JDB
— aborted the blow. Heejanus may fall before their scheme, but he wouldn't allow her to be
molested, even by an ally, especially by an ally who was betraying them all. So he had spied on
JDainB, spied because JDainB had pounced more quickly as jDub retired, pounced then consolidated
control over muscles and senses with feral skill and speed. JDB had never suspected that crazy
JDainB carried such primal force. So he had been relegated to spying, straining through that
pivot-memory he had shared with JDainB, but not relinquished, straining to connect through more and
more recent memories until he pried open a crack into the center of perception, like a view from
beneath the bleachers. Still, it had proved sufficient.
Overconfident, JDainB had pandered himself with lust, then sadism, a twisted draught of self- and
other-hatred that had shaken even JDainB. Consumed, distracted, he dropped his guard, and JDB had
wedged through. He gathered motor control like reins. He stoked muscles into spasms, cramping,
flexing, bombarding JDainB with kinesthetic feedback, swamping him, and knocking him back into lost
time, shrinking away to his own corner of their brain, leaving behind only JDB's memories. JDB had
made sure of that.
Now JDB straddled the center of perception and opened himself to the other senses that surrounded
him. Smell came on-line first with a reeking shock. He whiffed his nose clean, then sniffed
carefully again. Just cake — baked flour, loose sugar, apple-and-spice — and a trace of vanilla
— Heejanus herself. Now he could see: the anshin chief sprawled over the table in front of him.
Westering suns glared under his aircraft's porchroof and into his eyes. Then he could hear, not
much: the industrious squawks and creaks of nature, wind rising as the land cooled, maybe the
throated whine of a qi-che's motor.
What kind of threat lurks out there? JDB didn't rise to investigate. Those senses, so immense
after lost time, would only register the depth and breadth of zhuhndí poorly. Instead, he asked,
=jDub, what do you know about her patrolcraft now?=
Schematic lines swirled around him. A high-level view of Ganj Dareh spiraled down and down in
empty tones of sepia, focusing finally on a field at the direvnya's outskirts. There, two aircraft
nosed at each other. One, a symbolic patrolcraft, blazed in full color, down to the characteristic
red-and-white stripes. The point-of-view narrowed further and darted inside until JDB watched a
persistent-storage automaton actively receive and write data.
No lightning-strokes of communication connected the patrolcraft with Central Station. Why not?
The dry rattle of political expediency answered him. No point in embarassing Dain unless he really
were guilty. No wonder the consortium is collapsing like a sea-cliff eroded by the inevitable and
unchangeable elements.
A replay of Dain's voice, full of pompous guile, said, "By passing our test today, you made
yourself the prime candidate." The automaton sucked in the words and stored them as soundtrack.
Joining it, images showed infra-red schematics of people. One, identified as Heejanus, collapsed
onto the table. The other, identified as Dain, intervened.
=Can you destroy that storage?= JDB asked jDub.
A harsh buzzer denied capability while a red line of denial slashed across the schematic of his
aircraft.
Of course not, JDB realized. Dain could not provide himself with electronic offensive capability
on-planet, and it would've been suspicious to import it from off-planet. =How deeply buried is the
record-tek?=
A line poked into the patrolcraft. A legend read, "1.76 decameters."
=Intervening material?=
A bill-of-materials sprawled next to the patrolcraft, its title reading, "Standard aircraft
composite."
=Weaknesses?=
More data flowed at him, presented as results of destructive testing of materials, but JDB
dismissed them. He already knew his limitations. Nothing soft — cyber, electro-magnetic, sonic
— available. Illusion didn't work on infraware; only a hard attack would. Granted, those
offensive capabilities had been greatly expanded by the weapon Thy had bequeathed them last night,
but he also knew the risks of gunfire. Dain's research had revealed that the Yojin Suru's
infraware monitored Beobachtung worldwide for gunfire. Adding that alarm to those generated from
the arms caches might accelerate their response. Might. JDB remembered Dain's scorn for the Yojin
Suru, didn't completely share it, but admitted, I'm not impressed.
He glanced over at Heejanus' body, life evaporating out of it with each second. If I make her
disappear without a trace, her combine will divert most of its attention, looking for her, probably
long enough for us to attack at dawn. And then, they'll have their hands full defending their
direvnya, their positions, and their very lives. But I must neutralize that recording, destroy the
incriminating evidence. But how? Now he allowed himself to gaze outside, as much for inspiration
as information.
An air-raid siren blasted through his mind, riding the raucous carrier tone of the medulla modem,
as though ripping up the center of perception beneath him, releasing an unbearable stench. Why
would jDub do this to me? he managed to ask and —
