This Day All Gods Die (95 page)

But Warden Dios didn't move. Didn't raise his rifle to protect himself. He needed this kid. And he understood instantly that coercion wouldn't work. It wouldn't have worked on him when he was that age. If he wanted help, he would have to persuade Servil out from under Holt's influence.

When he saw that he couldn't stop the other techs, Servil pulled his gun back into line on Warden's chest. He clutched it with both hands to hold it steady. Distress flared in his eyes—

more distress than his nerves could handle.

Warden let his rifle clatter to the deck, then held up his hands to show the tech they were empty. As soon as his IR

prosthesis told him that a bit of the kid's tension had eased, he asked quietly, "Is Holt's download that important to you?"

Servil flinched. His aura said clearly that he hadn't expected Warden to know what he and the others had been doing.

"Don't you know what it's for?" Warden pursued.

The tech tightened his grip on the gun. "I don't need to know." The tremor had settled into his voice: he couldn't get rid of it. "The CEO ordered us to handle it. That's enough."

Warden shifted his arms so that the other rifles fell from his shoulders. "We're not going to fight about this." With the tips of his fingers he pulled the handguns from his belt and dropped them. "You can go back to work if you want. I won't raise a hand to stop you." Deliberately he spoke as if he were in command. The only weapon he allowed himself was his authority; his ability to convey conviction. "But I'm going to tell you what that downlead's for. And I'm going to tell you what I want you to do instead.

"If you want to shut me up, you'll have to shoot me."

Servil frowned his confusion. "I don't trust you."

Warden grinned humorlessly. "You don't have to trust me. I'll sit here." He took a seat in front of the nearest active console. Its readouts showed the status of the download. "You can keep your distance." He indicated a board three stations away. "You'll be able to pick up your gun and kill me faster than I can get to you."

Without hesitation he started to type as fast as he could.

Center had already processed an enormous amount of data. The download had only fifteen minutes left to run. Then Holt could leave with his treasure intact.

That was nowhere near enough time. Already Warden was being forced to choose between his desire to see Holt dead and his determination to save as many lives as he could.

Forced to trust Angus absolutely—

He didn't try to disrupt the datastream. If he did that, if he warned Holt in any way, the Dragon might rush launching Motherlode. Instead he keyed his board to other functions—

which might slow the download slightly—

and began sifting

through codes and clearances to reach the platform's status-and-resource records.

"What're you doing?" the tech demanded anxiously.

"Just what I said I would do," Warden retorted. "Arrange evacuation procedures. Figure out how to save all these people. Your job."

"Save them from what? We're damaged, sure. But the platform is stable."

The director snorted. "Don't bet on it."

HO's megaCPUs could multitask on several different levels, carry out quite a few vast—

and exclusive—

tasks simul-

taneously. When he found the records he wanted, he separated his readouts. On one of them he searched the docks and berths and holds for any conceivable means to off-load large numbers of people.

Servil leaned forward, gripping his gun. "What do you mean?"

On another screen Warden organized what was left of station communications. With a little ingenuity he managed to orient a hub dish toward UMCPHQ. From a third readout he called up Damage Control to identify every viable power cell and generator, every energy source, that remained active.

Finally he recalled a display of Holt's download so that he could keep track of it. So that he would know when Holt was about to leave.

"I mean," he answered Servil, "as soon as we get as many people as we can away from this hunk of metal I'm going to blow it apart."

"Stop!" the young man yelped at once. "Stop it." He jumped out of his seat; aimed his gun at the side of Warden's head. "Take your hands off that board."

Warden ignored the order.

"Director, I can't let you do this!"

He ignored that as well.

"Listen to me," he growled through his concentration.

"Holt didn't tell you what this download is for because he was afraid you might be horrified. If you refused, he would be in trouble. He needed at least one tech he could trust. But I'm willing to risk a little horror.

"You know what he's downloading. He must have given you a data req." Even unquestioning assistance required instructions. "He's copying everything that gives him power.

Secrets and deals. Contracts and blackmail. Personal and personnel records, illicit orders, payment logs, corporate protocols. Evidence of every crime he's ever committed. Everything that lets him dictate policy to the GCES."

Warden's prosthesis read Servil's dismay. The young tech was dangerously close to pressing the firing stud.

"My God, boy," Warden said like a groan, "you didn't think he got this far by force of personality, did you? Nobody is as pure as he claims to be. And you have to be suspicious of anyone who gets rich off the Amnion. I know for a fact that Holt Fasner cheated, stole, killed, and manipulated his way here.

"I should know," he added bitterly. "I helped him do a lot of it."

Uncertainty eased the pressure of Servil's fingers. Apparently he didn't know what to make of Warden's frankness.

Like most of Earth's people, he'd probably been raised on the idea that the UMCP was honest—

and necessary. Holt had pro-

jected that illusion at every opportunity. And Warden had done as much as he could to give the conceit substance.

"Why does he need all this information now?" he asked grimly. "Have you considered that question? He's finished, isn't he? He tried to destroy the Council, for God's sake. What good are his records now?"

In a small voice the tech admitted, "I don't know."

"Well, I do," Warden snapped. "He can sell them.

"The power is still there. He can sell it to illegals. Give them a chance to own their own Council Members—

even their

own stations. He can buy their help for whatever he wants."

He paused, then stated flatly, "Or he can sell it to the Amnion."

Servil flinched. "Why would he—

?"

"Because," Warden explained like a splash of acid,

"they'll pay more for it than anyone else can. He's a hundred fifty years old. He should have died decades ago. They have the ability to give him a new body whenever he needs one.

They can imprint his mind from one body to the next without damaging it. They can keep him alive and in his prime—

prac-

tically forever.

"Hell, he might end up owning human space. He can offer the Amnion a deal so rich they'll give him anything."

With his enhanced sight he saw the threat of Servil's gun withdraw. Turmoil seethed, crimson and violet, through the tech's aura, but it was the wrong kind of tension for an attack.

He retreated to a seat as if his legs weren't strong enough to hold up his consternation.

Apparently he couldn't find a fault in Warden's reasoning. Despite his naive loyalty, he was starting to see the truth.

Warden quashed a sigh of relief; ran commands on his board as quickly as he could. If he could have spared the attention, he would have used another readout to monitor Norna Fasner's sickchamber, hoping to mark Angus' progress.

But that was beyond him: he'd already stretched his concentration to its limits.

The download would be done in ten minutes. UMCPHQ

signaled constantly, calling for a response. HO's small supply of ejection pods was trivial compared to the computer's estimate of survivors. If he meant to save more than a fraction of them, he needed some other approach.

After a moment Servil asked in a shaking voice, "If that's all true—

if you believe it—

why aren't you trying to stop

him?"

"I am trying to stop him," Warden muttered. "I'm just not doing it in person. He's abandoned all these people. Somebody has to rescue them."

He wished like hell that he knew where Angus was.

"They won't need rescuing," the tech countered unsteadily, "if you don't blow up the station."

Warden bit the inside of his cheek to keep himself from shouting. "And what happens if I don't? Think about it. Use your brain. I don't blow up the station. His data remains intact.

Who do you trust with it? It's the most destructive body of information in human space." He would have been willing to take a chance on Min—

but even for her the burden might be

too much. "Who do you trust to have that much power and not use it?

"Not the GCES, that's for damn sure. Some of the Members are honest—

and some aren't. And I wouldn't want to

make my people live with that much temptation. Even the best of them might not be able to resist."

He hit keys to refine his search for some means to evacuate the platform. While sub-routines flashed down his readout, he told Servil, "There's only one way to defuse those secrets.

Make them public. Every bit of that data. Destroy ten or twenty thousand lives and reputations. Cripple a few corporations, a few stations." Unleash the damage before anyone could manipulate it. Make all Holt's supporters and victims pay for their mistakes simultaneously. "But we can't do that.

Even if we use every dish we've got," every dish Min's on-slaught hadn't shattered or crippled, "it would take weeks to downlink that much information."

Holt could copy it all so much faster because Motherlode was plugged directly into the HO network.

Abruptly a damage control alert flashed on his console.

He checked it automatically.

A small screen told him that every system in Norna Fasner's med sector had gone dead. Even the dedicated uplink which still fed her video channels: everything. Some kind of fire or explosion had devastated the medical crypt where Holt had kept his mother entombed for almost ninety years.

Angus had gotten that far; done that part of his job.

Good.

But he didn't have much time left. Once the download was complete, Holt could sever his links with the platform; set his berth's palt to fling Motherlode outward when the rotation of the torus gave him an attractive window on open space. He would be gone in a matter of minutes.

Frustration and urgency accumulated in Warden's chest like a nuclear pile approaching critical mass. He'd placed too many demands on himself; made too many promises. Damn, he needed help—

"Unless we delete it," he croaked suddenly.

Erase Holt's data instead of blowing up the station. That would serve the purpose. Unfortunately it would also leave Warden alive. He would have to convince someone to kill him before his supply of Vestabule's drug ran out: he did not want to turn Amnion at the end of his life. But everyone else on station might survive—

He wheeled his seat to face the tech. "Do you know how to do that? Do you have the codes?"

"No," Servil admitted as if the idea shocked him.

Warden swore under his breath. "I don't either." He thought quickly, then asked, "Can we stop him from launching his yacht? Will these systems do that? Can we get our hands on him and make him tell us the codes?"

"No," the tech said again. A penumbra of dumb misery swirled around him. "The overrides have been set. He has complete control."

Shit! Warden ground his teeth. As he turned back to his board, he demanded, "Then what choice do you think I have?"

Servil slumped in front of a console. His aura modulated through a series of emotions. Warden caught suggestions of pain, defeat, weariness, resignation. Softly the young tech asked, "What do you want me to do?"

A kick of hope caught Warden's heart. In a rush he began, "Help me—

"

To his chagrin, his voice shook like Servil's. He was under more pressure than he'd realized: he'd kept himself too busy to realize it. Relief and desperation he couldn't contain nearly made him groan. He swallowed hard and tried again.

"Help me save some lives."

Once he'd made his decision, Servil didn't hesitate. He raised his hands to his board, held them ready,

"How?"

Warden's human eye burned, dangerously close to blurring. He blinked it clear; scanned his readout of the station's resources. After a moment he found what he wanted.

"There." Swiftly he copied one of his displays to Servil's console. "Cargo 11." A hold out at the rim of the torus: a bay so big Punisher could have docked in it. "Those ore cans."

The computer reported five of them. "They're empty. If you do it right, you can use them."

Before it became UMCHO, the core of this station had been the home of Space Mines, Inc. Holt's vast empire had begun as a small ore smelting operation, orbiting Earth to take advantage of the asteroid belt. Since then HO had grown tremendously; but the platform still performed some of SMI's functions. Smelting was no longer done, but a certain amount of ore transshipment took place.

Ore cans were huge cylinders, too large for most ships to carry; designed to be towed rather than transported. And they were airtight, sealed against vacuum to protect their contents, not during shipment, but at their transshipment points and destinations. Some of the metals, isotopes, and rare earths that humankind mined could only be processed if they hadn't been contaminated by atmosphere.

"You can probably get two hundred fifty people in each of those things," Warden explained as Servil went to work.

"With enough air for at least a couple of hours. When they're sealed, you can open the bay, use station rotation to spin them out. If you time it right, you can aim them at UMCPHQ.

"I'll tell UMCPHQ Center what's going on. Their tugs should be able to tow those cans in before the air runs out.

"That should take care of almost everyone," he finished.