“Understood.” Colin edged closer, insinuating his thoughts cautiously into the hatch computers, and something answered. It was an ID challenge, but it tasted … odd.

He keyed his personal implant code with exquisite care, and for an instant just long enough to feel relieved disappointment, nothing happened. Then the hatch slid open, and he dried his palms on his uniform trousers.

“Well, people,” he murmured, “door’s open. Wish me luck.”

“So do we all,” Jiltanith told him softly. “Take care, my love.”

The next half-hour was among the most nerve-wracking in Colin’s life. His basic implant codes had sufficed to open the hatch, but that only roused the internal security systems.

There was a strangeness to their challenges, a dogged, mechanical persistence he’d never encountered from Dahak, but they were thorough. At every turn, it seemed, there were demands for identification on ever deeper security levels. He found himself responding with bridge officer codes he hadn’t known he knew and realized that the computers were digging deep into his challenge-response conditioning. No wonder Druaga had felt confident Anu could never override his own final orders to Dahak! Colin had never guessed just how many security codes Dahak had buried in his own implants and subconscious.

But he reached the central transit shaft at last, and felt both relief and a different tension as he plugged into the traffic sub-net and requested transport to Fleet Central’s Command Alpha. He half-expected yet another challenge, but the routing computers sent back a ready signal, and he stepped out into the shaft.

One thing about the terror of the unknown, he thought wryly as the shaft took him and hurled him inward: it neatly displaced such mundane fears as being mashed to paste by the transit shaft’s gravitonics!

The shaft deposited him outside Command Alpha in a brightly-lit chamber big enough for an assault shuttle. The command deck hatch bore no unit ensign, as if Fleet Central was above such things. There was only the emblem of the Fourth Empire: the Imperium’s starburst surmounted by an intricate diadem.

Colin looked about, natural senses and implants busy, and paled as he detected the security systems guarding this gleaming portal. Heavy grav guns in artfully hidden housings were backed up by the weapons Vlad had dubbed warp guns, and their targeting systems were centered on him. He tried to straighten his hunched shoulders and approached the huge hatch with a steady tread.

Almost to his surprise, it licked aside, and more silent hatches—twice as many as guarded Dahak’s Command One—opened as he walked down the brightly lit tunnel, fighting a sense of entrapment. And then, at last, he stepped out into the very heart and brain of Battle Fleet, and the last hatch closed behind him.

It wasn’t as impressive as Command One, was his first thought—but only his first. It lacked the gorgeous, perfect holo projections of Dahak’s bridge, but the softly bright chamber was far, far larger. Dedicated hypercom consoles circled its walls, labeled with names he knew in flowing Imperial script, names which had been only half-believed-in legends in his implant education from Dahak. Systems and sectors, famous Fleet bases and proud formations—the names vanished into unreadable distance, and Quadrant Command nets extended out across the floor, the ranked couches and consoles too numerous to count, driving home the inconceivable vastness of the Empire.

It made him feel very, very insignificant.

Yet he was here … and those couches were empty. He had come eight hundred light-years to reach this enormous room, come from a planet teeming with humanity to this silence no voice had broken in forty-five millennia, and all this might and power of empire were but the work of Man.

He crossed the shining deck, bootheels ringing on jeweled mosaics, and ghosts hovered in the corners, watchful and measuring. He wondered what they made of him.

It took ten minutes to reach the raised dais at the center of the command deck, and he climbed its broad steps steadily, the weight of some foreordained fate seeming to press upon his shoulders, until he reached the top at last.

He lowered himself into the throne-like couch before the single console. It conformed smoothly to his body, and he forced himself to relax and draw a deep, slow breath before he reached out through his feed.

There was a quick flicker of response, and he felt a surge of hope—then grunted and flinched as he was hurled violently out of the net.

“Implant interface access denied,” a voice said. It was a soft, musical contralto … utterly devoid of life or emotion.

Colin rubbed his forehead, trying to soothe the sudden ache deep inside his brain, and looked around the silent command deck for inspiration. He found none, and reached out again, more carefully.

“Implant interface access denied.” The voice threw him out of the net even more violently. “Warning. Unauthorized access to this installation is punishable by imprisonment for not less than ninety-five standard years.”

“Damn,” Colin muttered. He was more than half-afraid of how Fleet Central might react to activating his fold-space com but saw no option. “Dahak?”

“Yes, Captain?”

“I’m getting an implant access denial warning.”

“Voice or neural feed?”

“Voice. The damned thing won’t even talk to my implants.”

“Interesting,” Dahak mused, “and illogical. You have been admitted to Command Alpha; logically, therefore, Fleet Central recognizes you as an officer of Battle Fleet. Assuming that to be true, access should not be denied.”

“The same thought had occurred to me,” Colin said a bit sarcastically.

“Have you attempted verbal communication, sir?”

“No.”

“I would recommend that as the next logical step.”

“Thanks a lot,” Colin muttered, then cleared his throat.

“Computer,” he said, feeling just a bit foolish addressing the emptiness.

“Acknowledged,” the emotionless voice said, and his heart leapt. By damn, maybe there was a way in yet!

“Why have I been denied implant access?”

“Improper implant identification,” the voice replied.

“Improper in what way?”

“Data anomaly detected. Implant interface access denied.”

“What anomaly?” he asked, far more patiently than he felt.

“Implant identification not in Fleet Central data base. Individual not recognized by core access programs. Implant interface access denied.”

“Then why have you accepted voice communication?”

“Emergency subroutines have been activated for duration of the present crisis,” the voice replied, and Colin paused, wondering what “emergency subroutines” were and why they allowed verbal access. Not that he meant to ask. The last thing he needed was to change this thing’s mind!

“Computer,” he said finally, “why was I admitted to Command Alpha?”

“Unknown. Security is not a function of Computer Central.”

“I see.” Colin thought more furiously than ever, then nodded to himself. “Computer, would Fleet Central Security admit an individual with invalid implant identification codes to Command Alpha?”

“Negative.”

“Then if Security admitted me, the security data base must recognize my implants.”

Silence answered his observation.

“Hm, not very talkative, are you?” Colin mused.

“Query not understood,” the voice said.

“Never mind.” He drew a deep breath. “I submit that a search might locate my implant codes in Fleet Central Security’s data base. Would you concur?”

“The possibility exists.”

“Then I instruct you,” Colin said very carefully, “to search the security data base and validate my implant codes.”

There was a brief pause, and he bit his lip.