"Yet we had to work secretly, hiding from him, effecting tiny changes, hoping for the best. Worse, there were but two hundred of us, and Anu had thousands. We couldn't rotate our personnel as he could—at least, that was what we thought he was doing—and we grew old far, far more quickly than he. But worst of all, Commander, was the attitude Anu's followers developed. They call your people 'degenerates,' did you know that?"
Colin nodded, remembering Girru's words in a chamber of horror that had once been a friend's study.
"They're wrong," Horus said harshly. "They're the degenerates. Anu's madness has infected them all. His people are twisted, poisoned by their power. Perhaps they've played the roles of gods too long, for they've come to believe they are gods, and Earth's people are toys to be manipulated and enjoyed. It was horrible enough for the first four thousand years of interaction, but it's grown worse since. Where once they feared the rise of a technology that might threaten them, now they crave one that will let them escape the prison of this planet... and they couldn't care less how much suffering they inflict along the way. Indeed, they see that suffering as a spectacle, a gladiatorial slaughter to entertain them and while away the years.
"Let's be honest with one another, Commander MacIntyre. Humans, whether Imperials or born of your planet, are humans. There are good and bad among all of us, as our very presence here proves, and Earth's people would have inflicted sufficient suffering on themselves without Anu, but he and his have made it far, far worse. They've toppled civilizations by provoking and encouraging barbarian invasions—from the Hittites to the Hsia, the Achaeans, the Huns, the Vikings, and the Mongols—but even worse, in some ways, is what they've done since abandoning that policy. They helped fuel the Hundred Years' War, and the Thirty Years' War, and Europe's ruthless imperialism, both for enjoyment and to create power blocs that could pave the way for the scientific and industrial revolutions. And when progress wasn't rapid enough to suit them, they provoked the First World War, and the Second, and the Cold War.
"We've done what we could to mitigate their excesses, but our best efforts have been paltry. They haven't dared come into the open for fear that Dahak might remain sufficiently operational to strike at them—and, perhaps, because the sheer number of people on this planet frightens them—but they could always act more openly than we.
"Yet we've never given up, Commander MacIntyre!" The old man's voice was suddenly harsh, glittering with a strange fire, and Colin swallowed. That suddenly fiery tone was almost fanatical, and he shook free of Horus's story, making himself step back and wondering if perhaps his captors hadn't gone more than a bit mad themselves.
"No. We've never given up," Horus said more softly. "And if you'll let us, we'll prove that to you."
"How?" Colin's flat voice refused to offer any hope. Try though he might, it was hard to doubt Horus's sincerity. Yet it was his duty to doubt it. It was his responsibility—his, and his alone—to doubt everyone, question everything. Because if he made a mistake—another mistake, he thought bitterly—then all of Dahak's lonely wait would be in vain and the Achuultani would take them all.
"We'll help you against Anu," Horus said, his voice equally flat, his eyes level. "And afterward, we will surrender ourselves to the Imperium."
"Nay!" Jiltanith still pointed the suppresser at Colin, but her free hand rose like a claw, and her dark, vital face was fierce. "Now I say thee nay! Hast given too freely for this world, Father! Thou and all thy fellows!"
"Hush, 'Tanni," Horus said softly. He clasped the shoulders of the young woman—his daughter, which, Colin suddenly realized, made her Isis Tudor's older sister—and shook her very gently. "It's our decision. It's not even a matter for the Council, and you know it."
Jiltanith's tight face was furious with objection, and Horus sighed and gathered her close, staring into Colin's face over her shoulder.
"We ask only one thing in return, Commander," he said softly.
"What?" Colin asked quietly.
"Immunity—pardon, if you will—for those like 'Tanni." The girl stiffened in his arms, trying to thrust him away, but he held her easily with one arm. The other hand rose, covering her lips to still her furious protests.
"They were children, Commander, with no part in our crime, and many of them have died trying to undo it. Can even the Imperium punish them for that?"
The proud old face was pleading, the dark, ancient eyes almost desperate, and Colin recognized the justice of the plea.
"If—and I say if—you can convince me of your sincerity and ability to help," he said slowly, "I'll do my best. I can't promise any more than that."
"I know," Horus said. "But you will try?"
"I will," Colin replied levelly.
The old man regarded him a moment longer, then took the suppresser gently from Jiltanith. She fought him a moment, surrendering the device with manifest reluctance, and Horus hugged her gently. His eyes were understanding and sad, but a small smile played around his lips as he looked down at it.
"In that case," he said, "we'll just have to convince you. Please meet us half-way by not transmitting to Dahak, at least until we've finished talking."
And he switched off the suppresser.
For just an instant Colin sat absolutely motionless. The other Imperials on the command bridge were suddenly bright presences, glowing with their own implants, and he felt his computer feeds come on line. Nergal's computers were far brighter than those of the cutter that had returned him to Earth, and they recognized a bridge officer when they met one. After fifty millennia, they had someone to report to properly, and the surge of their data cores tingled in his brain like alien fire, feeding him information and begging for orders.
Colin's eyes met Horus's as he recognized the risk the old man had just taken, for no new security codes had been buried in Nergal's electronic brain. From the instant Colin's feeds tapped into those computers, they were his. He, not Horus, controlled the ancient battleship, external weapons and internal security systems alike.
But trust was a two-edged sword.
"I suppose that, as head of your council, you're also captain of this ship?" he said calmly, and the old man nodded.
"Then sit down, Captain, and tell me how we're going to beat Anu."
Horus nodded once more, sharply, and sat beside Isis. Colin never glanced away from his new ally's face, but he didn't have to; he could feel the gathered council's tension draining away about him.
Chapter Eleven
Colin leaned back and propped his heels on his desk. The quarters the mutineers (if that was still the proper word) had assigned him were another attempt to prove their sincerity, for this was the captain's cabin, fitted with neural relays to the old battleship's computers. He could not keep them from retaking Nergal, but, like the millennia-dead Druaga, he could insure that they would recapture only a hulk.
Which, Colin thought, was shrewd of Horus, whether he was truly sincere or not.
He sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose, wishing desperately that he could contact Dahak, yet he dared not. He knew where he was now—buried five kilometers under the Canadian Rockies near Churchill Peak—but the recent clash had roused Anu's vengeful search for Nergal to renewed heights, and if the southerners should detect Colin's com link, their missiles would arrive before even Dahak could do anything to stop them.