Stephen R. Donaldson - This Day All Gods Die: The Gap Into Ruin (Gap Series, 5)

I wish to thank Douglas A. Van Belle and Mark Woolrichas well as the entire HIT-listfor their efforts to relieve some of my ignorance. The Dancing Wu Li Masters would be proud of them. Any evidence of incomprehension which remains is entirely my own responsibility.

I t was typical of Hashi Lebwohl that he did not report to Warden Dios as soon as he returned to UMCPHQ.

He wasnt trying to avoid another confrontation with the man who had outplayed and, in a strange, piquant sense, shamed him. On the contrary, he felt remarkably sanguine about the prospect of talking to the UMCP director. He simply made no effort to bring about a conversation himself. He assumed that Warden Dios was perfectly capable of recognizing an emergency when he saw itand that he wouldnt hesitate to summon Hashi when he wished to speak to his DA director.

A kaze had attacked the Governing Council for Earth and Space in extraordinary session, apparently intending to exterminate Cleatus Fane, the First Executive Assistant of the United Mining Companies. Only Hashis personal intervention had prevented seriousnot to say embarrassingbloodshed. And as a direct result of the attack the GCES had voted to reject Captain Sixten Vertigus Bill of Severance. Indeed, the Members had been stampeded into clinging to the status quo for their lives; to Holt Fasner and the UMCP. None of them had wanted to take on the responsibility for their own safetyand certainly not for the safety of human space.

If Warden didnt call this an emergency, he must have lost all contact with the world of factual reality. Or else his game was deeper than anything Hashi had dared to imagine. Perhaps it was deeper than he could imagine.

Neither prospect offered reassurance. On the whole, however, Hashi preferred the latter. That which he found impenetrable today might well appear transparent tomorrow. And he could always push himself to expand his own capacities. The challenge might conceivably be good for him. In the meantime he could endure the shame of being outplayed.

But if Warden Dios had lost his grasp on events

From that fount endless disasters might spring.

This was all speculation, of course. Still Hashi wonderedand worried. The quantum mechanics of his conundrum remained as Heisenberg had defined them. By his own efforts he had taken hold of events in flux in order to name them accurately; establish them in their positions. Therefore he was prevented from knowing where those events tended. Certainty precluded certainty.

He chose not to report to Warden on his own initiative because he wanted to know how long Warden would wait before summoning him. That interval would reveal more surely than words the extent to which Warden had been taken by surprise.

In any case the DA director still had plenty of work to do in order to ready himself for Wardens summons; to confirm and solidify what hed learned on Suka Bator. No one would criticize him for spending every available moment on an effort to be sure of his facts.

Using a tight-beam transmission coded exclusively for Data Acquisition, hed begun speaking to Lane Harbinger as soon as the UMCP shuttle had left the GCES island and broken free of Earths gravity well; supplying her with preliminary data; preparing her for the research he required. He felt some discomfort as he did so because he wasnt alone on the shuttle. Protocol Director Koina Hannish rode with him, accompanied by her retinue of aides and techs. And UMCPED Chief of Security Mandich was also aboard: he was on his way to explain his failures to Warden Dios, since his immediate superior, Min Donner, was absent from UMCPHQ. Hed left Deputy Chief Forrest Ing in charge of Securitys version of martial law on Suka Bator.

At the best of times Hashi disliked being overheardunless he had some use for his eavesdropper. But his present circumstances didnt supply privacy, or justify delay. He owed Warden restitution for his earlier mistakes. Instead of waiting for the shuttle to reach UMCPHQ, he kept his exchanges with Lane as brief as possible; and when he spoke, he employed the impermeable jargon of DA to disguise what he was saying.

To all appearances Koina ignored him completely. No doubt she had more than enough to occupy her contemplations. Although she was new to her duties, shed acquitted herself admirably during the extraordinary session. And she had reason to be grateful to Captain Vertigus, despite the failure of his proposed legislation. On the other hand, Hashi deemed that most of her thoughts were more troubled. He knew her well enough to suspect that she feared her performance before the Council may have triggered or catalyzed the kazes attack. For her it must have been easy to believe that the men whod sent a kaze against the GCES would not have felt compelled to go so far if they hadnt been surprised or frightened by her declaration of the UMCPs neutrality in the debate over a Bill of Severance; her declaration of Warden Dios independence from Holt Fasner.

Hashi knew better. Earlier hed been uncertain: now he was sure. Her performance may in fact have been a catalyst. Nevertheless it was essentially incidental. The men responsible for Clay Imposs n Nathan Alt could not have known that Sixten Vertigus, Senior Member for the United Western Bloc, would introduce a Bill of Severance. In addition, Imposs/Alt had been moving past Captain Vertigus toward Cleatus Fane when Hashi had accosted him. Therefore Captain Vertigus wasnt the intended target. The motivations behind the kazes attack operated independently of the UWB Senior Member and his bill, as well as of Warden Dios neutrality.