This Day All Gods Die by Stephen R. Donaldson Read Free Book Online

Chief Mandich for answers. Perhaps he realized that no question he could ask would search the Chief more intimately than Mandich searched himself.
    Nevertheless Chief Mandich considered it his duty to report first.
    "I'm still waiting to hear from DA, sir," he began. "I can't account for what happened myself." That admission came awkwardly for him. His sense of culpability was plain on his blunt face. "We took every precaution I know of. Retinal scans. Every kind of EM probe we have available." The kind of scanning which Angus Thermopyle had been constructed and equipped to circumvent. "Full id tag and credential background verifications. For everybody on the island. And everybody who arrived or left. The kaze still got through. He must have been legit—
    even though that's supposed to be impossible.
    "Since then it's been up to DA. I've sealed the island.
    Nobody in or out—
    except our own people. Some of the Mem-
    bers are squalling about it." The Chief shrugged. He had no qualms about discomfiting the Members. "They want to go hide. But if whoever is behind this is on Suka Bator, I'm going to make sure he stays there. So we can find him."
    Hashi nodded his approval. He knew that no direct evidence would be found on the island. A chemical trigger released on a preconditioned signal by a man in a state of drug-induced hypnosis would leave no traceable data. Nevertheless he wished to be certain that the responsible individual would not escape.
    Casually he asked, "Has the Dragon's estimable First Executive Assistant posed any objection?"
    "No," Chief Mandich retorted.
    Of course not. In such matters Holt Fasner's aides and cohorts preserved an illusion of complete cooperation.
    "I haven't had time to study the reports," Warden put in.
    "Cleatus Fane attended the session?"
    He did not appear to be taken aback.
    "Oh, yes," Koina answered before the Chief could speak.
    Hashi suspected that she held Mandich blameless and wished to spare him unnecessary chagrin. She was capable of such consideration, even when her own chagrin ran high. "I was surprised to see him. So were quite a few of the Members.
    "Several of them had the impression he was there because he knew why Captain Vertigus had claimed Member's privilege. That doesn't make sense to me. I don't see how anyone could have known what Captain Vertigus had in mind"
    —
    she held Warden's gaze without faltering—
    "unless he told
    them. But Fane was there anyway, emitting bonhomie like toxic radiation."
    Hashi chuckled pleasantly at her transparent dislike for the UMC First Executive Assistant.
    Still facing Warden, she said, "You know what happened." She made no pretense that this was a question. "Captain Vertigus used his privilege to introduce a Bill of Severance. He wants to dissolve us as a branch of the UMC

    and reconstitute us as an arm of the GCES."
    For his part Warden made no pretense that he had been caught unaware.
    "Fane raised a number of objections," she stated. "Then he called on me to support him. I announced formally that our position on such matters was one of complete neutrality. I gave our reasons. Fane didn't seem to like them much."
    "I'm sure he didn't," the UMCP director remarked acerbically. "Maybe that explains why he's been trying to call me"—
    Warden indicated his intercom—
    "every twenty min-
    utes for the past two hours. Fortunately I've been too busy to talk to him."
    Maybe: maybe not. Hashi could think of at least one alternative rationale for Cleatus Fane's calls.
    Apparently Koina could not. Or she saw no reason to redirect her account of the session. "After that," she resumed,
    "Director Lebwohl spotted the kaze. He still hasn't told any of us how he managed that. But if he hadn't been there, a lot more people would have died. Some of the Members might have been killed.
    "As it was, the cost was high enough." Complex fears darkened her tone. "GCES Security lost a man. An ED Security ensign lost a hand. And we lost the bill. I suppose the