The Armageddon Inheritance

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 leader?”

“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