Carpet bombing.
The Emperor might have told Sullamora he would try not to win by mass slaughter. But his histrionic speech one cycle after the war had begun might have been more accurate, when he promised the Tahn that eventually their own skies would be flame.
The heart of Heath exploded in a firestorm. The city center—and everything in it—melted. People outside—who probably were already doomed from the radiation generated by the missile's impact—disappeared. The pavement ran like liquid. Oxygen was sucked out of even the filtered shelters. Ponds, fountains, and one lake boiled dry in an instant. The firestorm, reaching thousands of meters into the sky, created a tornado nearly a kilometer in diameter, swirling carnage and rubble at speeds over 200 kph.
Fire departments, disaster agencies, and hospitals were buried in a tidal wave of catastrophe—those which survived the fire itself.
The city center of Heath burned for nearly a week.
Half a million people were dead.
The Emperor's second statement was self-evident.
CHAPTER FORTY
Pastour felt dirty, smelly, and just plain angry as he and his bodyguards exited the shelter. From the distance, he could hear the dying wail of all-clear sirens. Another clotting false alarm. In the three days since the bombing raid, at least two dozen false alarms had sent him, his bodyguards, and his entire household staff scurrying into the cramped bomb shelter about twenty meters under his garden. He was sick of feeling like a small rodent that bolted for a hole at even the hint of a predator's shadow. It was especially humiliating when the shadow turned out to be that of something innocuous, like a poor flying berry-eating creature.
He stopped just outside the steel door that covered the tunnel entrance to the shelter. Most of his staff headed straight for the comforts of the square-built structure he called home. As a man who had grown up in the greasy squalor that the Tahn called factories and had then fought his way to the executive suite, Pastour treasured his privacy over almost all else. He had constructed his home many years before on the edge of the industrial slum near the outskirts of Heath. Despite the grimness of the surroundings, Pastour believed it was important not to lose touch with his roots. That was definitely un-Tahnlike but was also probably the secret to his immense success.
A former factory slave himself, Pastour liked to believe that he knew how to get the most out of his workers. His industrial competitors used only the stick. Pastour had accepted that necessity. It had always been done that way. But he had also reinvented the carrot.
In a Pastour factory, the worker was treated with a comparative measure of respect, with healthy bonuses for the most ingenious or the hardest workers. It was not out of kindness. It was pure calculation—like his plan to put POWs to work for the Tahn cause at Koldyeze. His factories were far from being Utopias. In most other systems the conditions would have been considered barbaric. Even Prime World capitalists would have been shamed into shutting them down. On other worlds the workers themselves would have gone after them with bombs and guns. Still, if there ever was going to be a Tahn future history, Pastour would someday be judged "enlightened."
Therefore, the house had been built, in his words, "right among 'em." Still, he had a need for privacy. So he had his architect design a multistoried home that presented four blank walls to its neighbors. It was constructed around a sprawling courtyard, complete with paths, fountains, and, right in the center, a small-domed structure containing his garden.
He had almost lost the garden when he had become a full member of the High Council. A minus side of the perks and influence he had gained was the insistence that each council member "shall cause to be constructed or personally construct a facility which shall be capable of withstanding..." mumblemumblemumble and other legal jargon that bottom-lined out that he had to tear out his garden and put in a bomb shelter capable of standing up to a nearly direct nuke hit.
Pastour had actually been toying with telling Lord Fehrle where he could put the great honor he was about to bestow upon his proud Tahn brow, when he came up with a solution.
Armed with his pet architect, a great wad of credits, and a lot of heavy string pulling, Pastour had weaseled the military out of its heaviest-duty laser cutters and grayjacks. It still took months of cutting and burrowing to lift out the entire courtyard, ground and all. Then the shelter was constructed to the meanest standards possible—Pastour had no intention of wasting any credits on such foolishness. And the courtyard and his treasured greenhouse were lowered over it and sealed in place.
He glanced around, still noting the accomplishment with a bit of pride. True, there were a few flaws. Drainage had proved to be a problem, but he had tacked together a barely adequate system that dumped into the neighborhood sewer system. There was a tendency for it to flood the street, but Pastour did not mind taking on the burden of the pumping and the cleanups that followed a heavy storm.
He acknowledged the salute from his chief guard, who reported that the shelter had been secured and that they were ready to escort him inside the house. Pastour impatiently waved them away. Over the past three days of scares, the situation had become routine—something that did nothing to make it easier on Pastour. They would insist that he go inside while they doubled-checked with Security Central—a process that could take hours. Pastour would refuse, sending them all reluctantly away while he instead retired to the solitude of his greenhouse. There were purposely no means of communication once inside, and Pastour sometimes spent many hours roaming the aisles of hydroponic pans, where all he had to listen to was the soft hum of the recycling pumps and the buzz of the sunlamps.
That day was no different. The exchange had almost become formal. Once again Pastour won, and once again the guards went sullenly away, and once again Pastour stormed through the door of his greenhouse and peace.
But once inside, the scowl faded and the wrinkles of anger softened into the permanent grin lines that wreathed Pastour's face. Today, however, it was quieter than usual inside. He shrugged. It was probably because his machines did not have to work nearly so hard to maintain the false atmosphere inside. The same bombs that had killed and maimed so many of his fellow Tahn had also briefly left behind a more accommodating world for his beloved plants.
He moved along a row of legume vines, picking off dead leaves, replacing flailing tendrils on their support nets, and generally taking note of the small differences that only a careful gardener saw in his progeny.
Pastour was just turning the far corner of the center aisle when he realized that it was not the hum of pumps that he was missing. It was the whine of the supersensitive pollen-carrying insects that he had imported across vast distances at no small expense.
The insects darted for cover the moment they sensed an alien presence. They knew Pastour; he was no longer considered a threat. Ergo... someone else...
"Be very careful, Colonel," the man said. "You would be advised to rethink anything you're planning to do next."
It was better than good advice. Because as soon as Pastour saw Sten and the deadly weapon aimed at his gut, his first reaction was to throw himself on the man, pummeling and shrieking for help as hard and as loud as he could. He rethought. After murder, kidnapping seemed the next most obvious fate. Pastour relaxed. If kidnapping was the intent, then talk and negotiations must follow. Pastour was good at both. Therefore, outward calm was in order.
Sten watched the thinking process carefully. A moment before Pastour knew that he had reached a decision, Sten allowed the weapon to droop. He leaned against a tool bench and motioned for Pastour to perch on a gardening sledge. Pastour obeyed. He looked about curiously, wondering how Sten could possibly have penetrated his elaborate human and electronic security system. Then he spotted the grate lying beside the halfmeter-wide mouth of the greenhouse main drain. Pastour could not help laughing.