” ‘Mycos? Birhat?’ You don’t really think God created planets with names like that, do you? If you could at least’ve come from a planet named ‘Eden’ it might’ve helped, but as it is—!” Johnson shrugged. “Once they get organized, we’ll have a real lunatic fringe!”
“Comrade Johnson is correct, Comrade Governor.” Commissar Hsu Yin’s oddly British accent was almost musical after Johnson’s twang. “We may debate the causes of Third World poverty—” she eyed her capitalist fellows calmly “—but it exists. Ignorance and fear will be greatest there, violence more quickly acceptable, yet this is only the beginning. When the First World realizes that it is in precisely the same situation the violence may grow even worse. We may as well prepare for the worst … and whatever we anticipate will most assuredly fall short of what will actually happen.”
“Granted. But this violent suppression—”
“Was the work of the local authorities,” Geb put in. “And before you condemn them, what else could they do? There were almost ten thousand people in that mob, and if a lot of them were unarmed women and children, a lot were neither female, young, nor unarmed. At least they had the sense to call us in as soon as they’d restored order, even if it was under martial law. I’ve diverted a dozen Shirut-class atmospheric conveyers to haul in foodstuffs from North America. That should take the worst edge off the situation, but if the local authorities hadn’t ‘suppressed’ the disturbances, however they did it, simply feeding them wouldn’t even begin to help, and you know it.”
There were mutters of agreement, and Horus noted that the Terra-born were considerably more vehement than the Imperials. Were they right? It was their planet, and Maker knew the disruptions were only beginning. He knew they were sanctioning expediency, but wasn’t that another way to describe pragmatism? And in a situation like the present one…
“All right,” he sighed finally, “I don’t like it, but you may be right.” He turned to Gustav van Gelder, Councilor for Planetary Security. “Gus, I want you and Geb to increase the priority for getting stun guns into the hands of local authorities. And I want more of our enhancement capacity diverted to police personnel. Isis, you and Myko deal with that.”
Doctor Isis Tudor, his own Terra-born daughter and now Councilor for Biosciences, glanced at her ex-mutineer assistant with a sort of resigned desperation. Isis was over eighty; even enhancement could only slow her gradual decay and eliminate aches and pains, but her mind was quick and clear. Now she nodded, and he knew she’d find the capacity … somehow.
“Until we can get local peace-keepers enhanced,” Horus went on, “I’ll have General Hatcher set up mixed-nationality response teams out of his military personnel. I don’t like it—the situation’s going to be bad enough without ‘aliens’ popping up to quell resistance to our ‘tyrannical’ ways—but a dozen troopers in combat armor could have stopped this business with a tenth the casualties, especially if they’d had stun guns.”
Heads nodded, and he suppressed a sigh. Problems, problems! Why hadn’t he made sufficient allowance for what would happen once Imperial technology came to Terra in earnest? Now he felt altogether too much like a warden rather than a governor, but whatever happened, he had to hold things together—by main force, if necessary—until the Achuultani had been stopped. If they could be—
He chopped off that thought automatically and turned to Christine Redhorse, Councilor for Agriculture.
“All right. On to the next problem. Christine, I’d like you to share your report on the wheat harvest with us, and then …”
Most of Horus’s Council had departed, leaving him alone with his defense planners and engineers. 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.