by B. V. Larson
When I landed the pinnace in a quiet clearing on a mountaintop, I was quickly encircled by agents.
These men were all of a familiar type. They had dog-faces, and not one of them shouted, smiled, or waved. They closed in from all directions with their weapons drawn.
I exited the pinnace and stepped among them, crunching leaves under my boots.
Three of them approached me as if I were an arch criminal. The flared ends of their PAG weapons were trained on my chest. One took my weapons and my shielding cloak, and the rest moved behind me.
“You’re under arrest, Captain Sparhawk,” said the duty captain.
I nodded disinterestedly. “Lead the way,” I said. “I’m a busy man.”
This seemed to strike them as amusing. For the first time, they all curled their lips up and chuckled—all of them, at once. The similarity of the action performed by so many in unison was disconcerting. But then, being in the presence of a clone-pack often disturbed normal folks.
Without lowering my head, I marched toward the mansion in the distance. They encircled me and marched with me. A dozen weapons were trained upon my back at any given moment, but I pretended that it didn’t make my skin crawl.
We marched as a group to the mansion. The walls had peeling paint in places, and I wondered about that. Could it be the oldsters inside never stepped out into the light? Surely, if they’d done so, they would have ordered the place to be restored and better maintained.
As I descended the marble steps, I began to second-guess myself. Perhaps they didn’t want this place to look clean and fresh. Maybe they thought it better hid their stronghold in this overgrown forest if the place looked all but abandoned.
At the door, I was greeted by the doorman. I’d met him before, and he nodded in recognition. The fact I was being marched onto the premises under heavy guard didn’t seem to surprise him in the least.
“Ah, Captain Sparhawk,” he said. “Back from the stars again? You’ve lived such an accomplished life for such a young man.”
Lived? As in the past tense? I thought this to myself, but I didn’t make a point of it.
“Thank you, Bertelsmann,” I said, knowing this to be the oldster’s name. “If you would show me to the Chairman…”
He blinked then nodded again. “Of course. This way.”
We began the long trip down an endless stairway. I’d traveled this route before. I couldn’t help but notice that we’d skipped the stairway and used the elevator previously. Could that be significant? Or did it mean nothing at all?
Steeling myself, I walked as if I didn’t have a care in the world. The stairs echoed and rang with many boots as the dog-men followed me into the depths.
We passed the vault doors, then the many landings. By the time we reached the bottom, Bertelsmann seemed slightly winded.
“Best you take the elevator on the way back up,” I suggested.
“Yes…” he said. “I used to take these two at a time when I was in a hurry. Funny how time gets away from you… This way, Captain.”
He ushered me to the large oaken doors where I’d once stood with my Aunt Ellen. Beyond were the council chambers.
“The Chairman isn’t meeting me personally?” I asked.
“Farewell, sir,” he said. Then he bowed and left.
I stood alone in the half-darkness with a dozen guardians. They curled their lips at me when my eyes strayed to look at them, so I admired the scrolling woodwork instead.
At last, the doors swung open silently. I stepped into the dim interior. Two of the guardians followed me, one of whom was carrying my belongings.
The Council was in session. I stood on a dais, as I had two years earlier, like an accused man standing in a docket.
“There he is at last,” said one of the shadowy figures. She was as thin as a rail and her voice quavered slightly when she spoke. “Fancy him keeping us waiting.”
“Good day, Councilmembers,” I said, bowing from the waist. “I’m Captain Sparhawk.”
“We know who you are, Sparhawk,” jeered one hairless specimen with an artificial eye. “We aren’t daft yet—at least, not all of us.”
This elicited both twitters and grumbling from the crowd.
The noises ceased as another figure entered the room. It was the Chairman, I could tell by his hunched shape. He stepped down to the front of the gallery and took his seat in a high-back chair of creaking leather.
“Sparhawk…” he said. His tone indicated he wanted to spit. “You grace us with your presence at last.”
“I’ve returned because my mission has been completed,” I said. “If you wish to hear my report—”
“That will not be necessary,” he said in irritation. “We’ve seen it, days ago. It was, on the whole, entirely unsatisfactory.”
“I’m sorry you feel that way, sir,” I said politely.
“Not only did you manage to lose Earth’s fleet,” he said, reading from a computer scroll of unusual length, “but you are also guilty of criminal violation in regard to regular updates.”
“I was unaware of any law regarding required updates, Chairman.”
He shook his head and huffed. “You were ordered by your Star Guard superiors to comply,” he said.
“Again,” I said, “as a Star Guard enforcement officer, I’ve never been made aware of any statute—”
The Chairman leaned forward in sudden anger. “Are you actually arguing with me, Sparhawk? Here, in my own chambers? The seat of all Earthly political power? From this chair, sir, I’ve ruled Earth for a century and a half!”
“The law is the law,” I said to him, unbending. “You, Mr. Chairman, are doing these things outside the law. I’m afraid I’m going to have to arrest you.”
There was a stunned silence. Then, laughter broke out. This went on for some time, and it ended in a bout of coughing for many of them.
“I’ll consider myself forewarned,” the Chairman said, rubbing tears of mirth from his eyes. “Now, the question is, what are we going to do with you?”
“We have no choice,” said a new voice. I recognized her as Dr. Ariel Peis, the surgeon who’d worked on me when I’d last visited this place. “We have to sentence him to hard labor,” she said in a heartless tone.
“Make a variant out of a member of House Sparhawk?” the Chairman asked. “That seems extreme. He can become an unperson. We have plenty of room in storage. A few of them died just last month, freeing up their cells.”
“Chairman,” said another voice I recognized. I felt my heart sink to hear it. “I know I’m a biased member of this body,” my Aunt Ellen said, “but I don’t think we need to remove him from society permanently by any method. We can simply remove the hack on his implant and update him.”
My eyes slid over the audience until I found her. She was in the back row. Perhaps she was of very low rank, barely old enough and powerful enough to sit on the Council.
“That would be most irregular,” the Chairman said. “Where’s the punishment in that?”
“Think, fellows,” my aunt pleaded. “He isn’t a dissident of the usual stripe. He’s not remembered that way. The public has no idea he’s engaged in subversive thinking. He can be corrected, with a specially crafted update. After that, he can go back to his duties or be reduced in rank.”
“Never!” the Chairman sputtered. “He just told me he was going to arrest me. Imagine that! I won’t have it, I tell you. He’s going to the dungeons, and that’s my final word on the topic. Let’s take a vote just for fun.”
The group began to sound off as their names were called. Most voted for the dungeons, but a few insisted on expunging me in other ways.
The whole thing was going too quickly, so I became nervous. I’d miscalculated. I’d assumed this group of dusty fossils would take an hour or so to complete their deliberations, but they were moving much faster than that.
“Mr. Chairman,” I said, “I have a further statement to make.”
“Quiet!” he boomed
back. “Quiet him!”
One of the guardians bashed me in the face. My lip split, and my blood ran from it.
They continued voting. My own aunt voted to imprison me and erase me from public memory. I felt a pang at that betrayal even if she had tried to help me.
“Mr. Chairman, I wish to confess to a further crime!” I shouted.
The blows rained down on me after that. Both of the dog-faced guardians bashed me in the head, and then one switched on his power-truncheon and struck the back of my legs. I fell to my knees, stunned.
“Hold!” the Chairman called. “Hold on, get him on his feet again.”
They dragged me up.
“What’s this about a confession?” he asked. “A confession to what?”
“My report was a false one,” I said. “I was under no obligation to report the truth of events out among the stars to you. This organization isn’t part of the legitimate government of Earth.”
“Who cares about your reasons?” the Chairman demanded. “What about your report was false?”
He stood up and began climbing down from the galleries. I noted several others moving in the crowd. Most were edging closer to the railing, wanting to hear and see what would happen next. I doubted any of them saw much in the way of excitement down here.
I also noted that my aunt had taken this opportunity to slip away. There must have been a backdoor somewhere, and she’d made good use of it.
Could it be she suspected what I was about to say? Maybe she was worried she’d be blamed somehow.
“Chairman,” I said, “may I speak?”
“Yes, damn you! Speak! What lies have you told?”
“The fleet was not destroyed by the Stroj.”
A murmur swept the crowd.
“What?” the oldster demanded. “Are you saying our fleet is still out there, still intact?”
“No. They were all destroyed. But the Stroj didn’t do it.”
I looked up at him then, and my eyes met his. “I personally destroyed the variants and the ships they commandeered. Their genocidal actions against our colonies required decisive intervention. They had to be put down, sir.”
The Chairman’s jaw sagged. “Are you mad?” he demanded. “Demented?”
“Not that I know of.”
“Then why would you tell me such unwelcome news?”
I was about to answer when I paused. At last, I heard something outside that I’d been waiting for. Something that I’d been straining to hear since I’d first entered this dusty place.
It was the sound of strife. The distant clamor of battle.
“I pride myself on telling the truth, Chairman,” I told him. “Now, you know the facts.”
“Well, this does change things,” he said, fuming. “I’m going to have to move for a dismissal of the previous sentence and the voting. Who moves for hard labor as a variant instead?”
“I do!” shouted a chorus of angry voices.
“Very well, moved and seconded. Let us begin to vote—”
He began counting votes again, but before he’d gotten through the first row, he turned to look at the doors behind me in concern.
“What is that racket?”
“There’s something wrong, Chairman,” said one of the guardians at my side. “Some kind of armed assault is going on at the vault doors.”
“Madness,” he said, looking at me. “That’s what all this is about, isn’t it, Sparhawk? You’ve brought down your mutinous crew. But you’ve made a grave error. They can’t win through. Nothing can penetrate this vault. Why do you think we live in this godforsaken hole? Because it’s safe, that’s why. Not even a thermonuclear device can crack it open.”
I stared at him, and I wondered if it could be true.
-65-
The door behind me opened. Only one leaf slid ajar, and a panicked figure reeled inside.
The man who pushed his way into the council chambers was none other than Bertelsmann, the doorman. He looked disheveled, and his eyes were popping from the sockets in fear.
“Chairman!” he wailed. “The vault doors have opened! They failed us! The enemy is inside!”
This created a stir. Oldsters screeched and backpedaled.
The Chairman, however, stood firmly at the rail.
“Close that damned door!” he ordered the guardians.
They rushed away from me to throw their weight against the massive portal, and I saw my opportunity. In the excitement, my sword had been dropped to the floor. I snatched it up and thrust it into the back of the nearest man.
He growled deeply, and his thick muscles clenched so hard I had difficulty withdrawing the blade. It finally slid out, looking wet and black in the dim light.
The second guardian fired three shots, one of which struck me in the right wrist. My hand hung down limp and bloody. A smoky odor filled my nostrils, and I knew it was my own burnt flesh I smelled.
Taking up my sword in my left hand, I closed with him. Fortunately, the youth of the Great Houses were trained to use either hand in battle. I wasn’t as quick or accurate with my left hand, but I was good enough to hack off his arm before he could gun me down.
With no more weight holding the door, it sprang open. A raging variant strode inside, clicking.
Lightning fast, its numerous eyes surveyed the scene. I wasn’t sure it would recognize me, and I felt a shock of panic as it moved toward me with purpose.
I lifted my blade, but it was a futile gesture. A whip-like arm shot out, snaking past my cheek and stabbing a claw into the throat of the Chairman.
He crumpled with a PAG in his grasp. He’d been aiming to shoot me in the back.
The others on the dais didn’t fare well, either. Both the injured guardians were slain by a series of blurring attacks. Their fingers, ears, and feet were snipped away. Rolling around with many missing extremities, they bled to death, unable to staunch the flow or harm their attackers.
Bertelsmann went down under clattering feet. The first variant stepped on him at least three times, exerting its weight on thin points of metal. These stabbed into the old man, and then the second variant rushed past the first, finishing the job on the ancient doorman.
Finally, the variants went to work on the crowded room of panicked councilors.
“Variants, stand down!” I shouted. “There’s no need for violence! I order you to stop this!”
But they paid me no attention. They ran up into the galleries, ignoring the steps and railing. They lashed and stabbed into the shrieking crowd.
Scrambling over the floor, I found a PAG that had belonged to one of the guardians. I lifted it and aimed at the nearest of the two variants.
A thin-boned hand grasped my wrist then and sought to pull my arm down. I looked in surprise and saw Director Vogel was at my side.
“Where did you come from?”
“Someone had to get the variants out of that ship,” he said.
“Stop them!” I shouted. “Order them to stop slaughtering these people.”’
“Why?” he demanded. “Don’t you think they deserve to die? Think of what they’ve done. Even I think this is long overdue.”
“It doesn’t matter what you think. The courts will decide, not us. They’re beaten. Stop your vicious machines.”
I put the flared barrel of my PAG to his head.
“Variants,” he called. “Halt! Stop Program!”
They halted immediately. I watched as the last of the surviving oldsters crawled away, bloody and groaning. They’d paid a terrible price. I doubted any of them would live without immediate medical attention.
“Captain Sparhawk,” Vogel said urgently. “We don’t have much time. We have to get to the control room.”
“What control room?”
“This vault stands open, and the staff must have sent out a distress call. Overwhelming reinforcements are no doubt underway by air car this very moment.”
I knew he was right. “Where are the rest of the variants?” I demanded.
“They were destroyed. We were losing the battle at the vault doors. The guardians kept coming, shooting at my—my troops. Fortunately, they must have figured I was a helpless bystander.”
“Out of eight variants I’d stashed aboard the pinnace, only two are left…?” I asked.
“That’s right. We’ll be killed when reinforcements come.”
“Let’s close the vault doors, then,” I said.
“We must find the control room first!”
Ignoring him, I left the horrific scene in the council chambers and rushed to the elevator. It wouldn’t open its doors, and it appeared to be disabled.
Vogel followed me. He had his last two variants in tow. I noticed that one of them was dragging a leg, which had been severed halfway up.
“Where are you going?” he demanded. “We must get to the control room. If we can update people…”
“I think we need to shut those vault doors first, don’t you?” I asked.
“We tried. We couldn’t do it.”
“What about this elevator?” I asked. “Did you do this?”
“We disabled it to prevent their escape. We must take the stairs.”
I raced up them, two and three at a time. The variants clattered after me, but Director Vogel lagged.
“Attend me!” he called to the variants. They slowed and escorted him.
When I reached the vault doors, I found what I’d expected to find: My Aunt Ellen was hiding behind one of them.
“Lady Grantholm,” I said, offering her a hand.
She eyed the ghastly wounds on the hand I had presented her with, then she saw the naked sword in my other hand. She shrank back from both.
“William,” she said, “those treacherous machines swept in here pushing back the guards. They slew everyone.”
I looked around, and the truth of her words was evident. Broken variants and men lay everywhere on the stairway.
Then I looked back at her again. “You opened the doors, didn’t you?” I asked. “To let in the variants?”
“I had to do it,” she said. “Don’t you understand that? The Council would have turned on me next. Those bastards. I’ve served them for so many years… when you confessed to having destroyed the fleet, I knew I had to get out. I had to open these doors.”