“T-Tao-ling?” the general managed.

“You are awake?” Tsien’s voice was hoarse with pain. “You have the constitution of a bull, Gerald.”

“Th-thanks. What … what kind of shape are we … ?”

“I believe we have beaten off the attack. I do not know how. I am afraid you are badly hurt, my friend.”

“I’ll … live…”

“Yes, I think you will,” Tsien said so judiciously Hatcher grinned tightly despite his agony. His brain was fluttering and it would be a relief to give in, but there was something he had to say first. Ah!

“Tao-ling—”

“Be quiet, Gerald,” the marshal said austerely. “You are wounded.”

“You’re … not? Looks like … I get my … implants first.”

“Americans! Always you must be first.”

“T-Tell Horus I said … you take over…”

“I?” Tsien looked at him, his face as twisted with shame as pain. “It was my people who did this thing!”

“H-Horse shit. But that’s … why it’s important … you take over. Tell Horus!” Hatcher squeezed his friend’s forearm with all his fading strength. It was Tsien’s right arm, but he did not even wince.

“Tell him!” Hatcher commanded, clinging to awareness through the shrieking pain.

“Very well, Gerald,” Tsien said gently. “I will.”

“Good man,” Hatcher whispered, and let go at last.

The city echoed with song and dance as the People of Riahn celebrated. Twelve seasons of war against Tur had ended at last, and not simply in victory. The royal houses of Riahn and Tur had brought the endless skirmishes and open battle over possession of the Fithan copper mines to a halt with greater wisdom than they had shown in far too long, for the Daughter of Tur would wed the Son of Riahn, and henceforth the two Peoples would be one.

It was good. It was very, very good, for Riahn-Tur would be the greatest of all the city-states of T’Yir. Their swords and spears would no longer turn upon one another but ward both from their neighbors, and the copper of Fithan would bring them wealth and prosperity. The ships of Riahn were already the swiftest ever to swim—with Fithan copper to sheath their hulls against worms and weed, they would own the seas of T’Yir!

Great was the rejoicing of Riahn, and none of the People knew of the vast Achuultani starships which had reached their system while the war still raged. None knew they had come almost by accident, unaware of the People until they actually entered the system, or how they had paused among the system’s asteroids. Indeed, none of the People knew even what an asteroid was, much less what would happen if the largest of them were sent falling inward toward T’Yir.

And because they did not know such things, none knew their world had barely seven months to live.

Colin MacIntyre was not afraid, for “afraid” was too weak a word.

He sat with his back to the conference room hatch as the others filed in, and he felt their own fear against his spine. He waited until all were seated, then swung his chair to meet their eyes. Their faces looked even worse than he’d expected.

“All right,” he said at last. “We’ve got to decide what to do next.”

Their steady regard threw his lie back at him, even Jiltanith’s, and he wanted to scream at them. We didn’t have to decide; he did, and he wished with all his soul that he had never heard of a starship named Dahak.

He stopped himself and drew a deep breath, closing his eyes. When he opened them again, the shadows within them had retreated just a bit.

“Dahak,” he said quietly, “have you got anything more for us?”

“Negative, Captain. I have examined all known Imperial weapons and research. Nothing in my data base can account for the observational data.”

Colin managed not to spit a curse. Observational data. What a neat, concise way to describe two once-inhabited planets with no life whatever. Not a tree, not a shrub, nothing. There were no plains of volcanic glass and lingering radioactivity, no indications of warfare—just bare, terribly-eroded earth and stone and a few pathetic clusters of buildings sagging into wind and storm-threshed ruin. Even their precarious existence said much for the durability of Imperial building materials, for Dahakestimated there had been no living hand to tend them in almost forty-five thousand years.

No birds, he thought. No animals. Not even an insect. Just … nothing. The only movement was the wind. Weather had flensed the denuded planet until its stony bones gaped through like the teeth of a skull, bared in a horrible, grinning rictus of desecration and death.

“Hector?” he said finally. “Do you have any ideas?”

“None.” MacMahan’s normally controlled face was even more impassive than usual, and he seemed to hunker down in his chair.

“Cohanna?”

“I can’t add much, sir, but I’d have to say it was a bio-weapon of some sort. Some unimaginable sort.” Cohanna shivered. “I’ve landed unmanned probes for spot analyses, but I don’t dare send teams down.”

Colin nodded.

“I can’t imagine how it was done,” the biosciences officer continued. “What kind of weapon could produce this? If they’d irradiated the place… But there’s simply nothing to go on, Captain. Nothing at all.”

“All right.” Colin inhaled deeply. “’Tanni, what can you tell us?”

“Scarce more than ’Hanna. We have found some three score orbital vessels and installations; all lie abandoned to the dead. As with the planets, we durst not look too close, yet our probes have scanned them well. In all our servos have attended lie naught save bones.”

“Dahak? Any luck accessing their computers?”

“Very little, Captain. I have been unable to carry out detailed study of the equipment, but there are major differences between it and the technology with which I am familiar. In particular, the computer nets appear to have been connected with fold-space links, which would provide a substantial increase in speed over my own molecular circuitry, and these computers operated on a radically different principle, maintaining data flow in semi-permanent force fields rather than in physical storage units. Their power supplies failed long ago, and without continuous energization—” The computer’s voice paused in the electronic equivalent of a shrug.

“The only instance in which partial data retrieval has been possible is artifact seventeen, the Fleet vessel Cordan,” Dahak continued. “Unfortunately, the data core was of limited capacity, as the unit itself was merely a three-man sublight utility boat, and had suffered from failed fold-space units. Most data in memory are encoded in a multi-level Fleet code I have not yet been able to break, though I believe I might succeed if a larger sample could be obtained. The recoverable data consist primarily of routine operational records and astrogational material.

“I was able to date the catastrophe by consulting the last entry made by Cordan’s captain. It contains no indication of alarm, nor, unfortunately, was she loquacious. The last entry simply records an invitation for her and her crew to dine at the planetary governor’s residence on Defram-A III.”

“Nothing more?” Ninhursag asked quietly.

“No, Commander. There undoubtedly was additional data, but only Cordan’s command computer utilized hard storage techniques, and it is sadly decayed. I have located twelve additional auxiliary and special-function computer nets, but none contain recoverable data.”

“Vlad?” Colin turned to his engineer.

“I wish I could tell you something. The fact that we dare not go over and experiment leaves us with little hard data, but the remotes indicate that their technology was substantially more advanced than Dahak’s. On the other hand, we have seen little real evidence of fundamental breakthroughs—it is more like a highly sophisticated refinement of what we already have.”