“Provoke Dahak?” Colin pinched his nose. “Wasn’t that a bit, um, risky?”

“Of course it was, but our Imperials are getting old, Colin. When they go, the rest of us will carry on as best we can, but our position will be even more hopeless. The Council had no idea Dahak was fully functional, but we were already placing a lot of our people in the space program, like Sandy and Cal. Besides, if the human race generally knew what was up there, functional or not, Anu’s position would be far more tenuous.”

“Why?”

“We never contemplated what Dahak actually did, Colin, but something had to happen. Anu might try to take over any exploration of the ship, but we were prepared to fight him—clandestinely, but rather effectively—unless he came into the open. And if he had come out into the open, don’t you think he’d’ve needed more than just his inner circle to control the resulting chaos?”

“Oh! You figured if he risked waking the others and they discovered all he’d been up to, he might get hit from behind by a revolt.”

“Exactly. Oh, it was a terrible chance to take, but as I say, we were getting desperate. At the very least, it might be a way to add a new factor to the equation. Then too, we’ve always had a lot of people in the space program. It was possible—even probable—that if the ship was partially functional one of our own Terra-born might have gotten inside. Frankly—” she met his gaze levelly “—we’d hoped Vlad Chernikov would fly your mission.”

“Vlad? Don’t tell me he’s one of yours!”

“Not if you’d rather I didn’t,” she said, and he laughed helplessly. It was his first laughter since Sean’s death, and he was amazed by how much it helped.

“Well, I will be damned,” he said at last, then cocked an eyebrow. “But isn’t it also a bit risky to plant so many people in the very area where Anu is pushing hardest?”

“Colin, everything we’ve ever done has been a risk. Of course we took chances-terrible ones, sometimes—but Anu’s own control is pretty indirect. Both sides know a great deal about what the other is up to—we more than him, we hope—but he can’t afford to go around killing everyone he simply suspects.”

She paused, and her voice was grimmer when she continued.

“Still, he’s killed a lot on suspicion. ‘Accidents’ are his favorite method, but remember that shuttle Black Mecca shot down?” Colin nodded, and she shrugged. “That was Anu. It amuses him to use ‘degenerate’ terrorists to do his dirty work, and their fanaticism makes them easy to influence. Major Lemoine was aboard that shuttle, and he was one of ours. We don’t know how Anu got on to him, but that’s why so much terrorism’s focused on aerospace lately. In fact, Black Mecca’s claimed credit for what happened to Cal and the girls.”

“Lord.” Colin shook his head and leaned forward, bracing his elbows on the console and propping his chin on his palms. “All this time, and no one ever suspected. It’s hard to believe.”

“There’ve been a few times we thought it was all over,” Isis said. “Once we even thought they’d actually found Nergal. In fact, that’s why Jiltanith was ever brought out of stasis at all.”

“Hm? Oh! Getting the kids out just in case?”

“Precisely. That was about six hundred years ago, and it was the worst scare we ever had. The Council had recruited quite a few Terra-born even then—and you’d better believe they had trouble adjusting to the whole idea!—and some of them took the children and scattered out across the planet. Which also explains ’Tanni’s English; she learned it during the Wars of the Roses.”

“I see.” Colin drew a deep breath and held it for just a moment. Somehow the thought of that beautiful girl having grown up in fifteenth-century England was more sobering than anything else that had happened so far.

“Isis,” he said finally, “how old is Jiltanith? Out of stasis, I mean.”

“A bit older than me.” His face betrayed his shock, and she smiled gently. “We Terra-born have learned to live with it, Colin. Actually, I don’t know who it’s harder on, us or our Imperials. But ’Tanni went back into stasis when she was twenty and came back out while Dad was still being Hidachi.”

“She doesn’t like me much, does she?” Colin said glumly.

“She’s a very unhappy girl,” Isis said, then laughed softly. “Girl! She’s older than I am, but I still think of her that way. And she is only a girl as far as the Imperials are concerned. She’s the ‘youngest’ of them all, and that’s always been hard on her. She fought Dad when he sent her back into stasis because she wants to do something, Colin. She feels cheated, and I can’t really blame her. It’s not her fault she’s stuck here, and there’s a conflict in her own mind. She loves Dad, but his actions during the mutiny are what did all this to her, and remember her mother was actually killed during the fighting.” She shook her head sadly.

“Poor ’Tanni’s never had a normal life. Those fourteen years she spent in England were the closest she ever came, and even then her foster parents had to keep her under virtual house arrest, given that her appearance wasn’t exactly European. I think that’s why she refuses to speak modern English.

“But you’re right about how she feels about you. I’m afraid she blames you for what happened to Cal’s family … and especially the girls. She was very close to Harriet, especially.” Isis’s mouth drooped, but she blinked back the threatened tears and continued.

“She knows, intellectually, that you couldn’t have known what would happen. She even knows you killed the people who killed them, and none of us exactly believe in turning the other cheek. But the fact that you were ultimately responsible ties in with the fact that you’ve not only effectively supplanted Dad after he’s fought for so long, but that you’re an active threat to him, as well. Even if we succeed, Dad faces charges because whatever he’s done since, he was a mutineer. And, frankly, she resents you.”

“Because I’ve moved in on your operation?” he asked gently. “Or for another reason, as well?”

“Of course there’s another reason, and I see you know what it is. But can you blame her? Can’t you see it from her side? You’re the commanding officer of Dahak, a starship that’s like a dream to all of us Terra-born, a combination of heaven and hell. But it’s a dream whose decks ’Tanni actually walked … and lost for something she never did. She’s spent her entire adult life fighting to undo the wrong others did, and now you, simply by virtue of being the first Terra-born human to enter the ship, have become not just a crew member, but its commander. Why should you have that and not her? Why should you have a complete set of implants—a bridge officer’s, no less—while she has only bits and pieces?”

Isis fell silent, studying his face as if looking for something, then nodded slightly.

“But worst of all, Colin, she’s a fighter. She wouldn’t stand a chance hand to hand against an Imperial, and she knows it, but she’s a fighter. She’s spent her life in the shadows, fighting other shadows, always indirectly, protected by Dad and the others because she’s weaker than they are, unable to fight her enemies face to face. Surely you understand how much that hurts?”

“I do,” Colin said softly. “I do,” he said more firmly, “and I’ll bear it in mind, but we all have to fight Anu, Isis. I can’t have her fighting me.”

“I don’t think she will.” Isis paused again, frowning. “I don’t think she will, but she’s not feeling exactly … reasonable, just now.”

“I know. But if she does fight me, it could ruin everything. Too much depends not only on smashing Anu but finding a way to stop the Achuultani. If she can’t work with me, I certainly can’t let her work against me.”

“What … what will you do?” Isis asked softly.