The Dance of Time

But he was already shaking his own head when Damodara interrupted him. "No point in that," the new emperor said. "Link will expect a radio transmission also. The fact that none took place last night will make it suspicious already. Perhaps there was a thunderstorm, of course, even if that's unlikely this time of year. Two nights in a row, impossible. It will immediately known something is wrong."

The eunuch took a deep, almost shuddering breath. "Damnation. It never occured to me that she might personally take the transmissions."

Damodara shrugged heavily. "There's a logic to it. I always wondered, a bit, why we were putting so much effort into these huge radio towers. The telegraph works well enough, for most purposes-and has fewer security problems. Now I know. Look where they are: Kausambi, the Punjab, and here. Nowhere else."

"Are we sure of that?" asked Sanga.

"Yes," growled Narses. "That much I am sure of. They're pla

"It makes perfect sense, Sanga," Damodara continued. "The basic function of these towers is to enable Link to control the empire. Well, not 'control' it so much as enable it to be sure if rebellion has begun."

Narses was still glaring at the apparatus. "I fooled that stinking bitch once. I bet I can…"

The words trailed off.

"Don't be stupid, old man," he muttered, to himself as much as to the other men in the room. "First, you don't know how to use the gadget. Even if you tried to learn-in a few hours?-you'd fumble something. The bitch would know right away someone other than one of her operators was at the other end. And even if you could do it, the last time you weren't trying to lie to her."

Sanga frowned at the door. "If we calmed down the operator…"

But, like Narses, he rebutted his own half-advanced plan. "Impossible. There'd be some sign of his agitation. Nothing we'd notice-or he himself, even-but the monster would."

He ran fingers through his thick, still-black hair. "Yes, that explains the radio towers. The telegraph is now too common, too widely spread. There's no way she could personally monitor even most of the transmissions, much less all of them. But with a few towers, located only in the empire's critical regions, she can. And there is no way-no way-to lie to her. To it, that is both greater and less than human."

He fell silent. Damodara rose from the chair he'd been sitting on and began pacing. He, also, was silent.

Eventually, Narses spoke.

"No help for it, then. We were pla

He spread his hands. "I grant you, it won't buy us more than a few days. But it's the best we can do."

Damodara stopped his pacing. "No."

He strode over to the apparatus, moving almost eagerly. "Your man Ajatasutra had it right. Then-and now. We will do this like an assassin, not a torturer. Quick and deadly, in the sunlight, not lingering over it in a cellar."

Narses frowned at him. "What are you talking about?"

Sanga was frowning also. Suddenly, his brow cleared, and he barked a laugh. Again, hissing its way like a snake, the blade came out of the scabbard.

"Yes!" the Rajput king bellowed. He tilted the sword toward Damodara in a salute. "Emperor of Malwa! True and pure!"

Narses looked from one to the other. "Have you both gone mad?"

Damodara gave him an impassive look.

"Ah. Sorry. Your Majesty, have you gone mad?"

"I don't believe so," replied the new emperor cheerily. "And if I am, you have only yourself to blame. Aren't you the one who told me, after all, that there is another radio in India?"

After a second, Narses shot to his feet. "You're out of your fucking mind!"

The look Sanga gave him was not impassive in the least. Even Narses shrank a little.

"Ah. Sorry. Your Majesty, I submit to you that you need to consider the possibility that when the traitors substituted the false emperor in the crib of your grandfather, that they also poisoned him."

Damodara, fortunately, was in an expansive mood. "I see. Some slow-acting poison, I take it? Doesn't show its effects for two generations, when the grandson turns into a blithering fool."

"Yes, Your Majesty. That one."

Ajatasutra, on the other hand, thought it was a marvelous plan, when it was explained to him less than an hour later.

"Don't see why not," he commented, smiling at Narses. "Stop glaring at me, old man."

"How many times do I beat you at chess?"

"The game of thrones is not really a chess game-a saying, as I recall, that you are quite fond of." The assassin shrugged. "Narses, what does it matter? Even by the old plan, the people in Kausambi would have been in danger long before we could arrive."

"This will strike them even quicker and harder," Narses pointed out darkly.

Since the people involved were not his-except, perhaps, the two girls, in a way-Ajatasutra looked at Damodara and Sanga.

Damodara's face was tight, but Sanga seemed quite relaxed.

"I fought the Mongoose, remember. He will react quickly enough, I think. And if he can't, no man can anyway."

Damodara wiped his face. "True. I watched from close by. He is very, very, very quick. And what's probably more important, he's ruthless enough not to hesitate."

He dropped the hand. "We have no real choice, anyway. Narses, your alternative has only negative virtues. My plan, risky at it is, brings us something."

"Maybe," Narses said gloomily. "Maybe."

"We'll know soon enough. Sanga, make sure the army is ready to leave at daybreak. We'll start sending the messages at dusk."

"Yes, Emperor."

Chapter 23

The Iron Triangle

Maurice was actually gri

"Yes, general, he's late again. Like he has been for every shift since she got here."

Belisarius glanced at the empty chair where Calopodius normally sat. The scribes at the table were in their seats, with their implements in hand. But they were simply chatting casually, waiting for their boss to arrive.

They didn't seem any more disgruntled than Maurice, however. Calopodius was popular with the men who staffed Belisarius' headquarters bunker.

"I thought she'd hit this place like a storm," Belisarius mused. "I know for a fact that the medical staff was trembling in their boots. What I hadn't foreseen was that Calopodius would absorb most of it."

"His pallet, rather-and thank God I'm not one of the straws. Be bruised and battered bloody, by now."

"Don't be crude, Maurice."

"I'm not being crude. Just recognizing that once you strip away the mysticism about 'the Blind Scribe' and 'the Wife,' what you're really dealing with are newlyweds-for all practical purposes-neither of whom is twenty years old yet. Ha! Randy teenagers. Can't keep their hands off-"

He coughed, and broke off. Calopodius was hurrying into the bunker.

"Hurrying" was the word, too. Blind he might be, but by this time Calopodius had the dimensions of the bunker and the location of everything in it committed to memory. And he had an excellent memory.

The position of the people in the bunker, of course, was less predictable. But, by now, they'd learned to keep out of his way. Belisarius watched as one of the staff officers, gri