Lady A could feel no pain, but for the first time since leaving her flesh-and-blood body behind she knew what it was like to struggle physically against a force greater than herself. The Puritans, even with the power of their faith, were also struggling, and the sounds of their prayers grew louder over their spacesuit radios.
Centimeter by centimeter they crawled forward into the darkness, and the journey seemed to take an eternity. The strain was evident on all their faces as they battled the crushing gravitational force. But slowly, steadily, they crept along until at last they reached the desired point.
Tresa Clunard placed the bomb against the wall. She set the timer as she’d been instructed – but Lady A was watching her and suddenly protested.
“You only set that for a couple of minutes. That doesn’t give us enough time to get out of here,” she said.
Tresa Clunard looked at her with an other-worldly smile. “The others and I took a vote. We’re not leaving. We’re going to die here in God’s glory, serving His divine mission.”
“But I don’t believe in your stupid religion.”
“You will die as you deserve, here in the belly of your evil master,” Clunard said with smug simplicity.
“You’re mad,” Lady A exclaimed. Fighting the heavy gravity she staggered forward, trying to reach the timer controls on the bomb and reset it. Clunard, seeing this, pressed the button on the special detonator she had.
The small explosive charge planted in Lady A’s body went off, ripping the artificial flesh and sending fragments of the Galaxy’s most notorious woman flying in all directions. Thus did her dreams of galactic domination end in one explosive moment, and the supposedly immortal Aimée Amorat became little more than a twisted mass of metal and plastiderm.
Tresa Clunard turned to the other Puritans. Her face was calm, accepting. “My friends,” she said warmly, “let’s sing the praises of God and die with His name on our lips.”
Being buried beneath the surface of the asteroid, the nuclear explosion was not visible from the outside – but the electromagnetic radiation generated by the blast easily registered on the Navy’s sensor screens. The instant it was detected they disengaged from the combat and backed away out of range of the stations’ fire. A subcom message was beamed back to Earth, telling of the mission’s success.
The battle stations, being independently automated, did not stop functioning with the destruction of the PCC. They remained positioned in space around the dead hulk of their creator, ready to defend it from any external danger. They still represented a minor hazard to interstellar traffic, and the Navy would eventually send a large fleet of ships in to do a proper job of destroying them. But such a task could wait for a more convenient moment. There was no longer any hurry.
CHAPTER 15 A New Empire
The rebellion did not collapse with the demise of its leader; the PCC had planned too well and organized too efficiently for that. Rebel leaders on many worlds had solidified their positions during the computer’s direction of hostilities, and the Imperial forces – still recovering from the devastating blow they’d been dealt – were insufficiently equipped to dislodge them immediately.
But the unity and the superb coordination of rebel efforts that had been the hallmark of the revolution were now gone. There was no single leader with an overall vision to direct the uprising. Insurrectionists on one world no longer had instantaneous knowledge of events on other planets. Supplies could no longer be routed instantly to the places they were needed. The smartest of the rebel chiefs, realizing how important such coordination was, devised their own impromptu communications networks – but they were never as effective as when under PCC direction.
Slowly and unsteadily, at first, the Empire began taking back the planets it had lost. Both sides now had an equal disadvantage with lack of computer coordination.
The difference was that the Imperial forces were better trained than their opponents and had a cause to fight for, whereas the revolutionary armies were mostly mercenaries looking solely for personal profit. The rebel leaders had been chosen more for their organizational abilities than for their knowledge of military tactics, and in the campaign to hold what they’d taken they eventually made mistakes on which the Empire’s strategists could capitalize.
Working with its limited resources, the Empire would take seven years to clear away the last vestiges of the revolt and regain total control of the occupied planets once again. During that time, many people would suffer, many would fight, and altogether too many would die to preserve the idea of a unified human government throughout all of space. There would be many tales of personal courage and honor, and – as might be expected – d’Alemberts would figure in more than a few of them. But by the end of that seven years the Empire would have regained its strength and become as strong as ever – and even stronger, in fact, since it would not be nurturing a mechanical traitor in its very core.
But those were all considerations for the future in the days following the destruction of the PCC, and no one then could tell for certain how things would turn out. This was a time for plans and policymaking, and the highest-level thinkers on Earth were working overtime to salvage the concept of Empire. The military strategists were plotting campaigns to recover the lost worlds, and reprogramming the military computers at Luna Base to aid their studies. But by far the most serious planning was being done in the realm of the social sciences. The whole fabric of society had been ripped apart beyond mending; it would have to be rewoven from new threads, trying to maintain as much of the old pattern as possible.
Virtually all vital records had been erased from data banks around the Galaxy. There was no identification, no way of knowing when a person had been born, what grades he’d gotten in school, what his fingerprint and retinal patterns were, whether he’d ever been married and to whom, whether he’d ever had a criminal record, or what his medical history was. With the exception of well-known public figures, a person could be anyone he claimed to be – and while most people naturally stayed within their old social circles and had friends who could vouch for them, there were not a few who took advantage of the chaos to create new identities for themselves. It was a time of rebirth, and out of the ashes rose new opportunities for people to change their lives.
With all the financial records gone, human commerce came to a sudden halt. The Empress’s crash program in socialism provided life’s basic necessities for most people, but it could not be a long-term solution. Al ready black markets were springing up in nonessential items, despite the harsh imperial laws against profiteering. People could not be allowed to sit idle for long periods of time, or unrest would naturally result. Riots on top of rebellion could not easily be handled, and alternatives had to be found.
There was no way of telling whether the average person had been a billionaire or a bum, and so everyone would have to start out equally. Even the nobility, who could at least establish their own identity, could not claim more wealth than their family manors and the personal property they had had on hand at the time of the computer crash – and most of that, by edict, was now state property.
The first priority was to establish a medium of exchange. All the old coins and notes were declared invalid to prevent thievery, swindling, and speculation. The government asked people to turn in their coins for the metal content, although many collectors held on to them, knowing their value would skyrocket in future years.
The old rubles were replaced by units called “imperia.” The imperium was based, not on a standard of precious metals as had been done in the past, but on a standard of energy units that more fully reflected the actual cost of goods and services. Each duke was authorized to distribute temporary scrip until new bills could be printed and new coins minted. Financial computers were hurriedly reprogrammed to deal in the new money so credit transactions could take place. It was taken for granted that there would be a lot of counterfeiting at the beginning of the program – and that, too, was made a capital offense. The counterfeiting would taper off as the money was more in circulation and people grew more familiar with it.
The next step was to get people back to work, to start society functioning again. Of highest priority were people in essential services – police, firefighters, and medical workers. In most cases, workers in such fields knew several other people who could vouch for them, so only qualified people were placed in these vital positions. If a person claimed to be trained in one of those jobs – say as a doctor – but had no verifiable references, review boards were established to test the applicant’s proficiency in the field. This system assured at least a minimum level of services during the awkward transition phase.