Javna looked at Creek. "Harry," Javna said. "Whatever it is, if it gets us all out of this with our skin intact, that's good enough. Don't worry. You're like a brother to me. You know that."

"Hold that thought, Ben," Creek said. "Remember you said it."

Takk came up to Creek. "It's time to take our places," lie said.

"Holy cow," Javna said, looking up at Takk.

"Hi," Takk said.

"When we're in POW camp, you're going to have some interesting tales for me, Harry," Javna said. "I can tell that already."

"What's he talking about?" Takk said.

"I'll tell you later," Creek said. "Come on, let's go." The two moved back up the crowd to their assigned position, Takk creating a bow wave with his size and Creek traveling in his wake.

Horns blared. The Great Hall doors opened once more. And Narf-win-Getag stepped through, wearing the cape and mantle of his clan.

Narf-win-Getag did not rush his entrance; he walked slowly and smoothly, directly in the middle of the aisle created by retaining ropes and an audience of four thousand guests and dignitaries. Narf-win-Getag recognized many, as well he should have through decades in the Nidu diplomatic core. His eyes sought and found Jim Heffer and Ben Javna; he nodded to them as he passed and smiled at the memory of having played them rough like cheap violins. With Schroeder out of the way, Narf-win-Getag was free to choose a Nidu administrator for Earth, and was considering auctioning off the position to the highest bidder. Someone would pay handsomely to run an entire planet, even a shithole like Earth.

At the head of the crowd Narf-win-Getag spied Hubu-auf-Getag on one side, with a phalanx of auf-Getags, and Harry Creek and Takk on the other. Neither Hubu-auf-Getag nor Harry Creek struck Narf-win-Getag as appropriately fearful in their expressions, although in the case of Creek it might simply be that Narf-win-Getag, even after all that time on Earth, still had trouble with some of the more subtle human expressions. It really didn't matter. Hubu-auf-Getag and his entire clan would be dealt with soon enough, and as for Creek, Takk, and Robin, he'd already made arrangements for that entire nation to be handled. They'd live; they'd just never leave Nidu. Narf-win-Getag didn't feel particularly bad about violating the agreement to call off the war on Robin; he'd honored the other three well enough. Especially the last one.

Narf-win-Getag ascended the dais and as was tradition, recited seventeen stanzas of The Revinu, the Nidu species' signature epic poem. It didn't matter which seventeen stanzas, merely that there were seventeen, each stanza representing the seventeen original clans of Nidu, of which win-Getag was one. Then followed the Blessing of the Knife, the Prayer to Clan Ancestors, the Salting of the Altar, a recitation of the Psalm of the Forgiven, and finally the Second Blessing of the Knife, symbolically transforming the weapon into an instrument of peace, a "swords into ploughshares" sentiment that like its human equivalent was generally forgotten before the last echo of the words had faded.

Now came the actual ceremony, and Narf-win-Getag found that he relished the idea of speaking the words to a ceremony formulated by the auf-Getag clan; in his mouth the words would be like a repudiation of their rule and redemption of the office of Fehen. Or so Narf-win-Getag was fantasizing to himself while Robin, the sheepwoman, had the apparatus for the brain scan placed awkwardly on her head by the priest. This accomplished, she then held out an arm to allow the priest to twist the shunt; her blood to flowed into the trough and past the sensors that sampled the DNA within to find the magic segments that would confirm her identity as an Android's Dream sheep—the right kind of sheep. Another repudiation of the auf-Getag clan, Narf-win-Getag thought, that he provided her where they could not.

From far recesses of the Great Hall projectors flared, announcing the acceptance of DNA with flaring and beautiful displays of light and color, intended to wrap the presumptive Fehen in a halo of righteous luminescence. The entire altar glowed like polished brass hit by a lighthouse beam, augmenting the light filtering in through the diamond on the roof.

It appeared to a few of the observers that more of the light focused on Robin than on Narf-win-Getag, but that was likely to be a combination of the simple white robe Robin wore as well as some confusion by the computer as to which of the tall creatures on the altar to highlight (the computer knew well enough not to highlight the priest). Certainly Narf-win-Getag didn't notice the fact his luminescence was being shared. From discreetly hidden vents the odor of the Fehensul, the flower of the Fehens, wafted into the room, its astringent sweetness the ultimate and most sacred word in the Nidu language of scent.

The light show settled down and the fight coalesced into a single ball that positioned itself between the altar and the audience. Positional audio kicked in and caused sound to come from the ball, sound that eventually resolved into a voice. "Which clan brings the sacrifice?" it asked, in majestically toned Nidu.

Narf-win-Getag stepped forward, and inhaled deeply to bellow the name of the win-Getag clan, to forever clear the air of the shame the auf-Getag clan brought to the office of the Fehen.

"The Baker clan!" declared a high, thin, nervous voice, in heavily accented but perfectly acceptable Nidu.

Narf-win-Getag choked on his declaration and stared at Robin Baker, who he was somewhat surprised to learn was still standing on the altar with him. Narf-win-Getag glared at her, decided that he'd changed his mind and definitely wouldn't let her live after all, and then took in another breath to declare his clan.

"What is the bidding of the clan of the sacrifice?" the deep, rich sonorous voice of the computer asked.

"Give me control of the network!" Robin Baker declared, again in Nidu. "And give Brian Javna complete access!"

"Whoops, that's me," Brian said, and got up from the table, leaving his beer behind. "Thanks for the drink, Andrea."

"Anytime," said Andrea Hayter-Ross, and waved. "Don't be a stranger."

Brian drifted over to an open port on the Nidu computer network, which demanded identification.

"I'm Brian Javna," Brian said, "I think you've heard of me." Some automatic part of Brian translated that into something the Nidu network could understand, validate, verify, and accept. And then, as requested, it gave Brian complete access.

Brian was hit with about 40 trillion watts of pure understanding.

It's hard to describe to anyone who is not in fact a sentient computer. But imagine you're a tapeworm, and then suddenly you're Goethe. It's like that. Brian experienced an upward expansion of knowledge, power, intuition, and capability unrivaled by any sentient being anywhere and anytime in the history of the Common Confederation. He didn't simply have access to the Nidu computer system, which was, by dint of its sheer Orwellian reach into the tiniest crannies of Nidu governmental life, the single most complex computer system yet devised. He became the Nidu computer system, searing through it at the speed of light and joyously feeling its power and information become his own. There was no word for what Brian was feeling, so he made one up.

Infogasm.

Oh, boy, Brian thought. That's the sort of thing that will kill you if you do it more than once. Brian savored the feeling for just a few cycles more, and then did what he came to do.

High above Nidu and Earth, six Glar destroyer captains and crews were shocked to find they were suddenly locked out of their controls, and that their ships had minds of their own.

Across Nidu space, every Nidu ship lost its defensive and offensive weapons. Individual Nidu soldiers lost control of their cars, their planes, their rifles and weapons. Vehicles in use rolled to a stop or landed at the first safe opportunity.