This Day All Gods Die (2 page)

While the bodybag was being loaded onto a sled for transport to her lab in Data Acquisition, she asked tensely, "You sure of his id?"

"My dear Lane," Hashi chided gently. She knew as well as anyone who worked with him that he was unlikely to mistake an id.

She shrugged like a twitch. "Just checking. If you're right, my job's that much easier."

Certainly she would be required to spend less time waiting for Data Storage to run its vast SAC routines.

"Any chance I'll find a detonator?" she continued.

Hashi made a conscious effort to remain calm; amiably unruffled. He didn't want to be infected by her congenital tension. "Who can say?" There were too many factors: the type of explosive, its brisance, the shape of the charge, blast reflection from the nearby walls. "But if you do," he went on more sharply, "the information will be vital. Do you understand me, Lane?"

She sucked on her nic. "What's to understand? Isn't that what it all hinges on?"

"Not all," he countered with a shake of his head. "But enough." He knew the truth: whatever Lane learned wouldn't change it. Nevertheless the proof he wished to give Warden Dios depended heavily on what Lane could discover.

"In any case," he added, "these will be of interest."

Casually, almost covertly, as if he didn't wish to be seen, he slipped Imposs/Alt's clearance badge and id tag into Lane's pocket.

She identified them with her fingers, nodded decisively.

"I'm sure they will."

The sled was ready to go. Lane moved to accompany it.

Despite the nature of the emergency, however, and his own desires, he called her back. Camouflaging his seriousness with his peculiar sense of humor, he told her that he wished to see her results "relatively instantaneously. Engage your gap drive, Lane. Defy time if you must."

He wanted her findings before Warden summoned him.

She replied with a snort of smoke, "Don't I always?"

He wheezed a laugh. "You do. Indeed you do."

He waited until she and her sled had left the dock before shifting himself into motion.

By then he'd already begun to wonder how much longer Warden would delay.

More than an hour passed before a call from the director of the UMCP reached Hashi, instructing him to present himself immediately to one of Warden's private offices.

Hashi hadn't wasted the time. First he'd issued a number of Red Priority—

"screaming red," as it was sometimes called

—

security locks: one for every communications channel and computer that belonged or connected to Anodyne Systems, the UMC subsidiary which manufactured SOD-CMOS chips; one for the UMCP's own personnel files; and one for each of Holt Fasner's Home Office personnel, payroll, and Security Liaison computers. A screaming red security lock didn't prevent anyone else from looking at electronic files or using communications linkups; but it blocked changes of any kind to those files, or to any transmission logs and records. At the same time it warned DA that changes had been attempted, and traced the codes and routing of the attempt backward.

He was morally certain that the Dragon's HO techs could disable or deactivate a Red Priority security lock, no matter how loudly it screamed. At the same time he was quite sure that this would not be done, first, because Holt Fasner would hardly imagine that crucial records were in any danger of ex-posure, second, because Holt would believe that any embarrassment which might arise from his files could be quashed through Warden Dios, and third, because as a matter of policy the Dragon liked to preserve an illusion of openness and honesty. Rather than resistance Hashi expected passive acceptance: another illusion.

An illusion which would reveal itself as murderous fury against Hashi himself when the UMC CEO determined that Hashi no longer represented a threat.

This prospect didn't trouble Hashi. He could say with considerable accuracy that he did not fear the Dragon in any ordinary sense. The possibility of intellectual inadequacy gave him far more distress than a merely physical threat.

When his security locks were in place, he used his authority under the provisions of Red Priority to compile the most complete dossiers which Data Storage, joined by microwave downlinks to GCES Security and Anodyne Systems, could provide on both Nathan Alt and Clay Imposs.

Warden's summons found him just as he was finishing.

More than an hour since the shuttle had docked: several hours since the kaze's blast. Apparently Warden hadn't been taken by surprise to any meaningful extent.

That was good and bad; better and worse. The delay had allowed Hashi to complete his immediate research. On the other hand, a longer delay might have given Lane time to produce the results Hashi craved.

Despite the plain urgency of the summons—

and the ne-

cessity of obedience—

Hashi took the time to call her.

Her voice over the intercom was brusque and focused; deep in concentration. "Make it quick. I'm busy."

Hashi couldn't restrain himself: his personal imp of perversity made him say, "Too busy to talk to me? Lane, I'm crushed."

She let out a sigh that sounded like smoke. "If you want me to work fast, I have to be careful. If you want me to work faster than the speed of light, I have to be more careful than God."

He relented. "I understand perfectly." Above all he valued Lane for her meticulousness. "Nevertheless I must appear before Warden Dios in a matter of moments. The time is apt for results. He will certainly desire results from me."

"Then let's not waste each other's time. Here's what I have so far.

"The id tag and clearance badge were easy." She didn't need to organize her thoughts. Hashi suspected that she permitted herself no disorganized thoughts. "They're legit. I mean Clay Imposs is—

or maybe was—

a real GCES security

guard with a good record. He's been with them for years. The tag and badge say they're his. But the body isn't.

"You were right, it's Nathan Alt. Gene scan matches exactly.

"So how did he get through his own Security?" She asked Hashi's next question for him. "Right after that first kaze attacked Captain Vertigus, GCES Security started using retinal scans to confirm id. That should have stopped Alt cold.

"The answer is, this is a new id tag. Made for the job. It says it identifies Clay Imposs, but the retinal signature and the rest of the physical id belong to Alt."

"Is that possible?" Hashi inquired. He knew it was.

"Sure. It worked because the physical id was generated by the same code engine that drove Imposs' clearances. Everything looked legit on the surface. GCES Security didn't know they had to run a full playback from the SOD-CMOS chips and compare it to Imposs' original data to catch the switch.

Hell, Hashi, we aren't doing that here. It would take hours to clear anybody."

Sadly, that was true. Indeed, the only reason GCES—

or

UMCPHQ—

Security functioned at all was that the expertise needed to circumvent it was so specialized; and so closely guarded.

"Are you performing this playback? I require evidence."

"One of my techs is."

"And—

" Hashi prompted her.

"We haven't found anything yet."

"Have you encountered any patches, or other signs of tampering?"

As Hashi had told Koina before the extraordinary session, the code-strings Lane had extracted from the credentials of Godsen's killer were current as well as correct. If that code engine had been patched or altered—

lawfully or otherwise,

by GCES Security, Anodyne Systems, or anyone else—

the

change would have been apparent. Such adjustments transformed source-code as much as mutagens transformed human RNA.

But only older code required patching.

Lane restrained impatience poorly. "Not yet."

"Very well." He let that question go. "And the code engine itself—

?" he probed.

"It's valid," she returned at once. "Current and correct.

Which means exactly what you think it means.

"But if you want confirmation," she continued without pausing, "the source-code strings we've picked up from the id of the kaze who killed Godsen are a perfect match."

Hashi nodded to himself. "Confirmation is always welcome. However, this is hardly a surprise."

"No," Lane acknowledged.

He cast a worried glance at his chronometer, then asked,

"Have you gleaned any other data?"

"That's what I'm working on," she retorted. "The body."

As she spoke, he heard a subtle shift in her tone; a change of intensity. So far the results she'd given him had been relatively routine, despite their importance: any of the techs in her department could have supplied them. But now she sounded more personally engaged; perhaps excited. At once he became convinced that she was on the track of something vital.

"But I can tell you right now," she went on, "we aren't going to find a detonator.

"The bomb has to be shielded in the body. Otherwise Security would catch it. And you know what that kind of shielding is like." Hashi did know. Angus Thermopyle's body was full of it. "It has to appear organic in order to pass scan.

On top of that, it has to reflect back what scan expects to see.

Unfortunately—

for us—

any shield contains the blast when the

bomb goes off. Maybe only for a millisecond or two, but that's enough to throw some of the force back onto the bomb itself.

And the detonator. On a molecular level, I'll be able to find all the pieces you want. But I won't be able to reconstruct the device those pieces came from.

"So I'm concentrating on biochemistry."

Her voice conveyed an almost subliminal frisson, like a distant electrostatic discharge. Despite the numbers ticking away on his chronometer, he listened harder.

"His blood is a real witch's brew. Which is exactly what you would expect if he was in a state of drug-induced hypnosis. I haven't had time to identify even half the chemicals his body shouldn't have had in it." She paused to emphasize what followed. "But there's one detail that looks a little strange. Or a little stranger than the rest of it.''

"Tell me," Hashi put in as if he thought he could hurry her; as if he didn't know that she was already moving as fast as she could without stumbling into disorganization.

Instead of hurrying, she began to speak a bit more slowly, articulating each word with deliberate precision.

"There's a coenzyme spike in his blood spectrum. I mean a major spike. Of course, it's a coenzyme. It's inert. And it isn't even remotely natural. But it combines with some natural human apoenzymes to produce an artificial holoenzyme, and that one is active. It bears some interesting resemblances to pseudo-amylase, which is one of the enzymes we use to produce shielding in cyborgs, but there are significant differences, too."

Involuntarily Hashi drummed his fingers on his desk. He needed to answer Warden's summons. "Lane, please make your point. I am not in good odor with our esteemed director.

This delay,while we talk will doubtless vex him."

"I'm trying, damn it," she snapped. "Nobody but you ever gets to think around here."

He swallowed a burst of ire. He had called her before she was ready to report. Her findings were partial or unclear. Naturally she wished to express them cautiously. He would gain nothing by reproaching her.

"If there were more resemblances," she explained stiffly,

"I would probably assume this particular coenzyme is there because of the shields. But it wouldn't work well for that. The differences are too significant."

Again she paused. In another moment or two, Hashi thought, he would have no choice but to shout at her.

More slowly than ever, she went on, "If I were asked to come up with a use for the holoenzyme this coenzyme creates, I might say it would make a good chemical trigger. Release it into the bloodstream, and one or two heartbeats later you get a big bang. Like an orgasm so intense it kills you."

Without transition his irritation vanished. Lane Harbinger, he hummed to himself, you are a marvel. Is it any wonder that I endure your eccentricities?

Almost singing his excitement and pleasure, he said,

"Check his teeth, Lane."

Where could a coenzyme be concealed so that a man in a state of drug-induced hypnosis would be able to ingest it on some preconditioned signal? Where else but in his mouth?

And absorption into the bloodstream would be slower. Ten or fifteen seconds at least. Safer for the man who gave the signal.

"What's left of them," she returned. "I'm already working on it."

In a glow of perverse gallantry, he answered, "Then please do not allow me to interrupt you. Perhaps when your efforts are complete you will let me persuade you to marry me."

So that he wouldn't hear her laughing in scorn, he silenced his intercom.

No doubt she could never prove the conclusions he drew.

When her research was complete she would probably be able to demonstrate that this particular holoenzyme would serve well as a chemical trigger. Sadly, logic would preclude her from concluding that this holoenzyme did serve in that fashion.

Nevertheless what she had learned was enough for his immediate purposes.

Gathering his rumpled labcoat around him, Hashi Lebwohl left his office and walked as quickly as his untied shoes allowed to his meeting with Warden Dios.

cured. Mikka told him over

and over again, holding him in her arms and rocking him as if he were a baby.

Ciro knew better. The walls of his doom had closed around him like the claustrophobia of Mikka's embrace. His bunk was a coffin. Of course he knew better.

Sorus Chatelaine had injected a mutagen into his veins: he understood that in the genetic programming of his DNA; understood it more profoundly than anything anyone could have said to him. No mere words could outweigh his cellular comprehension of the way he'd been betrayed.

Somehow Morn had lured or tricked him into revealing what had happened. Now everyone knew. By the hour his doom became more certain, not less.