but he’s right,” Ninhursag said. “I don’t want to get complacent, but tightening security for you two—and Gerald and Tao-ling—should have the effect of covering Horus, as well. And he’s right, too. If we boost his security, it’s a gold-plated warning to whoever we’re up against.”

“All right, we’ll handle it that way—for starters. Hector, can you manage the security details?”

“Yes,” MacMahan said tersely, and Colin nodded. The protection of the imperial family was the responsibility of the Imperial Marines, and MacMahan’s expression was all the reassurance he needed.

“Good. But that’s only a defensive action—how do we nail this bastard?”

“Whatever we do, Colin, we do it very carefully,” Ninhursag said. “We start by putting all of this on a strict need-to-know basis. I don’t want to bring in anyone else—not even Gus. Without knowing how ‘Mister X’ gets his information, every individual added to the information net gives him another possible conduit, however careful our people are.”

“All right, agreed. And then?”

“And then Dahak and I sit down with every bit of security data we have. Everything, military and civilian, from Day One of the Fifth Imperium. We find any anomalies, and then we eliminate them one at a time.

“In addition,” she leaned back in her chair and frowned up at the ceiling, “we step up efforts to infiltrate every known group of malcontents. Those’re underway already, so we don’t have to give any new reasons for them. And while we flesh-and-bloods’re doing that, Dahak, you jump into the datanets here in Bia and start setting up your own taps. Cruz could futz his terminal, but no one can get to you, so I want you tied into everything.”

“Understood. I must point out, however, that I cannot achieve the same penetration of Earth’s datanets.”

“No, but until we figure out what’s going on, Colin and ’Tanni will never visit Earth simultaneously. We know someone’s after them now, and as long as ‘Mister X’ has to get through you, ONI, Hector’s Marines, and Battle Fleet to reach them, I think they’re pretty safe, don’t you?”

* * *

Darin Gretsky leaned his broom in a corner and surveyed the well-lit workshop with a thin smile. He’d worked thirty years to prepare himself as a theoretical physicist, and during all those years he’d felt disdain for most of his fellows. He’d shared their thirst for knowledge, but for them, acclaim, respect, even power, were by-products of knowledge. For him, they were what knowledge was all about. His calculating pursuit of the lifestyle promised by corporate and governmental research empires had earned the contempt of his fellow students, but he hadn’t cared, and the wealth and—especially—power he craved had been just within his reach … until Dahak and the explosion of Imperial science snatched them away.

Gretsky felt his jaw ache and made himself relax it. Overnight, he’d been transformed from a man on the cutting edge to an aborigine trying to understand that the strange marks on the missionary’s white paper actually had meaning. He’d had the stature to be included in the first implant education programs, and, for a time during the Siege, he’d thought he might catch the crest of this new wave as he had the old. But once the emergency was past, Darin Gretsky had realized a horrible thing: he’d become no more than a technician. A flunky using knowledge others had amassed. Knowledge, he’d been forced to admit with bowel-churning hatred, he didn’t truly understand.

It had almost destroyed him … and it had destroyed the life he’d planned. He’d become but one more of the thousands of Terra-born scientists exploring millennia of someone else’s research and watching it invalidate much of what they’d believed was holy writ. There were no fellow students whose work he might steal, and it couldn’t matter less who “published first.” And worst of all, the ones for whom he’d felt contempt—the naive ones to whom it was knowledge itself which mattered—were better at it than he. The Terra- born scientists exploring the rarefied stratosphere of the Fourth Empire’s tech base came from their number, and there was no room for Darin Gretsky save as one more hewer of wood and drawer of water in the dust about their feet.

But things would change once more, and his smile grew ugly at the thought. His work here had filled his secret bank account with enough Imperial credits to buy the life he’d always craved, and that was good, yet far more satisfying to his wounded soul was what his work could bring about. He didn’t know how it would be used, but contemplating the cataclysmic power of the device he’d built gave him an almost sexual thrill. It had taken longer than he’d expected, and he’d had to reinvent the wheel a time or two to work around components that didn’t exist, but money had been no object, and he’d succeeded. He’d succeeded, and someday soon, unless he was sadly mistaken, his handiwork would topple the smug cretins who’d pushed him aside.

He gave the workshop one more glance, then walked down the hall to the office in which he became not Shiva, Destroyer of Worlds, but one more freelance consultant helping Terran industry cope with the flood of concepts pouring like water from the new Imperial Patent Office. Even that was merely picking the bones of the dead past, he thought acidly. Emperor Colin—the title was an epithet in his soul—had declared all civilian Imperial technology public knowledge, held by the Imperial government and leased at nominal fees to any and all users. The free flow of information was unprecedented, and old, well-established firms were being challenged by thousands of newcomers as the manna tumbled down and imagination became more important than mere capital.