I swept the air around me with a kick not quite as elegant as Jelaine’s, connecting with nothing but driving my own assassin back a step and giving me a chance to face her. She was a snub-nosed, chubby-cheeked, frizzy-haired creature with freckled skin and no expression at all. She drew back her own Claw of God and charged, hoping that sheer determination would manage what stealth had failed to do.
By the time she was finished with her jab I was alongside it, grabbing her by both wrist and neck and using her momentum against her. It was the same move I’d used during the previous attack on me up at Layabout, except that the assassin I’d faced then had been bare-handed and harmless and the assassin whose charge I had now redirected was wielding a deadly weapon that preceded both of us as I drove us forward.
Philip Bettelhine turned toward us just in time to see the Claw of God headed right toward him and screamed like a little girl.
I might have let it strike him if not for that.
My time with the Porrinyards had mellowed me, after all.
So I let go of the off-balance assassin and let her fall down, using the heel of my shoe to shatter the hand bearing the Claw. I didn’t let her scream bother me. Nor did I worry any more about Jelaine, who had wrested herself free of her would-be protectors, ordered them to back off, and retrieved the Claw of her own unmoving assailant.
Jason, his clothing torn and his nose bloodied, stood alive and well as servants dragged away the sole traitor who had gone after him. He saw me looking at him and gave me a grim nod of satisfaction. From somewhere not far away I heard the sound of pounding feet: security, arriving with their usual efficiency now that the war was over.
Jelaine called to me. “Andrea? Are you all right?”
“I’m fine!” I shouted.
I did not ask how she was, or how Jason was, because I already knew more than I’d wanted to know.
I’d figured out the missing element of the plan that had propelled Jason and Jelaine to power.
Hans Bettelhine remained on the ground where I’d dropped him, hugging himself, unable to muster the will he needed to realize that the crisis was over. It could have been because I’d hit him hard, or because he was an old man and the violence in his home had been a major shock for him. But then Jelaine drifted to his side and knelt before him, her beautiful features shining with the special kind of love that is only natural to find in a loyal daughter. I saw her start whispering to him.
Philip saw the emotions playing across my features, picked up on what I’d realized, and sensed the inner war I was fighting with myself over it. The despair that had stained his features for the last few seconds now turned nasty as he confronted me, his voice low and meant for me alone. “You honestly didn’t know the worst of it until now, did you, Andrea?”
“No,” I said, looking at Jason and Jelaine. “Not until just before the attack.”
“That was my own poor judgment. I thought you were in on it, just like that sanctimonious holy man had been. At the very least I thought that somebody who hated the Family business as much as you claimed to would certainly approve once you found out.”
I averted my eyes. “Shut up.”
“Just in case you’re wondering, it really was only Vernon Wethers up there. I was out of the loop. But then we all returned to Xana and the two freaks who used to be my brother and sister, who knew how much Vernon had succeeded in compromising them in my eyes, tried to enlist me. They actually thought I’d approve of what they’ve done, to advance as far as they have. They didn’t realize that the very thought turned my stomach, that I’d see what they’ve done to Father as family mind-raping family. They didn’t realize that I’d have to do something, no matter how half-assed and last-minute and desperate, to stop them.”
“And the Claws of God?”
“My own clumsy attempt to make this look like some of Vernon’s leftover machinations. I figured that doing it somewhere with plenty of witnesses would lead people to all the right conclusions. But I shouldn’t have. I should have done the simple thing and ordered up a bomb. Or somebody to strangle my dear, traitorous brother and sister in their sleep. But no,” he said, with palpable self-disgust. “I had to be fancy.”
Just a few short meters away, Hans Bettelhine flashed the relief of any slave happy to be fed his instructions. He nodded at his loving daughter, the female half of the shared mind who commanded him and had steered his change of heart in so many things and, with her assistance, rose to continue giving his enthusiastic blessing to their plans for the Family business. I knew, just looking at him, that he would have agreed to anything they suggested, that their opinions would now always be his.
It was the only way Jason and Jelaine could have made their coup work. No wonder they’d had such success. They’d followed the Khaajiir’s thesis and, by co-opting Dina Pearlman or one of the other techs working for her, seized the one mind capable of helping them to enact the changes they wanted.
I didn’t know how they’d done it, what risks they’d taken getting their father alone.
I couldn’t argue with the results. The Bettelhine Family was changing course.
But was it worth the price?
Another whispered suggestion from Jelaine, and Hans Bettelhine gave me a wave. He started toward me, the prodigal niece whose quick thinking had removed him from the line of fire.
Philip had only a few seconds left, but he got it all in. “I’ll get Internal Exile. The useful part of my life’s over. But what about you, Andrea? How far are you willing to go? If you stay here will it be because you think the ends justify the means, or because all those overwrought principles of yours can be bought with a little money and power?”
Now Jason was approaching, too, his expression wary as he focused on me and on Philip in turn.
The voice of the AIsource rumbled in my head. The choice is yours, Counselor.
For me it was as if every atom in the universe had ceased moving, leaving me the sole animate object in a tableau of statues.
This is it?
This is it. This is the moment that determines the future we talked about. This is the moment that decides whether a race lives or dies, and whether humanity will have to pay a price for its genocide.
But you haven’t given me anything!
We have given you as much as the Rules of Engagement permit. We have provided you with two clear alternative futures: one where you remain on Xana and throw your considerable talents behind what Jason and Jelaine are doing, and one where you remain apart and independent and free to act elsewhere even if that means opposing them. In one future, your active participation helps to speed their new vision of the Bettelhine Corporation; in the other, they struggle on without your counsel and need additional time to consolidate power. In one future billions die, a major sentient race meets extinction, and humanity pays a devastating price. In the other, billions die, but the targeted race survives, hope is preserved and, though Mankind suffers, a better future awaits after the last shots are fired. One of these alternatives benefits us, the other our enemies. One will provide us the release we crave and thus free the organic intelligences of our interference; the other will deny us our ending. You will have reason to suspect, within a very few months, whether you made the correct decision. You will be at the center of those events. But first you must determine that future with the choice you make now.