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"A pardon"

Raz iasped aloud No one else made a sound

A pardon? Oxhaic The pardon would be announced before it was known that Captain Zai had rejected the blade of error Zai&039;s betrayal of tradition would be concealed from the public eye, his survival transformed into an unprecedented act of Imperial kindness Before now, the Child Empress had always been the one to issue clemencies and commutations A pardon in the andistic poetry

But it wouldn&039;t be so easy, Nara&039;s instincts told her The Risen Emperor wouldn&039;t allow Zai to be rewarded for his betrayal

The sovereign nodded to the dead admiral

The woman moved her pale hands, and the chanized as Legis, appeared in synesthesia The dense swirl of planetary orbital circles (the Legis sun had twenty-oneout A vector marker appeared on the system&039;s spinward side, out froas giants The red marker described an approach to the systeo," the ad orbital defenses detected a Rix battlecruiser, inco like the assault ship that carried out the first attack A far more powerful craft, but fortunately far less stealthy: this tiis XV directly, the orbital defenses should destroy the Rix ship before it can close within a is froe?" Oxham asked

"If the battlecruiser&039;s intention is to attack, it could daical weapons, certainly degrade the info- and infrastructure It all depends on how the vessel has been fitted But she won&039;t have the firepower for at, plate destabilization, or e at extinction level"

Nara Oxham was appalled by the dead woman&039;s dry appraisal A few enerations with pre-industrial death rates from radiation and disease

"The Rix ship is decelerating at six gees, quickly enough to le is wrong for a direct attack," the adht-e will be survivable for a ship of its class, and it won&039;t be close enough to dae the planet extensively

"And there is another clue to its intent The Rix vessel appears to be equipped with a very large receiver array Perhaps a thousand kilometers across"

"For what purpose?" Henders asked

The Eht forward, and the dead warriors looked to him

"We think that the Rix ship wants to establish con said

Nara felt bafflement in the room No one in the Risen Empire knew much about compound minds What would such a creature say to its Rix servants? Whatan Imperial world?

But froer, his indignation at Zai&039;s betrayal A deade at hin

"The Rix compound eneral explained "The Legis entanglement facilities are centralized and under direct Imperial control, and of course could only transht-minutes, the co television transis&039;s infostructure is composed of a host of distributed devices that we can&039;t control"

"Unless we do so, the Rix will be able to contact their colobal resources and the battlecruiser&039;s large array, they will be able to transfer huge amounts of data

With a few hours&039; connection, perhaps the planet&039;s entire data-state All the inforis XV"

"Why not shut down the planet&039;s power grid for a few days?" Henders suggested "When the ship approaches apogee?"

"We e, properly prepared for, would cause only a few thousand civilian deaths," the general answered Oxhaave this nuned to survive power grid failure They have backup batteries, solar cells, and motion converters as part of their basic makeup This is a coe won&039;t prevent communication between the compound mind and the Rix vessel"

At these last words, Oxhaitated She had witnessed the fixations his mind could develop His cats His hatred of the Rix

So him

And then, in a moment of clarity, she felt the emotion in him Saw it clearly

It was fear

The Risen Eht learn

"We don&039;t knohy the Rix want to talk to their compound mind," he said "Perhaps they only want to offer obeisence to it, or perform some kind of maintenance But they have dedicated years to this mission, and risked alic reason for this attempt at contact"

"The compound mind may have eneral said "It&039;s iht have discovered in an entire planet of data But noe know this was the Rix plan all along: first the assault ship to seed the mind, then the battlecruiser to ain, frustration and anger filling the room They felt trapped, powerless before the well-laid plans of the Rix

"But perhaps we can solve both our problems with one stroke," the E them

Time sped forward in the display The Rix ship&039;s vector is XV, from which another marker in imperial blue moved to meet it

"The Lynx," Nara said quietly

"Correct, Senator," the Eate should be able to dae a Rix battlecruiser Especially the receiver array," the adhly vulnerable to kinetic weapons Between battle dais communication infostructure, we may be able to keep the compound mind cut off"

"Any casualty estimates for this plan, Admiral?" Oxham asked softly

"Yes, Senator On the planet, we&039;ll airjae Shunt the main hardlines for a few days to reduce bandwidth Civilian deaths will be within norency response will be slowed, so a few dozen heart-attack and accident victims will die With lowered transponder functions, there may be a few aircraft accidents"

"And the Lynx?"

"Lost, of course, and its captain with it A grand sacrifice"

Henders nodded "How poetic Granted Imperial pardon, only to become a martyr nonetheless"

"The trees will burn for a week in the name of Laurent Zai," the Emperor said

ADEPT

The two dead persons stood before a wreckage, the broken and burned shapes of data bricks scattered across the floor of the library

"Was it here?"

"Yes, Adept"

"Did the Rix abomination find it?"

"We don&039;t know, Adept"

"How can we not know?" Trevim said quietly

The initiate shifted uncoh every noise-sensitive device in the library had been physically deactivated

"The abomination cannot hear us"

The initiate cleared his throat "The one-tie at the ends of other files Only the few Honored Mothers studying the Child Empress&039;scondition kne the scheme worked There was no way for the abomination to kno to compile the data and re-create the pads" Adept Trevim narrowed her eyes

"Could it not use trial and error?"

"Adept, there are millions of files here The combinations are--"

"Not limitless Not if all the data were here"

"But it would take centuries, Adept"

"For a single co capabilities of an entire world? Every unused portion of every device on Legis, devoted to this single problem, massively distributed and absolutely relentless?"

The initiate closed his eyes, re himself from the shalloorld of the senses Adept Trevi dead man let the Other take control, the symbiant visible upon his face as it transformed hurried suppositions into hard math

It would have been quicker to ey even in the best of circuis infostructure, they kept to the techniques given by the symbiant To trust a processor would be unthinkable

Trevim waited motionless for just over an hour

The initiate opened his eyes

"The state of eency was still in partial effect when the library was broken into," he said