"Are you absolutely sure about this?" Steel flashed in Chief Cowen's eyes.
Ladon felt as uneasy as if he were staring into the barrels of a loaded double-barreled pistol.
"Everything I told you, Chief, is completely true," he said, feeling his mouth become as dry and foul as the planet Commander Kolya's fighters had ended up on instead of Athos not so long ago. "That's exactly how it all happened on that planet."
"Interesting," Chief Cowen leaned back in his chair, folding his hands over the belly that protruded from beneath his Genii uniform. "Uncharacteristic behavior for Commander Kolya and his soldiers."
Ladon glanced at the two guards of Cowen's Guard standing beside their leader. They had never participated in off-world missions with Koli's special forces battalion. And that was probably why they were present at this meeting. Cowen was far from a fool; he understood that the best way to ask questions about the special battalion commander's activities was far from the ears of his loyal fighters.
Commander Kolya, like many other commanders of various Genii units, rulers of prefectures, or simply significant individuals in their society, commanded respect in certain circles. His intelligence, his cunning, his ability to make enemies suffer attracted equally harsh and unceremonious Genii. Some openly expressed their support for him, while others, on the contrary, kept their preferences quiet. Whether a Genii belonged to the upper classes or was an ordinary citizen, soldier, farmer, miner, or worker—that was precisely what determined whether he could openly declare himself a supporter of Koli or not.
Radim had no doubt that Chief Cowen's Guard was as loyal to him as one Genii could be to another. They had many advantages over other people in their society: better clothes, better food, comfortable living conditions.
Serving in the Guard was a privilege that the majority of Genii could never obtain.
But right now, a question arose in Ladon's mind: was all of Chief Cowen's Guard truly loyal to him?
A long time had passed since they had visited that "peaceful planet," as Chief Cowen had called it in his question. Mission reports had long since been written, submitted to the reviewers, censored, and placed in the archives.
But for some reason, Chief Cowen had decided to summon him for a conversation right now, when the search for a path to Athos had been called off. Just like the search for a path to Ermen. And while the first decision hit Chief Cowen's reputation—the violators of the trade agreement had escaped due punishment for their deeds—the second... Commander Tyrus enjoyed great respect among the Genii, no less than Koli. And for a scientist to achieve that was oh-so difficult.
Tyrus had promoted the program of creating atomic bombs for subsequent use as a weapon of preemptive strike against Wraith ships. He had been involved, to one degree or another, in various projects, including searches of technologically advanced planets that had suffered catastrophes. And why hide it—he was a genius who had managed to decode the data in the Wraith data storage device that the Genii possessed, in order to find a way to attack a Wraith Hive Ship!
And his disappearance, along with the loss of an entire squad of guards engaged in studying the ruins on Ermen, had left behind a great many questions. And the least of them was the desire of some commanders to learn where the rest of the Ermen legacy was. Commander Kolya hadn't asked too many questions about the disappearance of those Genii. Which was rather strange, considering the fact that, apart from Tyrus, it was his people, the fighters of the special forces battalion, who had disappeared first. Koli had personally trained every one of them.
And he couldn't help but ask questions about why his people couldn't return from what seemed like a routine mission.
The trend of disrupting development and revenge plans had significantly increased the distrust of commanders at various levels toward Cowen. Perhaps the disappearance of Tyrus and the Genii squad on Ermen, the disappearance of spies and scientists on Taranis, the inability to find even a world of hunters and gatherers, had begun to overflow the cup of Koli's and his allies' patience. And they had begun, one way or another, to ask Cowen questions.
This was a dangerous situation. As such, Cowen couldn't have known that something might happen on those planets that would render the Genii unable to reach those worlds. But at the same time, he had authorized each of these operations, and therefore had assumed absolutely all the risks.
And while the puzzling inaccessibility of the Athosians could still be sorted out, Ermen and Taranis... The loss of such a large number of trained Genii hit Chief Cowen's authority harder than if he had killed them himself in the main cave of their home world in front of the entire population.
Simply because no one knew what had happened to these people. No plausible guesses. Much less any facts.
Given that each of the missing Genii knew the address of their home world perfectly well—children in the Pegasus galaxy were taught this as soon as they reached a young age—an unknown danger could come to the home world. And the fact that Chief Cowen and no one else knew the reason for the disappearance of these Genii only made it scarier.
And it made people believe less in the prudence of their command. Even the information that had spread among the Genii—that soon everything that was happening with Ermen, Taranis, and Athos would become clear—could no longer restore Chief Cowen's former authority.
People whispered that he had become too arrogant and foolish, that he was literally sending valuable assets—those he feared—to their deaths. The fact that Chief Cowen had never been to those worlds where the missing groups had been sent was also whispered about. In the context that Cowen had intelligence operations very well established. And if the spies had learned that there was something on those planets that even the fighters and scientists of the special forces battalion couldn't handle, then why wouldn't Cowen arrange for them to be sent there without that information?
Conspiracy theories and paranoia weren't rare among the Genii. In a closed collective, a lack of education and information could turn almost any stupidity into an explosive situation.
Which, as Ladon understood, was exactly what was happening now.
"What do you think, Ladon," the Genii scientist was genuinely surprised that Chief Cowen knew his name without glancing at a piece of paper. "What is the reason for such uncharacteristic behavior from Commander Kolya? I need the correct answer."
"Uncharacteristic?" Radim was struck by a very dangerous thought.
Cowen could use his words to accuse Commander Kolya of something. It didn't matter what—as long as there was an opportunity, and an accusation could always be fabricated. The Genii had done it more than once.
The fighters of the special forces battalion would never say anything against Commander Kolya—neither about his actions nor his orders. Getting anything out of them that could compromise Koli was simply impossible.
They were loyal to him to their last breath.
Radim, on the other hand, was not a special battalion fighter. He was primarily a scientist and was attached to this unit to replace the prematurely lost Tyrus and his people. Radim only obeyed Koli on missions, not back in the bunker of the home world.
And, of course, Cowen was perfectly aware that he could end Radim's life. Literally, right here and now.
Or make it unbearable.
Or, on the contrary, make it better.
He had just said so directly—he needed the "correct" answer, not an honest one.
"My report states, Chief, that in those worlds we visited, nothing could improve the lives of the Genii," Radim reminded him cautiously. "And that report has already passed through all levels."
No, he wasn't threatening Cowen. At least, not directly.
He was reminding him that if Radim changed his words now, there would always be those who could refute them. Even if he rewrote the report, even if the original was replaced, even if no one believed the dozens of soldiers from Koli's special battalion who would inevitably come forward to refute outright lies...
"I'm not asking about what was written in the report, scientist Radim," Cowen said. "I'm asking why your squad, knowing you might never return to that peaceful planet, didn't take everything from them that could have been useful to the Genii? Or did you lie by saying there was no way to find the address of that planet?"
"My words are true, Chief Cowen," Radon shook his head. "It is impossible to learn the address of a planet that its own inhabitants do not know. To get there again... We tried, Chief. Four squads from different planets dialed the Athos address to get there. We lost all four. And until contact with them was lost, until they stopped sending reports about the worlds they visited while dialing Athos, my theory was just a theory. But judging by the reports, none of the squads, after we left Athos, ever visited that 'peaceful planet.'"
"Or, on Koli's orders, they reached that planet and decided not to return," Cowen looked at him reproachfully. "You're a smart man, Radim. And you don't answer to Commander Kolya. You're my man. And I respect scientists."
Ladon barely suppressed a bitter laugh. Respect? Genii scientists died more often than soldiers. And surely many could have been saved if even the smallest group of scientists had been set to work on the medical database from Ermen. It was simply foolish to throw all their efforts into the atomic project, studying it from different angles.
"Is what I said possible, Radim?" Chief Cowen asked.
"I don't know," he admitted. "After the mission to the 'peaceful planet,' Commander Kolya used the gates of four other planets to dial the Athos address four times faster. And then, within two weeks, all four groups went through the gates to two or three dozen planets, after which they disappeared one by one," Cowen said. "Koli gathered his people outside the home world. Purportedly," the Chief emphasized the word, "to search for the missing. But his real goals might differ from the announced ones. Can you verify in practice whether we can reach that unknown world, or any other world we ended up on instead of Athos?"
"That requires empirical experiments," Ladon said cautiously. "The only way to test such a hypothesis is to dial the Athos address, go through the gate, and see which world we end up in."
"And to understand whether the special battalion fighters were there or not, we need someone who has already participated in such missions," Cowen narrowed his eyes.
"Otherwise, the reconnaissance process would take about twice as long," Radim acknowledged. "First they'd have to go through to a series of planets, document them, and only on the second round, if it exists at all, would it be possible to compare..."
"Enough, scientist Radim," Cowen raised his hand. "From this moment on, you, with the support of my Guard, will be working on this project."
"Yes, but Commander Kolya will be displeased," Ladon threw out, as if casually. "He believed that the redirection of the Athos gates, as well as the disappearance of the Ermen and Taranis groups, were connected and..."
"Enough, scientist Radim," steel entered Cowen's voice. "Commander Kolya is not your concern. He won't cause any problems, at least for the foreseeable future, perhaps forever. You will depart for one of our secret bases on other planets and, with the support of my Guard, begin the work. I want to know everything about the gate redirection. That is your priority task. And you absolutely must handle it. The longer you take to figure it out, the less you'll like the reward. Is that clear, scientist Radim?"
"Yes, Chief Cowen," Ladon confirmed, swallowing. He clearly understood what the leader of all Genii had not said directly. About the redirection, about the "peaceful planet," and about the real reason the Guard would be assigned to him. "However... I can't do it alone."
"Forgot how to dial a gate address with your own hands, Radim?" Cowen's eyebrows rose in a disapproving motion.
"Anyone can dial an address," the Genii scientist said. "But to figure it out... One scientist is a speck in the ocean. I need more people."
"Not when completing the atomic project is the priority," Cowen cut him off. "You won't get a single scientist. We're so close to stability..."
"I understand and am encouraged that our weapon against the Wraiths will soon be completed," Ladon put on a face of admiration and joy. "And the last thing I want is to interfere. That's why I'm not talking about a male scientist at all."
Cowen bored into him with his small, angry eyes.
"Your sister."
"Yes, Chief. She..." Ladon almost blurted out that his sister knew as much about the sciences as he did. It wasn't worth saying that aloud—the attitude toward women among the majority of Genii was quite practical. And even more so toward female scientists. That was actually why he hoped Cowen would meet him halfway. A week ago, Dahlia had discovered a couple of errors in her colleague's calculations, which could have led the repair of the main reactor to cause even more damage. And, to put it mildly, her colleagues hadn't praised her for it. Neither had Chief Cowen himself. But the one who had taken credit for her work—yes. "She can help me. As an assistant," he added hastily. "I believe your Guard is the best of the best, but I'm not sure they'll make capable engineering or physics assistants."
"Fine," Cowen made it clear with his tone that this was the only concession he intended to make. "You have two hours to pack and prepare for the journey. Take everything you need. If you don't make it..."
He looked at Ladon in a way that made everything inside him freeze.
"We'll make it," Radim promised.
"In your own best interest," Cowen snorted. "You're dismissed."
* * *
The medical scanner reached her feet, illuminating them with a green light that created a lattice pattern on the skin. Then the equipment moved back, returning to the head of the patient lying on the Ancient bed.
"I thought she wasn't hurt," Kirik said, tension in his voice as he approached us. "Saya performed perfectly in battle."
"Exactly," I agreed. "You're the one who told us about the red eyes, weren't you?"
"Well... Yes."
"The red color of her augmentics in her eyes activates when she switches to combat mode," Ihaar, standing beside me, explained.
"I know, but..."
"The EMP field was active," I reminded him. "She tore through the Wraiths like a rag doll right in the jamming zone that disabled all technology. Even Lantean. And yet her cybernetic parts worked perfectly."
"Which is supposed to be impossible," Ihaar added. Then, looking at me, the chief engineer faltered:
"Or so we thought until now."
"Is it dangerous?" Kirik asked. "The fact that she can do that—could it cause any problems?"
"For us or for the enemies?" I clarified, pondering whether a cyborg could see through an Ancient equivalent of Gizello's mirror. Yes, her eyes weren't burning with hellfire now, but after the battle... It was precisely the periodic red flashes in her eyes that had made us very tense.
Well, and then Kirik, along with the Nomads who had fought alongside her, told us a lot of interesting things.
The former "runner" didn't have time to answer. The door to the observation room for the isolation ward opened, and Seliz came over to us. Bestowing a charming, childishly naive smile on her guardian, she looked at me and said:
"The scan is finished."
"Results?" I inquired.
"You need to see this," the girl said mysteriously, heading toward the main monitor.
Saya lay calmly on the medical bed, staring straight ahead at the ceiling without moving. She was completely unconcerned with what was happening, just as she was unconcerned with the considerable surprise she had presented us with.
"Here," the girl pointed to the outline of a human body, identified with the cyborg's body. The results had marks in the places where the augmented devices had been replaced with our own analogues. Some of them were glowing yellow, some orange, and others bright red. Except for one, which looked like a dark spot with red outlines. At first it didn't catch the eye, but Seliz pointed at it with her finger. A manicured finger with a filed nail. Clearly, the child was going through a stage of growing up. I supposed that among the female residents living on Atlantis, some had told her about these kinds of girly things. That was good. On the other hand, it would have been amusing to watch Kirik explain to his ward the reasons why every girl "dies" once a month.
"And what is it?" the former "runner" asked.
"What ensured her operation within the suppressing radiation of the EMP field," she said. "A neuroprocessor built on a hybrid Lantean and Salumai technology managed to withstand eight minutes and thirty-one seconds of operation under the EMP. After which it burned out—when you turned the field off. I performed the scan immediately after she returned and was ordered to look into it. So..."
"Wait," Ihaar interrupted her. "If the neuroprocessor was fried, and that's exactly what happened—I examined it myself after extraction—then where do these conclusions come from? She must have a different one installed now."
"I implanted it," Seliz confirmed. Leaning aside slightly, she pointed to the isolation ward at the end of the medical bay. "And then I asked her to come with me to one of the junk-filled hangars on the big pier that hasn't been cleared yet. And I turned on the EMP..."
"You did what?!" I tensed up. "Where did you even get a generator?!"
"That's what you needed it for," Ihaar rolled his eyes. "And here I was thinking..."
"Hold on a second, guys," I asked. "Did you turn on an EMP generator within the city limits? At a time when it could have caused power interruptions and the destruction of the shield! We would have been flooded!"
Judging by Seliz's frightened face, I had just given her some very unpleasant information. Which she hadn't thought of.
But worst of all was that the "manufacturer" of the EMP generator hadn't thought of it either.
"Ihaar..."
"What 'Ihaar'?" he erupted unexpectedly. "The prototype was already practically fried anyway! A sphere two meters in radius was all it could produce, and even then, for maybe a minute. Seliz asked for the device for testing, I delivered it to the hangar. There's nothing in the EMP's radius of effect that could have caused critical damage to the city. Why, whenever something like this happens in the city, am I the first one asked? I'm an engineer, damn it, Chaya's the one in charge of the city! Why do I have to think about the city, both battleships, the generators, the drilling rig, the satellite, how to lift the downed 'Strelas'..."
"Ihaar," Kirik coughed into his fist. "Don't."
"I will!" the young man flared up. "I sleep two hours a day! And that's the maximum! I get pulled from one project to another! As if we don't have enough technical personnel! Oh right," he grimaced, "we don't have enough! When I asked for more technicians to be revived from stasis, you revived one technician and two deck crew members because you needed people for the ships and..."
"Ihaar," the chief engineer stopped short as he met my gaze. "Calm down. Just calm down. My indignation is because no one knew what the two of you had done. I take it Chaya isn't aware of this little lab experiment?"
"No," Ihaar looked crestfallen. "She's got no fewer problems than I do. She was in the lab, studying what could be done with that shadow entity that absorbs energy. I decided not to distract her and... Fine, I admit, I was stupid," he reluctantly conceded. "But it's easier for me to do what's asked of me than to constantly coordinate and explain things. I understand the danger, and I wouldn't have done it if there was a chance of problems."
"I understand," I nodded. "When we're done here, you're getting a day off."
"What's that supposed to mean?" the chief engineer tensed. "Another project like the EMP generator?"
"No. A day off means a day free from work."
"And what am I supposed to do then?" the engineer was bewildered.
"Rest," I announced. "It seems we all need it."
Another oversight on my part.
People, even Ancients, aren't robots. They're resilient enough, but they have limits to their functionality. I should have thought of this earlier. Because of my actual uselessness for the city's needs, I got plenty of sleep. But as for the fact that everyone else was working like the damned, my "progressive" brain hadn't bothered to consider it.
I looked at Chaya, at Trebal, and thought everything was somehow running itself...
"Well... all right," Ihaar scratched the back of his head. "I'll work on the EMP generator's problems then, instead of doing a hundred things at once."
Fine, I'd communicate the "day off" policy to the personnel a little later.
"Let's get back to Saya," I requested. "Did you burn out another neuroimplant?"
"That's just it— no," Seliza said. "Her augmentics simply shut off. As they should have. Or rather, part of them didn't even turn on at all because it was damaged. That wasn't visible in the first scan, which I did just now."
"So we're looking at the results of the first scan, right after the battle?" I clarified.
"Yes, so you could observe the changes dynamically. And yes, the EMP generator prototype is finally out of commission."
"That's what prototypes are for," Ihaar waved his hand. "I built it literally on a whim. Didn't fully understand all the circuits and..." he fell silent, and his face grew long. Throwing a cautious glance toward the immobile cyborg, he shuddered. "Looks like I messed something up when manufacturing the first neuroimplant. It's the key component in all her augmentics. It seems it absorbed the radiation and worked itself to the bone to keep the combat mode from turning off. So why didn't she last the full ten minutes?"
"Not all our groups entered the EMP field at once," Kirik recalled. "First they fired from sniper rifles, then switched to close combat when the Wraiths scattered."
"So that's why it was eight and a half minutes," I realized. "A minute and a half to descend from the hills into the undergrowth."
"In short, my theory is that the Neuroimplant managed to withstand the EMP's effects, but only by enhancing the biological, not the cybernetic, part of the organism," Celise said. "She has extensive soft tissue damage, internal organ trauma, but not mechanical damage. It's as if she was being drained from the inside — by her own body."
"The Neuroimplant tried to compensate for the loss of augments through biological enhancement," I assessed. "But how is that even possible? The field suppresses all technology."
"It suppresses Lantian and Wraith stuff, and other advanced tech," Ihaar corrected. "Weaker tech just goes haywire. Burns out or something similar. During assembly, I tested a prototype on Athos with some Nomad equipment. Microchips and other components burned out."
"On Epheon, Ermen electronics just shut down."
"They're based on more advanced Sekkari technology," Ihaar reminded me. "Better insulation, better soldering, better materials, and so on. The EMP generator affects the equipment's own electromagnetic field. The better the shielding, the less chance it burns out. Actually, that's why we can't build a big EMP cannon and blast the Asurans with it to burn out their nanites like Chaya did with the prototypes. What the Asurans created is EMP-proof. At least against ours."
And they won't let us move the device from Epheon — the "kiddies" have already started moving into the ruined city and are guarding the thing like the apple of their eye.
"So what actually happened to her?" I asked, looking at Saya.
"The Neuroprocessor, when it receives a command, activates combat mode, and the biological part obeys it," Celise explained. "It's like an on switch. Press once — start the process. Press again — turn it off. When Saya entered the EMP field, the hybrid technology of the implants made for her burned out. But the program remained. So she kept working, compensating for the lack of augments with the body's biological resources. When we removed the Neuroimplant and installed a new one, the combat command deactivated. I scanned her the first time and saw the rest of the augments had taken damage too. And not mechanical damage. I think she could even rely on them for a while, until most of them just burned out. What's more," the girl changed the image. It looked almost the same as the first one, except the dark spot of the Neuroimplant was now glowing green. "After she was in the second EMP field, no other implants burned out. They turned off as they were supposed to. Well, the ones that were still working by the time of the test."
"Then why did the implants burn out the first time instead of just turning off?" I still didn't understand.
"Because these," Ihaar pointed at the red spots, "and these, and actually all the ones that aren't green — are hybrid implants. I used old tech as a base and improved it to test effectiveness. But these," he pointed at the ones glowing green, "are pure Lantian manufacture. Not a gram of Salumai technology."
"With corresponding EMP shielding?"
"Yeah," Ihaar scowled. "I... It just slipped my mind that not all the prototypes were Lantian. Working on them takes a lot of time, so I figured we'd only replace the key components... Yes, I know," he winced, catching my disapproving look. "I screwed up. But you needed quick results, and I have a ton of projects!"
A chill ran down my spine.
I had been the one to convince Saya that her new implants were purely our own development. And I had released her from the Stasis Pod fully confident of that.
I'd seen what she did to the Wraiths. How fast could she have killed me and Chaya on Athos if those "hybrid" implants had proven not to be what I said they were?
My heart sank at the thought of how close we'd come to death. Because of...!!!
There's no point in arguing or assigning blame here. My initiatives have pushed everyone around me so hard that they're starting to make very serious mistakes.
And that's entirely my fault. I really need to slow the pace down. Or else, revive as many people as possible.
"Do we have any pure Lantian implants?" I asked.
"Making a whole set will take, maybe, a week or two," Ihaar admitted. "Creating the necessary mini-crystals requires diamonds of a certain purity, which we don't have a lot of. That's actually why I made the hybrids..."
The Chief Engineer guiltily looked away when he heard me reflexively take a deep breath.
"I'll get on it on my day off," he assured me, looking at the scan data.
"We need to think about how to use this resistance effect," I said. "If we can make it permanent, we'll have protection from our own weapons. And then we could, for example, create EMP mines or EMP cannons that would be useful against Wraith ships."
"Uh-huh," Ihaar muttered. "If we had whole mountains of Naquadah to make thousands of mines with a field radius the size of a Cruiser. Of course, any spaceship caught in that radiation would just fly through it by inertia, so we'd need a very large minefield..."
But the idea has merit! Like ion cannons in "Star Wars"!
We wouldn't have to waste munitions destroying Wraith ships. Fire the ion cannons, disable them, and voila, finish them off with impulse cannons! A wonderful idea, really!
Only the skepticism on the Chief Engineer's face tells me that implementing ideas like that would require building a huge automated factory. And an entire planet of Naquadah for millions of space EMP mines.