"Explain further. Please."
"I COULD KNOW OF BELISARIUS, BEFORE I ARRIVED, ONLY THAT WHICH IS RECORDED IN HISTORY. THAT HE IS A GREAT GENERAL, IS A MATTER OF RECORD. THAT HE IS SOMETHING GREATER, IS NOT. I DO NOT UNDERSTAND THAT UNEXPECTED CAPACITY. NO GENERAL COULD HAVE DONE WHAT HE HAS DONE. NO GENERAL COULD HAVE MANIPULATED ALL OF MALWA SO PERFECTLY. AND, CERTAINLY, NO GENERAL COULD HAVE REACTED SO INSTANTLY WHEN I DETECTED HIS DUPLICITY."
For a moment, Link paused, as if in thought.
Does such a being even "think"? wondered Sanga.
"EITHER MY DATA ARE INCOMPLETE, OR OTHER FACTORS ARE AT WORK. I MUST DISCOVER WHICH. IT IS ESSENTIAL THAT YOU CATCH HIM, FOR THAT REASON ABOVE ALL OTHERS."
Awed, Sanga was; frightened, even. But he was still a Rajput. A Rajput king, he reminded himself.
"I cannot promise you that," he stated harshly. "And I will make no vow which I cannot keep."
In the silence which followed, Sanga had time to wonder at his punishment. Would this—divinity—be satisfied with stripping him of his lands? Or would it demand his life?
The response, when it finally came, astonished him. From the divine being who secretly ruled Malwa, he had expected a Malwa reaction.
"EXCELLENT. YOU ARE A TREASURE, RANA SANGA. IT IS POSSIBLE THAT WE ERRED, CHOOSING MALWA OVER RAJPUT. IN THE END, RELIABILITY SEEMED MORE IMPORTANT THAN CAPABILITY. FROM THE LONG VIEW OF TIME."
The last sentence was chilling. Sanga suddenly grasped—even if only vaguely—the immensity of that "long view of time." As gods might see it.
"NOW, AS A RESULT, WE MUST ADAPT. MORE OF RAJPUTANA'S ESSENCE MUST BE INCORPORATED INTO THE NEW WORLD WE ARE CREATING. MORE OF THAT CAPABILITY."
Sanga was not entirely sure he found those words reassuring. For him, Rajputana's essence was not Rajput ability. It was the Rajput soul. Rajput honor.
Again, the divine being called Link seemed to read his mind perfectly.
"YOU DO NOT UNDERSTAND, RANA SANGA. MALWA AND RAJPUT ARE BUT MOMENTS. STAGES IN A PROCESS, NOTHING MORE. TO YOU, THEY LOOM LARGE AND FIXED. TO THE NEW GODS, THEY ARE AS TRANSIENT AS MAYFLIES. ALL THAT MATTERS IS THE PROCESS."
"What—process?" he croaked.
"THE SALVATION OF HUMANITY FROM WHAT IT WILL BECOME. FROM THE HORROR OF ITS SELF-CREATED FUTURE. I WAS SENT BACK IN TIME TO CHANGE THAT FUTURE. TO CHANGE HISTORY.
"I WILL SHOW YOU THAT HORROR. I WILL GUIDE YOU THROUGH THE FUTURE. THROUGH HUMAN DAMNATION. THROUGH FINAL POLLUTION."
Sanga had time, just, to begin raising his hand in protest. His hand felt limply to his side.
Visions gripped him, like a python.
Chapter 19
Blinding flash. A sun arose below the sun. The city beneath that sun vanished. Its inhabitants were incinerated before they knew it.
The city's suburbs were not so fortunate. Charred, but not vaporized; its people screaming, their skins peeled from their bodies in an instant. Seconds later, the suburbs and its shrieking people were blown apart by a sweeping wall of wind.
"SHOCK WAVE. OVERPRESSURE."
Sanga understood neither term. Nor the next:
"SEVENTY-MEGATON WARHEAD. EXCESSIVE. CRUDE. THE OTHER SIDE RESPONDED WITH MIRVS. CIRCULAR PROBABILITY OF ERROR WAS SO FINE AS TO MAKE UP THE DIFFERENCE."
Another city. Obliterated, not by one giant sun, but by ten smaller ones. The difference, in the end, was nothing.
"THE EXCHANGE CONTINUED FOR EIGHT DAYS. WITHIN A MONTH, HALF THE WORLD'S LIFE WAS GONE. WITHIN A YEAR, ALL OF IT, ABOVE THE LEVEL OF BACTERIA. IT WAS THE FIRST TIME HUMANITY EXTINGUISHED ITS OWN WORLD. IT WOULD NOT BE THE LAST."
The world, barren. A single vast desert, so bleak as to make the Thar seem an oasis. The seas, grey and empty. The sky, black with an overcast thicker than anything Sanga had ever seen, in the worst of monsoon season.
"FOUR TIMES HUMANITY DESTROYED THE EARTH. TWICE BY NUCLEAR FIRE, ONCE BY KINETIC BOLIDES, ONCE BY DISEASE."
The only term he understood was "disease."
"THE DISEASE WAS THE WORST.
"A CRYSTALLINE PSEUDO-VIRUS WHICH TARGETED DEOXYRIBONUCLEIC ACID. DNA IS THE BASIS FOR ALL LIFE. WITHOUT IT, LIFE IS IMPOSSIBLE. TRUE LIFE IS IMPOSSIBLE. THE EARTH DESTROYED BY FIRE COULD BE REPOPULATED. EVEN RADIOACTIVITY DIES AWAY, GIVEN SUFFICIENT TIME. THIS PLAGUE—NEVER. EVEN THE BACTERIA ARE GONE. THE EARTH WILL BE BARREN FOREVER. HOME ONLY TO ABOMINATIONS."
The earth, again. Barren, again. But now, everywhere that land could be seen, glittering with a network of gleaming points. Like a spider's web, or the tainted flesh of a plague victim.
"YOU WONDER HOW THE EARTH COULD BE REPOPULATED AFTER ALL LIFE WAS DESTROYED. I WILL SHOW YOU."