WARDEN

He didn’t have far to go. A lift or two; a few corridors. One more crime: the most spectacular—but by no means the worst—crime of his compromised life. The place where he and Angus had separated was closer to UMCHO Center than to Norna Fasner’s sickchamber. Angus probably had less time than Warden did. On the other hand, the cyborg was much faster. And he killed more easily.

In spite of everything, Warden Dios still wanted to keep his own body count to a minimum.

UMCHO Center wasn’t the real nexus of Holt’s vast empire. But Red Priority security locks would give Warden access to Holt’s data from any board in the HO network. And Center had resources he needed; resources which would be easier to use there than from some remote console. In addition, he was hoping for help. If he couldn’t persuade or coerce at least one Center tech to assist him, his last crime would be much more difficult to carry out. A lot more people would die—

He ran steadily, but didn’t push himself; tried to balance speed and caution. It would be too pitiful for words if he came all this way only to let some nameless HS guard kill him prematurely. But he didn’t encounter any guards. The few people he met were unarmed and scared: consumed by the danger; no threat to him. He reached the corridor outside Center without firing at anyone.

The Center doors were guarded, however. He’d been sure they would be. In general Holt didn’t inspire the kind of loyalty that would hold men and women at their posts when he’d obviously abandoned them. The guards were there, not to keep other people out, but to keep the techs in.

Left to themselves, HO’s civilians would have welcomed anyone who suggested rescue or escape. Unfortunately a darker commitment drove Home Security. The guards knew that if they were taken they would be held accountable for any number of Holt’s actions. Their only hope was to believe that the CEO might still find a way to save them.

Warden knew they were mistaken: Holt had no intention of saving any of them. But he was also sure these guards wouldn’t listen to him if he tried to argue the point. Before they spotted him, he flipped a concussion grenade at their feet; ducked around a corner while it went off. Then he hurried to the doors.

As a precaution, he slung the guards’ rifles over his shoulder, shoved their sidearms into his belt. Armed like a guerrilla, he thrust open the doors and strode into HO Center.

The hall itself was hardly distinguishable from any center of operations in human space. Function dictated form. Displays ranked the walls: rows of consoles lined the deck: flat, impersonal lighting washed out shadows and ambiguities. Except for its size, this could have been UMCPHQ Center.

It was built to a larger scale, however. The staggering amount of data processed here dwarfed UMCPHQ’s operations. Holt could have run a planet from this room—if he hadn’t been so busy trying to manipulate all of human space.

But the place was practically empty. As he came through the doors, Warden counted five techs and a guard. That was all, in a room where hundreds of men and women usually worked. If the rest had fled, and a guard was required to keep these five at their consoles—

Warden jumped to the conclusion that the techs weren’t working for HO. They weren’t directing an evacuation, running support systems, allocating resources, restraining panic; weren’t doing any of the jobs a damaged station full of terrified people needed. Otherwise more of the techs would have stayed.

So they were processing Holt’s download. Whether they knew it or not, they were helping him copy the data which would enable him to bargain with the Amnion.

Warden had his rifle in the guard’s face before the man could reach his weapons.

“I’m Warden Dios,” he barked even though anyone who worked for Center or HS would recognize him, “UMCP Director Dios. I’m taking command. From now on you’re all under my authority.” He jabbed his rifle at the guard. “You, drop your guns. Techs, stay at your consoles.”

Fatigue or despair turned the guard’s features gray. Sweat gleamed on his upper lip. Apparently he lacked the courage—or the desperation—for suicide. His IR aura twisted with defeat as he dropped his rifle; tossed his handgun aside.

Warden heard the doors bang shut. He wheeled toward them, swept his rifle into line; but saw nobody.

One of the techs had fled.

Damn! He jerked back to cover the guard again.

The man hadn’t moved. The other techs remained at their stations.

Warden took a deep breath, held it to steady his heart. When he let it out, he told the guard, “You can go. If you think this is a good time for HS to attack me, you’re stupider than you look. We’re going to begin arranging evacuation procedures, get people off this platform as fast as we can. If you interfere—if HS starts a firelight that cripples this room—you’ll all die here, and you won’t have anyone to blame but yourselves.

“Do you understand me?”

“I understand, Director,” the guard sighed.

Warden read his aura clearly; saw his resignation. The man wanted to live. He would leave Warden and Center alone.

As soon as the guard left, Warden turned to the techs.

All four of them were on their feet. A show of respect? He doubted it. They radiated too much fright. More likely they wanted to run—

Their boards stood in a row partway across the room: the guard had probably ordered them to work side by side so that he could watch them comfortably. Warden moved toward them, letting the muzzle of his rifle drop to diminish the threat he projected. He hated the sight of their fear. He’d become a cop because he wanted to reduce the perils of being human, not because he liked scaring relatively innocent men and women half to death. But he had no reassurance to give the techs unless they agreed to help him.

One of them took him completely by surprise.

A young man stepped past the others toward Warden. He was a kid, really; couldn’t have been more than twenty. He had blond hair so pale it was nearly invisible: patches of sweat on his scalp showed through it like stains. His eyes gaped as if he’d gone blind with alarm.

The id patch on his worksuit identified him as “Servil.”

From one of his pockets he produced a projectile gun and aimed it at Warden’s chest.

“I’m sorry, Director.” His voice shook, but his hand didn’t waver. “I can’t let you interrupt us. We have work to finish.”

Warden froze. He’d completely misread the nature of the young man’s fright. The other techs may have needed a guard to keep them at their posts: this kid didn’t. He was still young enough to believe in Holt—as young as Warden had been when he’d first fallen under the Dragon’s spell.

He could have taken Servil easily. As soon as the kid brought out his handgun, the other techs scattered; ducked away among the stations; hurried crouching along the rows toward the doors. That distracted him. He took his aim off Warden, instinctively looking for a way to make the other techs return. Warden could have snatched the gun from him without effort.

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 download’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 simultaneously. 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 projected 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—practically 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 onslaught 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. “When they’re on their way, you and whoever else is left can use the last ejection pods.”

“What about you?” Servil asked in a small voice.

“Somebody has to stay here,” Warden answered harshly, “and make sure nothing goes wrong. That’s my job.”

With an effort of self-control, he didn’t add, Unless you want to watch me turn Amnion.

Servil nodded. “I suppose you’re right.” He rubbed the heels of his hands into his eyes as if he wanted to force the uncertainty out of them. Then he started typing.

His fingers gathered speed and assurance as he ran commands to route power and air for the hold, confirm that the ore cans were empty, prepare the bay doors. He called up a platform rotation schematic; calculated the hold’s window on UMCPHQ; then activated an intercom so that he could issue orders to the whole station in Holt Fasner’s name.

Despite his relative youth, he obviously knew his job.

Warden allowed himself a moment of profound relief—a brief pause of appreciation for Servil’s aid. That was all the time he could afford. Almost at once he threw his hands at his board; tackled the problem of making UMCHO destroy itself.

In order to wrest an explosion from the power cells and generators, he would have to route a feedback loop which would drive them past their tolerances. That should have been impossible. Stations were too vulnerable: therefore they had safeguards. Under normal circumstances, the cells and generators were well protected from any destructive tampering.

But Min’s guns had damaged a number of the systems. Some of the safeguards had failed: others weren’t stable. And Red Priority security locks gave him access to codes which in turn released controls he wouldn’t ordinarily have been able to touch.

In addition, he’d recently spent a number of hours studying every available detail of HO’s design and construction; preparing himself in case this day ever came. He probably knew a great deal more about how the platform worked than the young tech did.

He could do it; cause a blast to gut the station. The explosion wouldn’t be as powerful as he wanted: not powerful enough to catch and crush Motherlode with its wavefront once the gap yacht was launched and away. But at least he could do it without endangering any of Min’s ships.

If he worked fast enough: if he didn’t make any mistakes. If he blew the platform before UMCPHQ or any other station sent out craft to answer HO’s distress flares.

His hands flew on the keys as if he’d spent his life studying self-destruct sequences.

Where was Angus? Could he reach the yacht? Get aboard? Or would he be caught on station? Warden had no idea. He wished now that he’d arranged a signal of some kind; a means for Angus to communicate success or failure. But he hadn’t thought of it.

How many other crucial details had he neglected? He couldn’t afford to worry about that. Couldn’t afford to let his visceral desire to see Holt die distract him. He’d reached the end of his life. Circuits and relays sprang to life under his hands, filling HO strand by strand with a web of ruin. Holt’s download would end soon. The time had come to trust other people with humankind’s future. Min and Angus, Morn and Koina, Hashi: they would have to pick up any pieces he might have dropped.

Servil would need at least half an hour to arrange his evacuation—if HS helped him organize the survivors; if HS believed his orders came from Holt. Otherwise the process might take much longer.

Warden had to communicate with UMCPHQ. He couldn’t put it off anymore. And he’d promised Angus—But he couldn’t bear the prospect of actually speaking to Center; hearing those familiar voices remind him of the life he’d compromised and abandoned. And his heart might break if any of the people he trusted and loved tried to talk to him. He preferred to face the culmination of his old shame alone.

Instead of risking voice transmission, he wrote out a message, warning Center that HO was about to die. He urged men and women he’d once commanded to keep ships away from the station; out of danger. He asked his former officers and friends to rescue Servil’s ore cans as soon as they cleared the wavefront.

Finally he added a series of quick personal messages—one for Min and another for Hashi; one for Morn. He gave each of them the best farewell he could. Then he set HO’s dish to broadcast his transmission automatically, repeat it as long as possible.

When his console informed him that Motherlode had been launched on an escape vector which kept her safe from attack or pursuit, he cursed her blip as if he believed in the power of words to wreak transcendent harm. But his anger at Holt had become curiously abstract. It no longer drove him. For good or ill, he’d left the Dragon to Angus. Now he found that he was content to have done so. None of the people he’d trusted had failed him so far. Even Servil hadn’t failed him. And he’d come to the end of himself. He’d completed his Web of circuits and relays, of complicity and subterfuge: there was nothing left for which he could take responsibility—except his own tainted soul. An unfamiliar peace eased through him as he watched the gap yacht recede in the direction of her fate.

As soon as Servil sent the cans on their way, Warden gave him ten minutes to reach an ejection pod. But he actually waited longer than that; until he was sure the tech had escaped.

Then, however, he didn’t hesitate. He’d told Angus that he’d passed sentence on himself a long time ago. Now he carried it out.

With a few keystrokes, the discredited director of the United Mining Companies Police closed his final relays and tore the foundation of Holt Fasner’s malign empire to shreds.