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By Root 1252 0

enclave will not be a problem as you shall see if you attempt it as for the office you are to do this by deception if possible and subsequently you are to effect your safe exit by mass agitation if necessary i understand you are a persuasive speaker when you are telling the truth and a plausible liar when you are not comrade duvalier is at this moment being asked to accompany you and her combat skills will provide some backup i can assure you that other disruption will be provided but i do not deny that the risk is considerable on the other hand the risks involved in staying here particularly if your task is not carried out are an order of magnitude greater

It took a moment for Jordan to turn the quiet statement over.

‘You’re saying that doing nothing is ten to a hundred times more dangerous than your crazy scheme?’

correct

‘Well, in that case,’ Jordan said slowly, grinning back at the Planner, ‘it’s all perfectly justifiable selfish cowardice, so I’ll do it.’

you did not think i would ask you to carry out an act of reckless courage did you

The drawn face smiled in a way that made Jordan wish he could talk to the real person behind it.

‘I hope I see you again,’ he said, understanding for the first time something of what the catchphrase meant: afterwards…

goodbye jordan i hope i see you again

Numbers came up.

‘Two bits of news,’ MacLennan said, looking back over his shoulder and taking one hand from the steering-wheel to gesticulate. ‘The first is that the Army Council has decided to go for it. The offensive is under way.’

‘Yee-hah!’ Kohn yelled.

They bumped up a pitted tarmac strip between willows and beeches and turned on to the main road. ‘The second is, we’ve cracked the thing with the Star Fraction.’

‘What?’ Janis leaned forward from the back seat, clutching her seat-belt.

‘The Star Fraction,’ MacLennan repeated, raising his voice. He shifted gears and the engine note dropped. ‘When the systems settled down yesterday we – that is, Doctor Van and some of our security people – got in touch with your friend in outer space.’ He waved a hand skywards, just in case they didn’t know where that was. ‘Logan was quite happy to cooperate. Between them they think they’ve figured it out. We got through to people from the old days who knew Josh, and who have been in this Star Fraction for years without knowing what it was. And without telling anyone,’ he added disgustedly. ‘These God-damned Trotskyites, excuse my English, Doctor Taine. The long and the short of it is that Josh didn’t just prepare for the fall of the Republic, which he had every right to do, but for the fall of civilization itself! He set up these unauthorized programs in the Black Plan to seek out and store biological data, and he compiled a mailing list, would you believe, of people who could make use of it. But he never fired it off, and it just beavered away for two decades getting things ready. A Black Plan inside the Black Plan.’

The humvee swerved on to the road up to the house they were staying in. ‘I don’t see how that worked,’ Kohn said. ‘Logan couldn’t have been on any list that Josh drew up.’

‘It was a very intelligent mailing list,’ MacLennan said. ‘And then the other day you triggered the main program. At some other time maybe not much would have happened, but in the present situation…’

‘Yeah, that’s what I thought,’ Kohn said. The vehicle lurched to a halt. MacLennan led them into the kitchen of the house, where Dr Van greeted them, bleary-eyed. He poured them coffee as they sat down around the table.

‘MacLennan has explained our findings?’

‘Yeah,’ Kohn said. He lit the cigarette Van offered him. ‘Still doesn’t explain these things I encountered, the Watchmaker AIS.’

Van steepled his fingers and talked around his cigarette like a diminutive Bogart. ‘We have to be very careful in drawing conclusions,’ he said. ‘These programs are in some sense spin-offs, replications, reflections of an aspect of the Plan.’

Janis heard Kohn’s indrawn breath.

‘The Plan has evolved considerably over the past twenty years,’ Van continued. ‘Consequently,