"But I consider that you erred severely in killing Nathiir yourself. For it put all the rest of it in a different light, even your remarkably accurate recital from The Birth of the Kalifate."

His expression was as much irritated as troubled. "When you walked in there, after lunch, you had a victory in hand. Had you given the charges against Nathiir to the House, for a hearing by his peers, there is no doubt in the universe that they'd have condemned him. Themselves. Taken away his seat and sent him to prison. Do you deny it?"

The Kalif was surprised at Jilsomo's challenging tone. "I neither deny nor assert it," he answered. "But it seems very possible, yes. Even likely."

"And his party would have had to disown him or lose its friends in the House. You'd have weakened seriously your chief opposition. As it is…"

"Yes?"

"As it is, the noble delegates, both your enemies and to a degree your friends, fear you now. And their attention will be more on that fear, and what you might do next, than on why and how to support your proposals."

The Kalif studied his friend intently for a long moment, then lowered his head and walked on, Jilsomo keeping pace, and neither said anything more until, inside the palace, the Kalif stopped at Jilsomo's office door. "Thank you, my friend, for your honesty. Perhaps you are right in what you said; I will meditate on your words. Perhaps they will leaven my actions in the future.

"But the act cannot be undone, and if it could, I would still follow my own wisdom. Meanwhile I must make the best of it. Have the video recordings of the afternoon's session prepared for a thirty-minute public release. Beginning with my account of the investigation, and being sure to include Nathiir's derogation of my military background. Then have it shown to me for my approval before releasing it. The House will like me even less for it, but it will help me strongly, I think, with the public and the armed forces."

Jilsomo stood dumbfounded.

"Can you do that in good conscience?" the Kalif asked him. "If you can't, I won't insist. Someone else can do it in your stead."

Jilsomo shook his head. "No, Your Reverence, I can do it. I may feel you err in this, but I do not doubt your honesty or intentions."

"Thank you, good friend."

Then the Kalif turned and walked on toward his own office. Leaving his lieutenant standing there thinking public? Armed forces? And for the first time uncertain about those intentions after all.

Rothka and Ilthka left the Diet feeling shocked and angry, but even more, relieved. And justified. Shocked because it hadn't occurred to them that Nathiir's multiple precautions might fail. Enraged at his death. And relieved because he'd been the only person, other than themselves, who knew they'd taken part in the planning and had promised to reimburse him for thirds of his expenses. Had he been questioned under instrumentation, their careers if not their lives would have been over.

And justified because surely Chodrisei Biilathkamoro had overreached himself in his response.

They would see this false Kalif destroyed yet, one way or another.

Thirty-four

Ordinarily, Coso Biilathkamoro planned without making a project of it. He tried always to be informed on things-read or listened to reports of many kinds that provided a data base for the workings of his subconscious. Then, when it was time to plan, or to act on short notice, he let his subconscious creativity act, with or without conscious editing. As he had the day before in the Diet, for better or worse.

It was a system that usually worked well for him.

Occasionally though, he felt a need to review some subject intensively. In his study he had a personal computer not wired into the network, and when he felt such a need, he'd sit and talk to it, free-flowing as a means of sorting his ideas and thoughts. Then, on the screen, he'd review them critically, reorganize and play with them, to gain better understanding and command of the precepts and assumptions on which he based his thinking; editing and refining them as seemed appropriate.

Sometimes it worked. At other times he bogged down, and it could take two or three days for the area to settle out, perhaps clearer than before, perhaps not.

After killing Nathiir, and especially after the troubling, uncharacteristic scolding he'd gotten from Jilsomo, he'd felt a need to reevaluate his invasion proposal, its status and prospects in the Diet. So he'd spent much of that evening talking to his computer.

Little changed. He still felt troubled.

The next morning he cancelled the usual council meeting. There'd be a meeting of the full College later that morning, and he indicated he had a pressing matter to take care of before that.

Then he went to visit SUMBAA.

When SUMBAA had stated its readiness, Gopalasentu left the chamber. The room was quiet, SUMBAA waiting, the Kalif saying nothing yet, absorbing the ambiance. There seemed to be no sound whatever, no faint or seemingly even subliminal buzzing or humming or clicking. A silence not empty nor passive, but rather-Once before he'd felt, had seemed to feel, a presence there, as if the calm intelligence of SUMBAA was tangible.

It was restful, though, that calm silence, remarkably restful, and he was in no hurry to break it. Just now his thoughts moved easily, lucidly, and he seemed to be outside them, observing them. Was SUMBAA really waiting? In what sense? It would be receiving data this very minute, from many sources planet-wide: broadcast sources, cable sources… He was sure that no one knew all the sources SUMBAA monitored. More, it would not only be receiving data but collating and storing them. No doubt integrating them, as appropriate, into innumerable models used in analyses and predictions. Questions and demands of various kinds would be arriving within SUMBAA at this moment. SUMBAA would be computing, and faxing replies continually.

Although it felt as if it were waiting quietly, waiting for him to speak.

Waiting. What did time feel like to SUMBAA? It responded to inordinately complex requests in seconds-something people expected of it, took for granted. Probably that second was mostly the time it took to form its physical responses-sounds and printed symbols. Did this wait for him to speak, to ask his questions-did this wait seem like a long time to an intelligence that operated in attoseconds? He rejected the idea. SUMBAA would wait as easily as it computed. Time, he told himself, would be different for SUMBAA, perhaps a labeled sequence with only a formal sense of interval duration.

Yet as enormously different as SUMBAA was, the Kalif decided, it had a personality. A central consciousness behind which its multitudinous operations went on without conscious attention. Like the human personality, he thought, then wondered if he was projecting erroneously a model of his own, dubbing it in to substitute for an accurate understanding.

The Prophet taught that the personality was the soul, the soul the personality. Then what seemed to be SUMBAA's personality was artificial. Programmed by its designers centuries ago? Or evolved by SUMBAA itself? And if by SUMBAA, then…

His thoughts blunted there, and he stepped aside from them. "SUMBAA," he said, "I want alternative sets of invasion plans based on several reduced levels of financing."

Then-What he said next took him entirely by surprise. It was as if he was listening to someone else say it. "The lowest level of financing must be based on existing appropriation levels, assuming no funds voted specifically for an invasion." He took a deep breath and continued. "In the no-funds scenario, assume that I'm willing to cut the operations of all ministries, other than the Ministry of Armed Forces, to levels just adequate to pay salaries and wages, and provide such services for a year as are absolutely necessary to avoid collapse of government and the economy.