XII

"Yes. All right," said Hades. "I've been selling them."

We were back on the moon in the main room. Baal was holding an icepack to the bruise around his left eye from when he'd foolishly tried to surprise me with the scissors as I was handcuffing him. I'd dragged both of them back here afterwards, leaving one of Hades's very shocked students in charge of the archaeological dig. Hades had insisted no one else was involved and - from the genuine shock on all their faces - I hadn't bothered to polygraph them.

"For the love of Darwin, Tony. Why?" said Zeus.

"For your department, I'd imagine," said Ra. He turned to me. "The directors have been discussing closing the school of archaeology for years. They don't get as many students as they used to and that isn't likely to change. They've already slashed the budget three years running."

"It's not just for the department," said Hades. "It was for my field."

"You did it for archaeology?" said Mirabi. We'd heard all sorts of excuses for crime over the years, but this was a new one.

"Yes," said Hades. He looked her in the eye and I was surprised by the honesty in his face. "It's my life. It's my subject. It's my work. It's everything. And despite what all you historians secretly think, it still has value."

"Hey! We don't..." said Zeus.

"Anthony, I have never...," said Baldr.

"Oh, please. History - your entire discipline," said Hades, "amounts to nothing more than reading and then rewriting what other people have already written about the past. Archaeology is about actually handling it. We do things historians can't. You can learn stuff about a culture from its materials that would never have been written down. But yes. It is dying. Time travel's seeing to that, even though you can never backstep for long enough to really study a culture. Is it a crime for me to try to save it?"

"By stealing artefacts to sell on the black market to top-up your budget? Yes," said Mirabi.

"Yes," said Zeus. "And I don't just rewrite. I make documentaries. I bring history back to life for the public. And when I said why, I meant why were you stealing from the past? You could easily use the stuff you dig up."

"Most temporal artefact collectors want items that are new," said Hades. "Not something that's been buried in the ground for hundreds of years."

"We've never managed to sell anything broken or damaged," said Bernard Baal. "It's all from the past, but they want things that looks like they backstepped and picked them up yesterday. I've got a whole box of stuff under my bed we were never able to sell and some of it was really difficult to collect."

"By which you mean difficult to steal?" said Mirabi.

"Well... Yes," said Baal.

"Why were you helping with this?" I said.

"I've got tuition fees to pay," said Baal. "And Doctor Hades offered me a doctoral place with archaeology if I didn't get the project's one."

"You're certainly not getting either of them now," said Baldr. "This is utterly outrageous. You are both a disgrace to the university."

"All right. First things first," I said. "Polygraph is on. Did either of you smuggle the dagger back?"

"No, I have genuinely never seen it before," said Hades.

"Ah. Yes. About that," said Baal.

Hades - and the rest of us - looked at him.

"I didn't get a chance to show it to you, Doctor," said Baal. "It was from the main temple in Tutal Xiu. I swiped it when the high priest's back was turned. But I didn't stab the professor with it. I just put it in one of the crates I was going to send down this morning. Someone else must have found it and done it. It really wasn't me."

"Don't worry. I can tell," I said. Helmcom polygraph had just given him a depressing 95%+. He might be a surprisingly skilled and forward thinking temporal cat burglar, but Bernard Baal was not the killer. "I don't suppose either of you had anything to do with the rifle recharger?"

"No. Of course not," said Baal.

"We've been taking artefacts from the past. Not taking new ones back," said Hades.

"And I image Tutal Xiu isn't the only project destination you've been doing this at?" said Ra. "That Ptolemaic noblewoman who had all her jewellery stolen while we were in Alexandria?"

"Yes. That was me," said Baal. "I used a rope ladder down from the roof."

"Wonderful. You do realise how this is going to look to the sponsors, I hope?" said Baldr.

"You never would have found Tutal Xiu without me," said Hades. "You wouldn't even have known where to look without archaeology."

"And what about the missing money?" said Mirabi. "Did you decide to refill your budget from the projects as well as smuggle?"

"No, he didn't. He doesn't have access to it," said Isabel Chernobog.

We looked around as Chernobog walked up behind us, holding another boardcom. I realised - with great irritation - that she'd once again pulled off her trick of slipping away while our attention was focused on something else. I was beginning to see why the I.I. had headhunted her. She had all the makings of an annoyingly competent secret agent.

"Where have you been?" said Mirabi.

"Doing what you can't," said Chernobog. "They didn't steal any of the budget, did they, Dr. Baldr?"

"What?" said Baldr, frowning. "If you say so, no."

"I do," said Chernobog. She turned the boardcom around, showing us a hypernet page for a bank account with a history of recent transactions. Very large transactions. "Because I'm not a Solar Union citizen; I don't need a warrant. I just accessed everyone's bank records. You stole the money from the project's budget."

_ _ _ _ _

Chernobog had probably imagined, when she was planning how she was going to make this nicely dramatic revelation, that Baldr would either deny it, break down and confess, or try to make a run for it. Unfortunately, in her determination to enjoy her moment of glory, she had overlooked the fourth possibility, that Baldr might draw a gun (his jacket turned out to have a scanshield lining, which was why our Helmcom's hadn't detected his pocket laser pistol), grab the person nearest to him and press the barrel into the side of their neck.

The person nearest to him was Megan Uzume.

"Let go of her, Doctor," I said, staring down my own gun sights. Mirabi and I had whipped our Uniguns out the instant our Helmcom's had detected the weapon. Anubis and his men were aiming their rifles at him as well from behind us. Everyone else was crouching down behind the table as Baldr backed slowly down the room.

"Don't try to threaten me, Midgard," said Baldr, keeping Megan pinned close to him with his forearm. "I am going to the teleporter. I am leaving. You are not following me."

"Wrong, wrong and wrong," said Mirabi.

My heart rate had sped up and it wasn't just from the adrenaline. I was trying to fight it down as I needed to stay calm. I'd dealt with hostage situations before. But this was Megan. She'd helped extensively and not just with the case. I hadn't had the chance to even begin thanking her properly yet.

"Don't try to be funny," said Baldr. "You are going to let me go. I am involved in bigger things than you glorified street cops can comprehend."

"This, you mean?" called Chernobog, from behind the table. She held up something made of a curved piece of metal, with skin contact pads and electrodes on the inside. "It's the prototype, Detectives. It was in his desk drawer. The stuff on his workbench just confused the elements scan."

"Give that to me right now," said Baldr.

"Not a chance!" said Chernobog. She quickly hid it below the edge of the table.

"I said bring it here," said Baldr, pushing his gun harder into Megan's neck. She flinched in pain and my trigger finger almost twitched.

"No!"

"Hold on," said Mirabi to Chernobog. "We can trade, Doctor. The gadget for her."

"No," said Baldr. "I'm not that stupid, Detective. I need her to get out of here."

"Which means you can't actually hurt her."

"Don't bother. You're not going to do anything so cavalier as call my bluff," said Baldr. "And I am not bluffing. Keep it, Isabel, you spoilt, inbred, Darwin-forsaken Saturnian. I don't need it anymore anyway."

"Alan, why are you doing this?" called Ra. "Whatever else you are, you're still a teacher. She is one of your students. Let her go."

"That is exactly why I'm doing this," said Baldr. "I knew from the start I'd never get any thanks for it. Not from my own generation anyway. But future generations will."

The J.I. prototype - the mind scanner - and his interest in neurological teaching methods, suddenly made sense.

"It's for your personal project, isn't it?" I said.

"Congratulations, Detective. You're not as stupid as you look," said Baldr. "And it's finished. I've succeeded. I can upload anything to a human brain. I can give anybody a full university education - an Oxbridge Luna education - in minutes. I've already programmed myself with the full schematics of the prototype, with the modifications I made to it, and that's just the tip of the iceberg. I can produce fully qualified medical doctors or spaceship pilots at the drop of a hat. I'm going to change the face of the Solar System."

"By breaking numerous laws," said Mirabi. "Drop the gun and let her go."

"Sobek," said Anubis, behind us. I didn't look around. He must have been telling her to move into a better firing position.

"Alan, the Educators Association is never going to agree to using this," said Ra.

"Of course not. Those tenure-obsessed dinosaurs are only interested in advancing education if it advances their careers," said Baldr. "Think what we can do with this, Julian! No more over specialisation. No more spending so many years studying one subject that you have to neglect all the others. I can change the destiny of the human race. I can make us a species of geniuses."

"There is more to intelligence than rote memorisation," said Ra. "Programming every textbook ever written into students is not the same as teaching them how to use that knowledge. This cannot work the way you're hoping it will."

"You're talking about teaching people to swim on dry land," said Zeus. "You can't just programme backstroke, breaststroke and front crawl into someone and then throw them in the deep end of the pool."

"That is exactly what I expected you two to say," said Baldr. "I'll tell you a secret. History's always been the least favourite of all my disciplines. It's obviously valuable, but I detest the people who practise it. You're so focused on the past, you never think at all about the future. And why do we study the past if not to learn its lessons? You have the smallest minds in all of academia."

"And yours is bigger than the Solar System, I'm sure," said Mirabi.

"Did Professor Wei'To say what you expected him to?" I said. "Did he find out, or did you tell him? He knew. This is what he meant by Ask Alan what the hax he thinks he's playing at, isn't it?"

"Yes, he must have," said Alan. "I'd love to know how, but I never got the opportunity to ask him."

"You killed him too quickly?" said Mirabi.

"No, I didn't," said Baldr. "That was someone else."

Helmcom polygraph flashed up 98%+. If I hadn't been aiming at Baldr, trying to get a shot that definitely wouldn't scratch Megan, I would have rolled my eyes to the ceiling. How could everyone here be involved in so much illegal and borderline-illegal scheming, but not be involved in the one thing we were here to investigate?

"You did steal the money though," said Chernobog. She held up the mind scanner again. "Modifying this can't have been cheap."

"No, it wasn't," said Baldr. "Though funnily enough, I didn't take all the money. Only what I needed. Someone else got the rest."

Mirabi and I blinked, and then blinked again as Helmcom polygraph flashed 97%+

"What?" said Zeus from behind the table.

"David, if this is that ridiculous documentary about the history of gambling you couldn't get funding for..." said Ra.

"No, it isn't!"

"It wasn't me, either," said Ishtar.

"How much did you steal then, Doctor?" said Chernobog, waving the mind scanner again. "It wasn't just to modify this, because you didn't steal it yourself. I've seen the security eye pictures. You don't match the body type of any of the intruders. You hired some haxing group of space pirates to do it for you, didn't you?"

"Doctor. Please," said Megan, who was sensibly trying to keep as still as possible, but still had the gun digging into her neck and Baldr's hand crushing one of her wrists. "You're hurting me."

"Shut up, Megan" said Baldr. He glared at her. "You're the worst of them all, incidentally. So much natural intelligence - you're proof of natural selection; the power of harsh environments to produce prodigies - and all you want to do with it is study history and painting. So much potential combined with all the ambition of a carrot. This department is exactly where you belong, actually. You're a born historian."

"Let her go," I said.

"No," said Baldr. "She'll be fine providing you don't follow me. Now get out of my way."

"Let her go, Doctor" I said.

"I'm not fooling around, Midgard," said Baldr. He shifted his gun down and aimed at Megan's feet. "And remember, I can easily carry her. She doesn't need all her toes."

Something rippled behind him. A shape moved in the air. I could see through it, but everything was moving and distorted like a heat shimmer. Baldr screeched as his arm suddenly shot out sideways, away from Megan, his wrist twisting backwards at an unnatural angle. His gun went off once, the red laser bolt burning a hole in the wall, before it fell from his fingers.

"MEGAN! MOVE!" I shouted.

Megan twisted out of Baldr's grip, nearly weeping and Mirabi and both aimed at Baldr's torso.

"No! Don't!" shouted Anubis.

Bast and Sekhmet, who I hadn't even realised were standing so close to us, grabbed our arms and forced our Uniguns down towards the floor. Baldr yelped again - something seemed to be choking him - as his knees folded under him and he collapsed awkwardly to the floor, with the shimmer sitting on top of him. It shimmered again and then solidified into Catherine Sobek, crouching over Baldr with one arm locked around his neck.

"Secured," she said.

"Well done, Catherine," said Anubis, as Sobek touched a gadget on her belt, turning her chameleon hologram off. "Sorry, Detectives."

"Don't worry about it," I said. I understood now. They'd pushed our arms down to stop us shooting Sobek by accident. We'd both been set to stun shots, but they hadn't known that for certain. "Megan... Miss Uzume..."

"I'm fine," said Megan quickly, from where Chernobog, Ishtar, Baal and Zeus were comforting her.

"Give me his arms. Left first," said Mirabi, going over to Baldr and Sobek and taking out a pair of handcuffs. Sobek did so, but she had to release he choke hold on Baldr's neck, allowing the spluttering academic to talk again.

"Anubis! You utter...!"

"Don't even start," said Anubis.

"I paid you!"

"You hired us to protect the project personnel, Doctor. Not to assist in your great escape," said Anubis.

"That's not what I meant, you lying, treacherous Martian son of a...!"

A stun bolt hit him in the forehead. Baldr collapsed unconscious to the floor. I looked around as Anubis lowered his Unirifle. He'd just shot Baldr very neatly one-handed from the hip.

"Worse man I've ever worked for," he said.

"Was that really necessary?" I said. Anubis had just broken about thirty prisoner-handling regulations and three laws, and I was now going to have to wait for the stun bolt to wear off before I could being questioning Baldr.

"No, but don't worry. I'm not a Solar Union citizen," said Anubis. "We'll be heading back to Free Mars before you have file your report. I assume the project's suspended for the meantime, Doctors?"

"Uh... Yes. Yes. I suppose it is," said Ra.

"Don't be too hasty. You're all still witnesses," said Mirabi, as she hauled the unconscious Baldr into a chair and handcuffed him to it. "We might need you to give evidence."

"We can do it over a com link," said Anubis, as Sekhmet picked up Baldr's pistol and tossed it to him. He reached up and caught it out of the air. "Thanks, Tim."

I froze in place. I stared at Anubis. My mind's eye replayed what had just happened. The gun flying through the air, and Anubis reaching up and catching it. Last time, the gun had been longer, a full-sized rifle. But the body action, even hidden by an armoured spacesuit, had been exactly the same.

Anubis was also frozen where he was, his arm outstretched, holding Baldr's pocket laser pistol, bent slightly at the elbow. He stared back at me, showing no expression, waiting to see if I'd actually recognised...

Mirabi said a bad word in ancient Punjabi. She'd recognised it too. Anubis had caught the gun out of the air. His height, his movement, his posture, the position he was standing in now were all identical to the lead intruder in the vault, when he had caught Deborah's Unirifle out of the air.

"Hax," said Anubis, softly. A smile spread slowly across his face. "And we were doing so well up until now."

His hand dropped to his waist. All of his team did the same. They touched the switches on the chameleon holograms which - I only noticed now - they were all wearing.

_ _ _ _ _

"EVERYBODY DOWN!" I screamed, as Anubis and his team disappeared.

Mirabi and I hit the floor, just before multiple red laser bolts - kill shots - burnt through the air where we'd been standing. Zeus and Ra dived behind the table with Ishtar and Baal. Chernobog grabbed Megan and pulled her down to the floor. Only Baldr, still unconscious in the chair Mirabi had handcuffed him to and snoring, was left upright.

I rolled over, drawing my Unigun and flipping the selector switch to rapid. I landed on my stomach and fired, sweeping stun shots across the room at waist level. There was nothing. All my blue laser bolts burnt into the wall or the bookcases. The chameleon holograms were well made; the kind that would only ripple if something physical - like Baldr when Sobek had grabbed him - interfered with them. Otherwise, Anubis and his men were completely invisible, and they were skilled enough to avoid indirect gunfire.

I rolled sideways across the floor and four shots immediately slammed into it where I had been. They could see me and I couldn't see them. Staying in one place was now suicidal. Mirabi popped up from behind the end of the table, fired a burst herself, then immediately dived and rolled down the room. The only advantage we had was that they'd all been standing on one side of the room when they activated the chameleon holograms.

"Pattern Delta!" yelled Anubis's voice, too fast for me to hear where it was coming from.

Laser fire hit the floor around me from two directions. I slid backwards out of range. They had to be moving around, spreading out and surrounding us, as they'd no doubt done before in hundreds of successful fire fights. Two ChronOps officers with no armour and only their sidearms were going to be a pushover. There was only one way we were going to survive this.

"Mirabi!" I yelled. "Torches!"

I hit the relevant button on my wristcom. The scanner lens at the front of it