Horus nodded to himself, still shaken by what he’d seen as his cutter approached Dahak. The space about Terra seemed incredibly crowded by huge, gleaming planetoids, and their ensigns had crowded his mind with images … a crouching, six-limbed Birhatan crag cat, an armored warrior, a vast broadsword in a gauntleted fist, and hordes of alien and mythological beasts he hadn’t even recognized. But most disturbing of all had been seeing two of Dahak’s own dragon. He’d expected it, but expecting and seeing were two different things.
“And you managed to bring them all back with you,” he said softly.
“Oh, he did, he did!” Tamman agreed, stepping out of the transit shaft behind them. “He worked us half to death in the process, too.” Colin grinned wryly, and Tamman snorted. “We concentrated on the mechanical systems—Dahak and Caitrin managed most of the life support functions through their central computers once we were underway—but it’s a good thing you didn’t see us before we had a chance to recuperate on the trip back!”
The big Imperial smiled, though darkness lingered in his eyes. Hideoshi’s death had hit him hard, for he had been the only child of Tamman’s Terra-born wife, Himeko. But Tamman had grown up when there had been no biotechnics for any Terra-born child; a son’s death held an old, terrible familiarity for him.
“Yeah,” Colin said, “but these ships are dumb, Horus, and we don’t begin to have the people for them. We managed to put skeleton crews on six of the Asgerds, but the others are riding empty—except for Sevrid, that is. That’s why we had to come back on Enchanach Drive instead of hypering home. We can’t run ’em worth a damn without Dahak to do their thinking for them.”
“That’s something I still don’t understand,” Horus said. “Why didn’t the wake-up work?”
“I will be damned if I know,” Colin said frankly. “We tried it with Two and Herdan, but it didn’t seem to make any difference. These computers are faster than Dahak, and they’ve got an incredible capacity, but even after he dumped his entire memory to them, they didn’t wake up.”
“Something experiential?” Horus mused. “Or in the core programming?”
“Dahak? You want to answer that one?”
“I shall endeavor, Colin, but the truth is that I do not know. Senior Fleet Captain Horus, you must understand that the basic construction of these computers is totally different from my own, with core programming specifically designed to preclude the possibility of true self-awareness on their part.
“My translation programs are sufficient for most purposes, but to date I have been unable to modify their programs. In many ways, their core software is an inextricable part of their energy-state circuitry. I can transfer data and manipulate their existing programs; I am not yet sufficiently versatile to alter them. I therefore suspect that the difficulty lies in their core programming and that simply increasing their data bases to match my own is insufficient to cross the threshold of true awareness. Unless, of course, there is some truth to Fleet Captain Chernikov’s hypothesis.”
“Oh?” Horus looked at Colin. “What hypothesis is that, Colin?”
“Vlad’s gone metaphysical on us,” Colin said. It could have been humor, but it didn’t sound that way to Horus. “He suspects Dahak’s developed a soul.”
“A soul?”
“Yeah. He thinks it’s a factor of the evolution of something outside the software or the complexity of the computer net and the amount of data in memory—a ‘soul’ for want of a better term.” Colin shrugged. “You can discuss it with him later, if you like. He’ll talk both your ears off if you let him.”
“I certainly will,” Horus said. “A soul,” he murmured. “What an elegant notion. And how wonderful if it were true.” He saw Hatcher’s puzzled expression and smiled.
“Dahak is already a wonder,” he explained. “A person—an individual— however he got that way. But if he does have a soul, if Man has actually brought that about, even by accident, what a magnificent thing to have done.”
“I see your point,” Hatcher mused, then shook himself and looked back at Colin. “But getting back to my point, do I understand you intend to continue as emperor?”
“I may not have a choice,” Colin said wryly. “Mother won’t let me abdicate, and every piece of Imperial technology we’ll ever be able to salvage is programmed to go along with her.”
“What’s wrong with that?” Horus put in. “I think you’ll make a splendid emperor, Colin.” His son-in-law stuck out his tongue. “No, seriously. Look what you’ve already accomplished. I don’t believe there’s a person on Earth who doesn’t realize that he’s alive only because of you—”
“Because of you, you mean,” Colin interrupted uncomfortably.
“Only because you left me in charge, and I couldn’t have done it without these people.” Horus waved at Hatcher and Tsien. “But the point is, you made survival possible. Well, you and Dahak, and I don’t suppose he wants the job.”
“You suppose correctly, sir,” the mellow voice said, and Horus grinned.
“And whether you want it or not, someone’s going to have to take it, or something like it. We’ve gotten by so far only because supreme authority was imposed from the outside, and this is still a war situation, which requires an absolute authority of some sort. Even if it weren’t, it’s going to be at least a generation before most of Earth is prepared for effective self-government, and a world government in which only some nations participate won’t work, even if it wouldn’t be an abomination.”
“With your permission, Your Majesty,” Tsien said, cutting off Colin’s incipient protest, “the Governor has a point. You are aware of how my people regard Western imperialism. That issue has been muted, and, perhaps, undermined somewhat by the mutual trust our merged militaries and cooperating governments have attained, but our union is more fragile than it appears, and many of our differences remain. Cooperation as discrete equals is no longer beyond our imagination; effective amalgamation into a single government may be. You, as a source of authority from outside the normal Terran power equations, are quite another matter. You can hold us together. No one else—with the possible exception of Governor Horus—could do that.”
Colin hadn’t been present to witness Tsien’s integration into Horus’s command team. He still tended to think of the marshal as the hard-core military leader of the Asian Alliance, and Tsien’s calm, matter-of-fact acceptance took him somewhat aback, but the marshal’s sincerity was unmistakable.
“If that’s the way you all feel, I guess I’m stuck. It’ll make things a lot simpler where Mother is concerned, that’s for sure!”
“But why is she so determined?” Hatcher asked.
“She was designed that way, Ger,” MacMahan said. “Mother was the Empire’s Praetorian Guard. She commanded Battle Fleet in the emperor’s name, but because she wasn’t self-aware, she was immune to the ambition which tends to infect humans in the same position. Her core programming is incredible, but what it comes down to is that Herdan the Great made her the conservator of empire when he accepted the throne.”
“Accepted!” Hatcher snorted.
“No, the Empire’s historians were a mighty fractious lot, pretty damned immune to hagiography even when it came to emperors who were still alive. And as far as I can determine from what they had to say, that’s exactly the right verb. He knew what a bitch the job was going to be and wanted no part of it.”