“To be perfectly honest,” Ninhursag continued, “I’d be a bit happier if I could find something serious to worry about.”

“How’s that?” Colin asked.

“I guess I’m like Horus, worrying about what’s going to bite me next. We’re moving so fast I can’t even identify all the players, much less what they might be up to, and even the best security measures could be leaking like a sieve. For instance, I’ve spent hours with Dahak and a whole team of my brightest boys and girls, and we still can’t figure a way to ID Anu’s surviving Terra-born allies.”

“Are you saying we didn’t get them all?!” Colin jerked upright, and Jiltanith tensed at his side. Ninhursag looked surprised at their reactions.

“Didn’t you tell him, Dahak?” she asked.

“I regret,” the mellow voice sounded unwontedly uncomfortable, “that I did not. Or, rather, I did not do so explicitly.”

“And what the hell does that mean?” Colin demanded.

“I mean, Colin, that I included the data in one of your implant downloads but failed to draw your attention specifically to them.”

Colin frowned and keyed the mental sequence that opened the index of his implant knowledge. The problem with implant education was that it simply stored data; until someone used that information, he might not even know he had it. Now the report Dahak referred to sprang into his forebrain, and he bit off a curse.

“Dahak,” he began plaintively, “I’ve told you—”

“You have.” The computer hesitated a moment, then went on. “As you know, my equivalent of the human qualities of ‘intuition’ and ‘imagination’ remain limited. I have grasped—intellectually, I suppose you would say—that human brains lack my own search and retrieval capabilities, but I occasionally overlook their limitations. I shall not forget again.”

The computer actually sounded embarrassed, and Colin shrugged.

“Forget it. It’s more my fault than yours. You certainly had a right to expect me to at least read your report.”

“Perhaps. It is nonetheless incumbent upon me to provide you with the data you require. It thus follows that I should inquire to be certain that you do, in fact, realize that you have them.”

“Don’t get your diodes in an uproar.” Colin turned back to Ninhursag as Dahak made the sound he used for a chuckle. “Okay, I’ve got it now, but I don’t see anything about how we missed them … if we did.”

“The how’s fairly easy, actually. Anu and his crowd spent thousands of years manipulating Earth’s population, and they had a tremendous number of contacts, including batches of people with no idea who they were working for. We got most of their bigwigs when you stormed his enclave, but Anu couldn’t possibly have squeezed all of them into it. We managed to identify most of the important bit players from his captured records, but a lot of small fry have to’ve been missed.

“Those people don’t worry me. They know what’ll happen if they draw attention to themselves, and I expect most have decided to become very loyal subjects of the Imperium. But what does worry me a bit is that Kirinal seems to have been running at least two top secret cells no one else knew about. When you and ’Tanni killed her in the Cuernavaca strike, not even Anu and Ganhar knew who those people were, so they never got taken into the enclave before the final attack.”

“My God, ’Hursag!” Hatcher sounded appalled. “You mean we’ve still got top echelon people who worked for Anu running around loose?”

“No more than a dozen at the outside,” Ninhursag replied, “and, like the small fry, they’re not going to draw attention to themselves. I’m not suggesting we forget about them, Gerald, but consider the mess they’re in. They lost their patron when Colin killed Anu, and as Horus and I have been saying, we’ve turned Earth’s whole society upside-down, so they’ve probably lost a lot of the influence they may’ve had in the old power structure. Even those who haven’t been left out in the cold have only their own resources to work with, and there’s no way they’re going to do anything that might draw attention to their past associations with Anu.”

“Admiral MacMahan is correct, Admiral Hatcher,” Dahak said. “I do not mean to imply that they will never be a menace again—indeed, the fact that they knowingly served Anu indicates not only criminality on their part but ambition and ability, as well—yet they no longer possess a support structure. Deprived of Anu’s monopoly on Imperial technology, they become simply one more criminal element. While it would be folly to assume they are incapable of building a new support structure or to abandon our search for them, they represent no greater inherent threat than any other group of unscrupulous individuals. Moreover, it should be noted that they were organized on a cell basis, which suggests members of any one cell would know only other members of that cell. Concerted action by any large number of them is therefore improbable.”

“Huh!” Hatcher grunted skeptically, then made himself relax. “All right, I grant you that, but it makes me nervous to know any of Anu’s bunch are still around.”

“You and me both,” Colin agreed, and Jiltanith nodded beside him. “On the other hand, it sounds to me like you, Dahak, and Gus are on top of the situation ’Hursag. Stay there, and make sure I find out if anything—and I mean anything—changes in regard to it.”

“Of course,” Ninhursag said quietly. “In the meantime, it seems to me the greatest potential dangers lie in three areas. First, the Third World resentment Horus has mentioned. A lot of those people still see the Imperium as an extension of Western imperialism. Even some of those who truly believe we’re doing our best to treat everyone fairly can’t quite forget we imposed our ideas and control on them. I expect this particular problem to ease with time, but it’ll be with us for a good many years to come.

“Second, we’ve got the First World people who’ve seen their positions in the old power structures crumble. Some of them have been a real pain, like the old unions that’re still fighting our ‘job-destroying new technology,’ but, again, most of them—or their children—will come around with time.

“Third, and most disturbing, in a way, are the religious nuts.” Ninhursag frowned unhappily. “I just don’t understand the true-believer mentality well enough to feel confident about dealing with it, and there’s a bunch of true believers out there. Not just in the extreme Islamic blocs, either. At the moment, there’s no clear sign of organization—aside from this ‘Church of the Armageddon’—but it’s mighty hard to reason with someone who’s convinced God is on his side. Still, they’re not a serious threat unless they coalesce into something bigger and nastier … and since the Great Charter guarantees freedom of religion, there’s not much we can do about them until and unless they try something overtly treasonous.”

She paused, checking back over what she’d said, then shrugged.

“That’s about the size of it, at the moment. A lot of rumbles but no present signs of anything really dangerous. We’re keeping our eyes peeled, but for the most part it’s simply going to take time to relieve the tensions.”

“Okay.” Colin leaned back and glanced around. “Anyone have anything else we need to look at?” A general headshake answered him, and he rose. “In that case, let’s go see what the kids have gotten themselves into.”

Eight hundred-plus light-years from Birhat, a man swiveled his chair towards a window and gazed down with unfocused yet intent eyes, staring through the view below to examine something far beyond it.

He rocked the old-fashioned swivel chair back with a gentle creak and steepled his fingers, tapping his chin with his index fingers as he considered the changes which had come upon his world … and the other changes he proposed to create in their wake. It had taken almost ten years to attain the position he needed, but attain it he had—not, he admitted, without the help of the Emperor himself—and the game was about to begin.