“Why me?” asked Ningal. “This sounds like an important meeting.”

  “That’s why,” Rim-Sin said, while working at his desk.

  “I don’t understand.”

  Rim-Sin set down his tablet, looking penetratingly at his wife. “Is the nebula the problem Enki wishes to discuss, the low amount of propellant in the tanks, or is it something more sinister?”

  Ningal understood the problem then and thought better than trying to hide that she knew from Rim-Sin. “You fear assassination?”

  “Fear is the wrong word,” Rim-Sin said stiffly.

  “What is the right word?”

  He scowled. Despite the immortality treatments, there were lines in Rim-Sin’s face. He hated them. He hated any sign that he was aging in any way.

  “If Enki manages to kill me,” Rim-Sin said, “he’ll surely kill you.”

  Ningal wanted to say that she didn’t fear death, but that would be a lie. The immortality treatments were working. So was eating less than others her age and exercising vigorously. Her desire for vengeance against Rim-Sin had dwindled a long time ago. There was another thing. Rim-Sin knew something he wasn’t sharing. Why did he fear assassination now and not earlier?

  “Why won’t Enki try to kill me…maybe to strike at your morale?” Ningal asked.

  Rim-Sin shook his head. “That would be striking hard but failing to kill the chief. When you strike at the chief, you must be sure to kill him.”

  “Or the striker will die in turn?”

  “Precisely,” Rim-Sin said.

  “Thus, you think I’m safe?”

  “I know you’re safe.”

  Even after all this time, and after all that had happened, Ningal loved her husband’s assurance. It was one of his greatest qualities.

  “Very well,” Ningal said. “I’m ready. Is there anything in particular you wish me to say?”

  “No. Hear him out. We need to determine if we can still place our trust in our Chief Marshal.”

  -18-

  Ningal left their protected quarters, picking up a guard detail consisting of old-style People. These men were armed with beam weapons, far more deadly than any shredder. She doubted they could defeat ten times more Valiants, but it was better having some kind of guard than having none.

  After fifty years, Ningal didn’t often reflect on the Akkad’s emptiness. Yet she did today. She remembered before—

  Her thoughts shied away from the mass expungement. It was still too painful of a memory. So much was different. Her kind was obsolete. Surely, Rim-Sin understood that. Or did he lie to himself? Her husband so wanted to rule, to dictate and live forever. Yet, he had changed everything. The future belonged to the Valiants…if they received females so they could procreate naturally.

  The team exited an airlock, entering the Valiant part of the ship. The air immediately carried a different scent, reminiscent of a sweaty gym. Big brawny men lived here, just men, and it showed in all sorts of ways.

  Soon, they reached the Chief Marshal’s zone. Huge guards stood before a hatch. They were faintly blue-skinned and looked more akin to statues. They stood so still, and in such a martial manner.

  The hatch opened and a Valiant sub-force-leader met them. He spoke pleasantries, soon escorting Ningal into a grand chamber.

  There was a holographic “window” at the other end. The window showed the stars, as they would have appeared if a true observation dome were in place. Chief Marshal Enki stood before the window as if contemplating the future, with his big hands clutched behind his back.

  A large conference table stood between Enki, and Ningal and the sub-force-leader.

  “Without turning around, Enki said in his deep voice, “You may go.”

  The sub-force-leader inclined his head to Ningal and withdrew from the chamber, the hatch closing behind him.

  Ningal had a tablet and a small purse with her. She wore a dress and hat, and now sat at her end of the table. She had a beamer, a compact but deadly weapon, in her purse. With it, she could surely kill Enki if it came to that. Could she draw and fire at him, though?

  She wasn’t a Valiant. She believed in life, not in taking life.

  Enki turned. His features were granite-like and stoic. His gray hair lent him an air of authority, reminiscent of an Elder.

  Ningal frowned. She hadn’t thought of Elders in a long time. Did she miss them? She shook her head sharply. What did it profit her to think about the old days? They were gone, forever gone. Rim-Sin had set the path.

  “Thank you for coming,” Enki said. He marched to his end of the table, pulled out the chair and sat. He kept his back straight and head up. It seemed that he possessed limitless strength.

  “You said it was important,” Ningal said.

  “I had hoped to speak with Rim-Sin.”

  “I know. He has pressing matters—”

  Enki raised a broad right hand.

  Ningal ceased speaking.

  “Let us deal with realities instead of useless pleasantries,” Enki said. “It’s just the two of us here. Why do we need to lie to each other?”

  “We don’t,” Ningal said. “We shouldn’t.”

  “I am in agreement with you.”

  “What is on your agenda then?”

  “First,” Enki said, “females.”

  Ningal raised an eyebrow.

  “My Valiants want them. It is unnatural that we do not have them.”

  “You have the portals,” Ningal said.

  Enki made an abrupt motion with a hand. “Sex fantasies weaken the Valiants. They need mates. It has become an explosive problem among us.”

  “Even if Rim-Sin were to agree with you, it would take many years for the first females to arrive.”

  “I understand. But I realize now that we must have females or the great project dies.”

  “You will refuse to obey if we do not get females?”

  Enki eyed her. “Are you suggesting that is what I should say?”

  “I suggest nothing. I am here to listen.”

  Enki nodded slowly. “I am disinclined to give any dictate to Rim-Sin. But the time has come to end this sham. The Valiants are a crippled race. We are unnatural and it is warping us. If we are to fulfill our function, we need women like us. If we take the women who presently live in the ship, we will create an inferior set of soldiers. That will help no one.”

  Ningal wasn’t sure she liked being told she was inferior.

  “I did not mean any offense to you by the statement,” Enki said, perhaps sensing the direction of her thoughts.

  Ningal nodded. Enki might be big and scary, and scowl like a soldier, but he studied her reactions just the same. She wondered if Enki could read her as well as Rim-Sin did. What if the Chief Marshal could read her better?

  “Will your husband produce the women we need?”

  Ningal heard an edge to the question. This was dangerous territory indeed. How should she proceed? Perhaps she should stick to the truth.

  “I don’t know if he will,” Ningal said. “Rim-Sin likes be able to control the population.”

  “I know. I understand. But perhaps refusal to obey on the Valiant side is the right idea to compelling Rim-Sin.”

  “Have you ever considered the idea that he might wipe out all Valiants and start over?”

  “Many times,” Enki said. “It is one of my nightmares.”

  Ningal felt the man’s vitality then, his force of will. It shocked her. Even as old as she was, she felt a sudden sexual attraction for the Chief Marshal.

  His lips quirked the tiniest bit.

  He knows what I’m feeling, Ningal realized. She shuddered. What if uses that to usurp Rim-Sin? Would the Valiants kill me, too?

  Most certainly, they would.

  Ningal swallowed. I want to live. I want to live forever if I can. That means I must forestall this strategic mastermind from overthrowing my husband.

  Unbidden, Ningal set her hand on her purse, feeling the beamer within. Maybe she should draw and beam down the Chief Marshal. Maybe the right idea would be to scrub this batch and start anew. Rim-Sin had made the first several batches too powerful. That might have been a grave mistake.

  “Will you pass along my request?” Enki said.

  “I will.”

  Enki nodded slightly. “Now, to the second point. I plan to maneuver the Akkad into the heart of the nebula. That will be the densest part. It will be a risk. I already have engineers working on strengthening the magnetic scoop. The scoop will take heavy punishment as the ship smashes through the particle cloud at nearly fifteen percent light speed. The hope is that we refill the propellant tanks. They are woeful inadequate and need filling. The magnetic scoop should protect the ship from any particles breaching the main hull. That is critical. But there is another purpose in what I’m planning to do.”

  “Go on,” Ningal said.

  “The missiles will undoubtedly follow us into the nebula. The nebula or cloud is huge, many, many light years wide. We don’t know how deep it is. If it is too deep, we could sustain damage to the Akkad.”

  “But?” asked Ningal.

  “It is conceivable that the particles will be so dense and in such depth that they will breach the hulls of the following missiles.”

  “Destroying them?” Ningal asked.

  “The possibility exists.”

  Ningal sat straighter. This was incredible news. The doom of the chasing missiles put a damper on any future. That the nebula might knock out the Annihilators for them—

  She stood. “I must leave and tell Rim-Sin about this.”

  “Wait,” Enki said.

  She stared across the long table at him. Finally, she sat back down.

  “Using the nebula like this is a risk,” Enki said. “I have discovered that Rim-Sin doesn’t like those. However, smashing through the nebula is sound strategy. We must deal with the missiles. The sooner we eliminate them, the better plans we can make. Still, if we fail to destroy the missiles, we must begin to consider which star system to use.”

  “Use for what end?”

  “Saving the Akkad,” Enki said.

  “Oh,” Ningal said. “You mean by slowing down and hiding behind a gas giant.”

  “Once we pass through the nebula, we must find, calculate distances and speed, and chose the star system to use. Now is the time to decide.”

  “Why so soon?” Ningal asked.

  “The answer is obvious.”

  Ningal frowned. She didn’t care for the Chief Marshal’s arrogance. It slipped through his martial façade from time to time.

  She frowned, thinking, and then believed she understood why it was obvious. “You mean because it takes so long to accelerate to even a fraction of light speed and then decelerate from it.”

  Enki gave the barest of nods.

  “Is there anything else you wish me to convey to my husband?”

  “That should be sufficient for now,” Enki said.

  Ningal almost rose, but then paused. “You don’t believe Rim-Sin will want to go through the nebula, do you?”

  “It seems unlikely.”

  “And if he doesn’t?” Ningal asked.

  The faintest of grins appeared on the Chief Marshal’s stony countenance. “Let us take one step at a time, shall we?”

  Ningal shivered, for she suspected that was a threat, if a hidden one. Enki was placing demands. He’d never done that before. Did he believe himself strong enough now to challenge her husband for control of the ship?

  Ningal stood.

  “Thank you for coming,” Enki said. “Please give my regards to Rim-Sin.”

  “Yes,” Ningal said. If this was mutiny, or the beginning of it, it was a civilized way to do it. Still, displacing Rim-Sin likely meant the end of his search for immortality for the two of them. For this seemed true. If Enki won, he would automatically put Rim-Sin to death, and that likely meant expunging her as well.

  -19-

  Ningal returned to the suite of rooms she shared with Rim-Sin. There she gave her report. He listened stonily as he sat behind his large desk.

  “Valiant women!” shouted Rim-Sin. “The Chief Marshal demands that we start to produce female Valiants?”

  “I’d say he was emphatic on the subject,” Ningal said.

  Rim-Sin studied her. When he spoke again, he was calm, or sounded calm, in any case. “How serious do you believe his threat was that the Valiants would refuse to do anything more without females?”

  “Quite serious,” Ningal said after some consideration.

  Rim-Sin looked at her coldly. “And you didn’t put the idea into his thick skull?”

  Ningal understood the warning signs. Rim-Sin knew what she’d said, although she didn’t know how he knew. Truth seemed like her wisest option.

  “I may have said something that led him in the idea.”

  Rim-Sin laughed. “Do you not realize, my dear, that I recorded everything, that I have secret pickups there? The Marshal didn’t come up with that on his own. You counseled him to work against me. Do you understand what this means?”

  Ningal looked away, her stomach tightening because of the mad gleam in Rim-Sin’s eyes. Lately, he’d been drifting toward the edge of madness, even as his genius maintained itself. Was that difficult to do after all this time?

  Rim-Sin drummed his fingers on the desk. “Let’s forget about that for the moment. What do you think about his idea of smashing through this nebula?” Rim-Sin laughed again before she could answer. “I’ll tell you what I think. It’s out of the question.”

  Ningal was puzzled. “Why is it out of the question? It seemed militarily sound.”

  “Is that what you think? Because he’s the great marshal of the Valiants his ideas are automatically militarily sound?”

  “Hold it a minute,” Ningal said. “I’m not against you. You’re mistaken if you believe that. I want immortality just as much as you do. You’re the only one who can grant me that. You rule the ship and I’m your chief confidant. Why should I jeopardize that?”

  “Why did you tell him to demand Valiant females then?”

  “Firstly,” Ningal said. “I didn’t tell him to do that. I asked a question. I must have asked it because it seemed logical. Frankly, I think Enki is right about this. The Valiants need females. I’ve begun to suspect the lack of women is warping the Valiants.”

  “This is a serious opinion?”

  “Yes,” Ningal said. “I have no doubt the lack of women is disrupting their equilibrium, and will do so even more over time. They must all possess an intense drive for procreation. It’s that way among us. Wouldn’t it be even more so amongst physically hyper-active Valiants?”

  Rim-Sin shrugged. “I understand your point. The Valiants do want that, and it is normal. But I don’t know if this is a good time to introduce females. We control their numbers. Besides, it might cause disruption in their ranks having pregnant wives. The soldiers will worry more about them than about defeating the Vims.”

  “Maybe having wives and children will cause the Valiants to fight even harder,” Ningal said.

  “You think that’s the primeval reaction?”

  Ningal would have replied, but there were faint crumping sounds beyond the bulkheads. Neither had ever heard such a noise before.

  They exchanged startled glances.

  Rim-Sin stood swiftly. Then he picked up his tablet and pressed controls.

  “Nothing,” he said. “It’s blank. It shouldn’t be blank.”

  Rim-Sin stared at her, becoming pale. With an oath, he hurled the tablet against a bulkhead. Then he strode to the main hatch. As he reached it, there was a louder explosion. The hatch opened. Three Valiants stepped through, aiming shredders at him.

  Rim-Sin tried to leap back. The closest Valiant grabbed Rim-Sin’s wrist, jerked him close, spun him around, put an iron-muscled arm around his throat and raised the shredder, pressing the barrel against his head.

  “Put away your beamer,” the Valiant said, “or Rim-Sin dies.”

  It was only then Ningal was aware she clutched a beamer, aiming it at the Valiant. Then she realized it wasn’t any Valiant, but the Chief Marshal. He wore a hat, hiding his closely cropped white hair.

  “What is the meaning of this outrage?” Rim-Sin demanded.

  The Chief Marshal tightened his arm around Rim-Sin’s throat, choking off any more words. The marshal kept choking until Rim-Sin slumped unconscious. At that point, the marshal released him so Rim-Sin thudded onto the deck.

  “If you’re going to kill me, Ningal,” the Chief Marshal said, “now’s the time to do it. My death won’t change anything.” He reconsidered. “Well, it won’t change anything for the Valiants, but it’ll certainly change things for you. You will die and never see what happens next.”

  “What is going to happen?” Ningal asked in a wooden voice.

  “For one thing,” the Chief Marshal said, “you’ll become my mistress for a time.”

  Ningal laughed. “I’m over eighty years old, kept young by the immortality treatments.”

  Enki nodded curtly. “Yes. But in the short term there will be very few women to go around. I plan to be one of the few who has a steady-state partner. I have determined you are the brightest of those who will survive. Thus, you will be my mistress until I say otherwise.”

  His words were preposterous. They made no sense. Ningal shook her head. “I don’t understand you.”

  A harsh grin spread across Enki’s features. “The mathematics of the situation should be easy to grasp. Fifty thousand Valiants are going to be vying for a little more than two thousand women.”

  Ningal understood he meant normal women, those of the original People. But if he meant what he said—

  “What about the women’s husbands?”

  Enki snorted. “The husbands will be long gone. Expunged, I believe is the word you prefer to use. We Valiants, however, like to speak directly. The husbands shall be and are even now being killed.”

  Ningal groped to understand, even though his meaning was clear. The act was so barbarous, though. It was inconceivable.

  “But that means you’re wiping out the last of the old-style People,” Ningal said.