“Sublight in one minute,” Dahak intoned, and Colin felt the beginnings of shutdown flowing through his interface with Chernikov’s engineering computers. The measured sequence of commands moved like clockwork, and a tiny, almost imperceptible vibration shook Dahak’s gargantuan bulk.

“Sublight … now,” Dahak reported, and the stars moving across the visual display were abruptly still.

A G3 star floated directly “ahead” of Colin in the projection. It was the brightest single object in view, and it abruptly began to grow as Sarah Meir, his astrogator, engaged the sublight drive.

“Core tap shutdown,” Dahak announced.

“Enhance image on the star system, Dahak,” Colin requested, and the star swelled while a three-dimensional schematic of the Sheskar System’s planetary orbits flicked to life about it. Only the outermost planet was visible even to Dahak at their present range, but tiny circles on each orbit trace indicated the position each planet should hold.

“Any artificial radiation?”

“Negative, Captain,” Dahak replied, and Colin bit his lip. Sheskar was—or had been—the Imperium’s forward bastion on the traditional Achuultani approach vector. Perimeter Security should have detected and challenged them almost instantly.

“Captain,” Dahak broke the silence which had fallen, “I have detected discrepancies in the system.”

The visual display altered as he spoke. Oddly clumped necklaces of far smaller dots replaced the circles representing Sheskar’s central trio of planets, spreading ominously about the central star, and Colin swallowed.

Dahak had gone sublight at the closest possible safe distance from Sheskar, but that was still eleven light-hours out. Even at his maximum sublight velocity, it would have taken almost twenty-four hours to reach the primary, yet it had become depressingly clear that there was no reason to travel that deep into the system, and Colin had stopped five light-hours out to save time when they left.

At the moment, he, Jiltanith, Hector MacMahan, and Ninhursag sat in Conference One, watching a scaled-down holo of the star system while they tried to decide where to leave to.

“I have completed preliminary scans, Captain,” Dahak announced.

“Well? Was it the Achuultani?”

“It is, of course, impossible to be certain, but I would estimate that it was not. Had it been an incursion, it would, of necessity, have followed a path other than that traditionally employed by the Achuultani, else the scanner arrays which reported this incursion had already been destroyed. Since they were not, I conclude that it was not the Achuultani who accomplished this.”

“Just what we needed,” Hector said quietly. “Somebody else who goes around blowing away entire planets.”

“Unfortunately, that would appear to be precisely what has happened, General MacMahan. It would not, however, appear to be of immediate concern. My scans indicate that this destruction occurred on the close order of forty-eight thousand years ago.”

“How close?” Colin demanded.

“Plus or minus five percent, Captain.”

“Shit.” Colin looked up apologetically as the expletive escaped him, but no one seemed to have noticed. He drew a deep breath. “All right, Dahak, cut to the chase. What do you think happened?”

“Analysis rules out the employment of kinetic weaponry,” Dahak said precisely, “distribution of the planetary rubble is not consistent with impact patterns. Rather, it would appear that the planetary bodies suffered implosive destruction consistent with the use of gravitonic warheads, a weapon, so far as is known to the Imperium’s data base, the Achuultani have never employed.”

“Gravitonic?” Colin tugged on his prominent nose, and his green eyes narrowed. “I don’t like the sound of that.”

“Nor I,” Jiltanith said quietly. “If ’twas not the Achuultani, then must it have been another, and such weapons lie even now within our magazines.”

“Exactly,” Colin said. He shuddered at the thought. A heavy gravitonic warhead produced a nice, neat little black hole. Not very long-lived, and not big enough to damage most suns, but big enough, and a hyper-capable missile with the right targeting could put the damned thing almost inside a planet.

“That is true,” Dahak observed, then hesitated briefly, as if he faced a conclusion he wanted to reject. “I regret to say, Captain, that the destruction matches that which would be associated with our own Mark Tens. In point of fact, and after making due allowance for the time which has passed, it corresponds almost exactly to the results produced by those weapons.”

“Hector? Ninhursag?”

“Dahak’s dancing around the point, Colin,” MacMahan’s face was grim. “There’s a very simple and likely explanation.”

“I agree,” Ninhursag said in a small voice. “I never would have believed it could happen, but it’s got all the earmarks of a civil war.”

A brief silence followed the words someone had finally said. Then Colin cleared his throat.

“Response, Dahak?”

“I … am forced to concur.” Dahak’s mellow voice sounded sad. “Sheskar Four, in particular, was very heavily defended. Based upon available data and the fact that no advanced alien race other than the Achuultani had been encountered by the Imperium prior to the mutiny, I must conclude that only the Imperium itself possessed the power to do what has been done.”

“What about someone they ran into after the mutiny?”

“Possible, but unlikely, Captain. Due in no small part to previous incursions, there are very few—indeed, effectively no—habitable worlds between Sol and Sheskar. Logic thus suggests that any hostile aliens would have been required to fight their way across a substantial portion of the Imperium even to reach Sheskar. Assuming technical capabilities on a par with those of this ship—a conclusion suggested, though not proven, by my analysis of the weaponry employed—that would require a hostile imperium whose military potential equaled or exceeded that of the Imperium itself. While it is not impossible that such an entity might have been encountered, I would rate the probability as no greater than that of an Achuultani attack.”

Colin looked around the table again, then back at the silent holo display. “This isn’t good.”

“Hast a gift for understatement, my Colin.” Jiltanith shook her head. “Good Dahak, what likelihood wouldst thou assign to decision by the Imperium ’gainst fortifying Sheskar anew?”

“Slight,” Dahak said.

“Why?” Colin asked. “There’s nothing left to fortify.”

“Inaccurate, Captain. No Earth-like planets remain, but Sheskar was selected for a Fleet base because of its location, not its planets, and it now possesses abundant large asteroids for installation sites. Indeed, the absence of atmosphere would make those installations more defensible, not less.”

“In other words,” MacMahan murmured, “they would have come back if they were interested in re-establishing their pre-war frontiers.”

“Precisely, General.”

Another, longer silence fell, and Colin drew a deep breath.

“All right, let’s look at it. We have a destroyed base in a vital location. It appears to have been taken out with Imperial weapons, implying a civil war as a probable cause. It wasn’t rebuilt. What does that imply?”

“Naught we wish to discover.” Jiltanith managed a small smile. “’Twould seem the Imperium hath fallen ’pon hard times.”

“True,” MacMahan said. “I see two probabilities, Colin.” Colin raised an eyebrow, inviting him to continue.

“First, they wiped each other out. That would explain the failure to rebuild, and it would also mean our entire mission is pointless.” A shiver ran through his human audience, but he continued unflinchingly.

“On the other hand, I don’t believe anything the size of the Imperium wiped itself out completely. The Imperium is—or was, or whatever—huge. Even assuming anyone could have been insane enough to embark on destruction on that scale, I don’t see how they could do it. Their infrastructure would erode out from under them as they took out industrialized systems, and it seems unlikely anyone would follow leaders mad enough to try.”