She chewed her lip and frowned over a familiar, nagging question. Why was the Sword so... spotty? One day they carried out a meaningless massacre of defenseless power workers and left clues all over the countryside; on another they executed a precision attack on a high-security target and left the forensic people damn-all. She knew the Sword was intricately compartmented, but did it have a split personality, too? And where had a bunch of yahoos who could be as clumsy as that power station attack gotten a tight, cellular organization in the first place? Anyone who could put that together could choose more effective targets, and hit them more cleanly, too.

She sighed and put the thought aside once more. So far, they had no idea how the Sword was organized. For all she knew, the meaningless attacks were the work of some splinter group or faction. For that matter, they might actually be the work of some totally different organization which was simply hiding behind the Sword while it pursued an agenda all its own! They needed a better look inside to answer those kinds of questions, and that was up to the folks on Earth, where the Sword operated. Gus had managed it once, and since his death, Lawrence Jefferson had managed to break no less than three of its cells. It was unfortunate that none of them had led to any others—indeed, it seemed likely they were among the more inept members of their murderous brotherhood or they wouldn't have been so easy to crack—but they were a start.

And, she reminded herself, at least the slaughter of Gus's family had given them a reason to beef up Horus's security at White Tower without arousing their real enemy's suspicions.

"Sweet mother of God!" Gerald Hatcher blurted. "Are you serious?"

"Of course I'm not!" Ninhursag snarled back. "I just thought pretending I was would be really hilarious!"

She quivered with frightened anger Colin understood only too well, and he touched her shoulder, watching her relax with a hissing sigh before he turned his attention back to Hatcher's hologram. Vlad Chernikov also attended by holo image from his office aboard Orbital Yard Seventeen, but Tsien was present with Colin and Ninhursag in the flesh.

"Sorry, 'Hursag," Hatcher muttered. "It's just that— Well, Jesus, how did you expect us to react?"

"About the same way I did," Ninhursag admitted with a crooked grin. Then real humor flickered in her eyes. "Which, I might add, you did. You should've heard what I said when Dahak told me!"

"But there is no question?" Tsien's deep voice was harder than usual, for it was his files which had been penetrated this time.

"None, Star Marshal," Dahak replied. "I have checked my findings no less than five times with identical results."

"Shit." Colin rubbed the fatigue lines which had formed in the long, dreary months since his children died. After almost a year and a half they were still playing catch-up. Ninhursag and Lawrence Jefferson had managed to pick off a few Sword of God cells, a few score terrorists had been killed in shoot-outs with security forces when they'd struck at guarded sites, and they'd identified exactly seven spies in their military.

And each of those spies had been dead by the time they found him.

"The bastards have us penetrated six ways to Sunday," he said through his fingers, tugging on his nose while his other hand pushed the chip of Ninhursag's report in an aimless circle.

"Yes and no, Colin," Dahak said. "True, we are uncovering evidence of past penetration, yet we are also clearing a progressively higher number of senior personnel of suspicion. I cannot, of course, be certain that we have sealed all breaches in the Bia System, yet recall that I am now monitoring all hypercom traffic between Bia and Sol as well as all datanets in this system. And while I cannot assure you that no information is being transmitted via courier, ONI now maintains permanent surveillance of all visitors from Earth."

"Yeah, but it looks like we just found out we didn't get the door locked till after the barn burned down!"

"Perhaps and perhaps not." For a moment Tsien sounded so much like Dahak Colin suspected him of deliberate humor, but that wasn't Tao-ling's style.

"Meaning what?"

"Meaning, Colin, that this particular piece of hardware, while undoubtedly dangerous, is of limited utility to whoever has it."

"What do—" Hatcher began, then stopped. "Yeah, you've got something, Tao-ling. What the hell can they do with it even if they've got it?"

"I would not invest too much confidence in that belief, Admiral Hatcher," Dahak said, "but my own analysis does tentatively support it."

"But how did they get their hands on it in the first place?" Vlad asked, for he'd arrived a few moments late for the initial briefing.

"We're not positive," Ninhursag answered. "All Dahak's discovered for certain is that there's at least one more copy of the plans for the new gravitonic warhead than there should be. We don't know where it is, who has it, or even how long whoever stole it has had it in his possession."

"I believe we may venture a conjecture on the last point," Tsien disagreed. "Dahak has examined the counter in the original datachip from Weapons Development's master file, Vlad." Vlad's holo image nodded understanding. Each Fleet security chip was equipped with a built-in counter to record the numbers of copies which had been made of it, and while the counter could be wiped, it could not be altered. "According to our records, there should be ten copies of the plans—including the original chip—and all ten of those have now been accounted for. However, a total of ten copies were made of the original chip, and we do not know where that eleventh copy is.

"On the other hand, that original has been locked in the security vault at BuShips since the day all authorized copies were made, and none of the external or internal security systems show any sign of tampering. I therefore believe the additional copy was made at the same time as the authorized ones."

"Oh, shit," Hatcher moaned. "That was—what, six years ago?"

"Six and a half," Ninhursag confirmed. "And while I wouldn't care to bet my life on it, I'd say Tao-ling is probably right. Particularly since a certain Senior Fleet Captain Janushka made the authorized copies. Two years ago, Commodore Janushka, who was then assigned to the Sol System as part of the Stepmother team, died of a 'cerebral hemorrhage.' "

She grimaced, and the others snorted. A properly pulsed power surge in a neural feed implant produced something only the closest examination could distinguish from a normal cerebral hemorrhage. But pulsed surges like that couldn't happen by accident, and an ME with no reason to suspect foul play might very well opt for the natural explanation.

"I see." Vlad pursed his lips for a moment, then gave a Slavic shrug. "On that basis, I am inclined to share your conclusion as to the timing, Tao-ling. Yet this weapon is an extremely sophisticated piece of hardware. Building it would require either military components or a civilian workshop run by someone thoroughly familiar with Imperial technology."

"I'm sure it would," Colin said, "but whoever we're up against had the reach and sophistication to sabotage Imperial Terra—unless anyone cares to postulate two separate enemies with this level of penetration?" Clearly no one wished to so postulate, and he smiled grimly. "I think we have to assume Mister X wouldn't have stolen it if he didn't believe he could produce it."

"True." Hatcher was coming back on balance, and his voice was calmer and more thoughtful. "But Tao-ling's still right about its utility. They can blow up a planet with it, but if that's all they had in mind, six years plus is plenty of time to build the thing—assuming they could build it at all—and it's also plenty long enough to have used it."