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The old man nodded, satisfied She wondered what these revelations were doing to hi since elevated, probably only a few subjective years from death And now his promised immortality had been revealed as a fraud, his beloved Emperor the murderer of his sister, Anastasia the Reason

Then another ehts, a burst of e has happened," she said softly

Drexler looked up, his old fingers treestures

"Our link to the rest of the capital has been cut," he announced "The physical hardlines below the Forum have been destroyed"

Fearful cries came from the senators

"Order!" Drexler coht her second sight online The bandwidth of the Forues were coh ireless, as if she were on horseback trip in the deep country ofVasthold But the snosfeed ih She couldfrom its periphery The low black shapes of

"They will not cross the Pale," Drexler said

Godspite, Oxhaht The army was outside Their tradition of noninterference would be sorely tested now

What had she started?

A ruranite of the Great Foru

"They will not cross the Pale," the President repeated, quiet desperation in his ancient voice

Plaguen addressed the hastily asseravely "We are under a new and diabolical form of attack, and the War Council must deal with it without delay"

The representative of the Plague Axis reflected silently that this was 315 not the entire War Council Only eight of nine were present Three of the senators were here, still looking stunned by their swift passage from the Pale to the Diamond Palace, but Nara Oxham was not The Senate had officially suspended Oxha her expulsion trial, but her absence from the chamber pit had never been more noticeable

"How have we been attacked, Majesty?" the Loyalist Senator Raz imPar Henders said

"From the Senate floor itself," the Emperor said

"I must protest, sire," the Utopian senator interjected "The Senate is in legal session, considering a reat importance The only attack on the Eainst senatorial privilege"

"No eneral said "Then why is the Great Forum surrounded?" the Expansionist demanded

"For the protection of the Senate," the Euen so incensed He seeh he had lost his usual boundless reserve of calm The biosuit&039;s optics had always revealed the Ey to be more animated than an ordinary risen, but now they showed a heat in his face al man&039;s

"Protection?" the Expansionist sputtered "The Senate is surrounded, its contact with the rest of the capital cut off This is nothing but bald intimidation"

"I assure you, Senator, no eneral said flatly "Not without due order by this council"

"There&039;ll be civil war if they do," Ax Milnk said "And all of us will lose everything"

The plagueman raised his eyebrows That much was true The Ee between gray and pink, the dead and the living, military and economic power The military forces stationed on Hoile ray Any ainst the Senate would be met with an equal counterforce A disaster

"Please, let us calm ourselves," Henders insisted, obviously flustered at his fellow senators&039; abuse of the sovereign "Sire, what is this attack you speak of?"

The E to calm himself "Of course, we must explain No doubt events today may have seemed precipitous But we are sure that once you&039;ve heard the facts you will understand our actions"

The pink senators and Milnk responded with stony silence

The risen general leaned forward, gesturing to bring an iuenized it from her trial, clipped fro the trial of Senator Nara Oxha transmitted from the Senate floor The virus used the newsfeed as a carrier wave, instantly affecting a small but vulnerable portion of the capital&039;s populace The virus caused nausea, seizures, paralysis We believe that the effect would have spread to the entire population had the broadcast continued Fortunately, the Apparatus acted quickly, shutting off the attack at its source"

The council chaeneral&039;s words The plagueman quietly searched the database within his biosuit He found references to visual stie of hu that could be hidden inside a noreneral&039;s words were true

"This sounds incredible," the Utopian said "Nothing but a pretext for silencing Senator Oxhaueman and Milnk "We heard more than you did, before ere summoned away After the newsfeed was cut, Oxha his sister And she claims that the symbiant&039;s immortality is a lie"

"Incredible stories see, then why concoct this story to cut her off?" the Expansionist senator countered

"The palace had nothing to do with the decision," the Emperor said "As I said, the reat pain They acted in self-preservation"

"That ueman said quietly "Oxham&039;s words seemed to have effected the Apparatus in particular"

The Elare It was rare for the representative to speak at all, and the sovereign had counted the Axis as an ally throughout the war, especially since the vote on the Legis genocide

"That may be," the dead admiral said "We don&039;t understand exactly how the virus works or who is susceptible But we suspect who is behind it"

"And that would be?" the Utopian said

"Oxhaeneral said

"You have proof of this?" Ax Milnk deet the proof," the Emperor said

"This is utterly transparent," the Utopian said flatly

The plague his time The members of the War Council would soon lose all civility, but that hardly mattered The details of whatever Oxham had discovered were, in their way, unimportant as well This drama would ultimately be played out in other venues The pressures that had been too long restrained in the Empire would shortly be released, violently and disruptively, thattihty Worlds The Rix, with their blockade, their wars, had finally won

But the plagueamble would allow him one last act of penance here on the council It was clear that the sovereign would call for a vote, thinking he had five a that under cover of the War Council he could ainst the Senate, and keep the whole unwieldy contraption of the E for a few ueht to himself Not just with this vote to save her, but with all it would bring As ress, and the Old Enee," he muttered to himself

Laurent Zai looked down upon the object

At this point in the Lynx&039;s slow rotation, its dark bulk was beneath his feet, barely discernible through the observation blister&039;s high-irown ever is sun receded Now, the object wasone quarter of the universe

The Lynx was still studiously avoiding coate&039;s mass detectors were the only sensors trained on its position; mass was the one aspect of itself the object couldn&039;t nal the Lynx Zai felt safer this way, cut off froht the Empire to the brink of civil war

Now, the only h the slender connection it had established with Herd The Rixwoman spoke for it like some ancient oracle: as expressionless andstatue, an intermediary with the deity

But Zai knew that this prophylaxis couldn&039;t be maintained forever The object was too tenacious and resourceful, too capable of unanticipated configurations And the Lynx was too porous: It was fundaather inforet in sooner or later, would reach Zai&039;s crew just as it had reached Herd

He would have to tell them The cre that Zai had disarmed thp nnlitirals on board, so thev would eventually have to know about the E civil war Their native worlds would be thrown into chaos soon Zai and his lover had lit a match that would consuht star rise slowly on his left, still two subjective years away, and wondered as going on at the Foruo, threatening sixteen hundred years of stability The Apparatus&039;s reaction would be swift and desperate, but Nara Oxham was a Senator, and would not be easily silenced

Laurent Zai had burned seven percent of the Lynx&039;s entangle to keep track of the develop If the signs were to be believed, the Eainst the Senate Zai hoped that the other ues and confidants within the h this unharmed She and the Senate would certainly need allies to survive the nextterm, Zai believed, victory would be theirs

The Apparatus would do what it could to forestall the spread of the Secret, but their efforts could only be stopgap The data on pilgries were public; once examined, rumors would turn swiftly into accepted fact And the Secret revealed would strain even the greatest loyalty Few religions could withstand the news that heaven was, in fact, a lie Temporary

Zai wondered what had led the Emperor down this path Five hundred extra years of life was hardly a trivial boon Presun had si that the syion had been built on the concept that the Old Enens of the error had been detected, perhaps it had been too late for such anow

If the sovereign chose to fight, the E time The Apparatus could easily keep a fearships, perhaps even a majority of the fleet, in the dark for years Vessels could be ordered into deep cover for decades, receiving only censored information from the outside universe But slowly, the truth would chip away at the loyalists, the conditioned, the willfully blind Though some of the ardless of his lies, the Eighty Worlds would turn against him one by one And ould follow this civil war? A republic? A new sovereign? It ht take decades to resolve the question of succession

The Lynx&039;s problem was more i them were under orders to destroy the object, Zai, and his ship One had to assume that they&039;d been under deep cover from the start of their mission--and Imperial writs were difficult code to subvert In a few years Absolute, they would be closing with the Lynx, their velocities almost ate could not outrun them Outnumbered, with a half-untrained crew and an iain

He needed an ally, and he was alone in deep space

All he had was the object

He reached doard the absence below hiainst the absolute blackness of the thing He pulled off the glove, and gazed upon the s in the Eht man Laurent Zai knehat it was to be half machine

And he wanted to return to Home; that was all that mattered That hat hadelse-- honor, tradition, sovereign, and immortality itself--was stripped away, he had love to return to

Nara

"Bridge"

"Captain?" Hobbes&039;s voice came

"Assee?"

"As good a place as any"

"Any prep, Captain?"

"Consider contact with the object, Hobbes, an alliance of convenience with the Rix Consider how to fight a guerrilla war in a cru Empire Consider how best to explain to our crew that death is final, and that we allone "On it, sir"

Senator

The four officers entered the Great Foru in another&039;s territory They clearly didn&039;t want to be here, coression