"Prepare for emergency lift," McCade replied. "Lift." With that he turned the large red knob over his head one rotation to the right and pushed it in.
The ship shuddered violently as her engines built thrust. McCade had one last second to survey the madness that had consumed the spaceport. Everywhere energy weapons and slug throwers spewed death and destruction. It couldn't happen to a nicer group of folks, McCade thought wryly. Then the ship's defensive screens flared as they took a direct hit. A fraction of a second later, Pegasus blasted off under full emergency power. McCade blacked out momentarily.
As they cleared atmosphere, his vision cleared and he felt the terrible weight come off his chest. Flicking the rear screens on, he saw pinpoints of light as more ships followed him into space. Whether they were following or just trying to escape, he couldn't tell. Switching the forward screens to high mag he was momentarily blinded by the explosion as a nuclear torpedo hit one of the fleeing vessels. At first he couldn't understand why, but as his vision returned he saw all too clearly. Most of the escaping ships had lifted without the one-way pass necessary to get by the weapons platforms which still guarded the approaches to the Rock. The platforms were doing a very efficient job.
As they got closer, McCade watched in fascination as ship after ship was snuffed out of existence, like so many moths attracted to an open flame. Then it suddenly stopped.
A group of ships formed a temporary alliance and together they attacked one of the platforms. Some of the ships were destroyed in the process, but by virtue of sheer massed firepower, they won. As the weapons platform flashed incandescent, the alliance broke and the survivors fled through the gap they'd created and headed for safer regions. Every other ship within one light realized what had happened and headed in that direction to take advantage of the newly created escape route. Pegasus was no exception.
"Uh-oh. Looks like we got company, boss. And I don't remember sending out any invitations." Van Doren had again chosen the top blister as his battle station.
Sara had ensconced herself in the rear weapons turret. Her voice came over the intercom loud and clear. "He's right, Sam. There's two of them closing fast. I don't think they're friendlies. Pirate destroyers by the looks of them."
McCade confirmed her guess by switching on the rear screens and boosting them to high mag. It didn't look good. Options and strategies flashed through his mind in quick succession. He tapped a request into the ship's computer asking for advice. The reply was immediate and to the point, delivered by the now-familiar voice.
"Surrender immediately. The pursuing vessels have overwhelmingly superior firepower and speed. They will destroy Pegasus approximately 10.5 seconds after initial engagement."
"Good. I was afraid we might be in trouble," McCade said. He met Laurie's concerned gaze with what he hoped was a nonchalant smile.
"Stand by for sudden deceleration followed by enemy action," McCade said. "Five from now. Five, four, three, two, one." With a quick flick of the wrist, he cut the power by half and felt himself thrown forward against his harness.
The two pirate ships seemed to surge forward as if by magic, splitting to position themselves on each side, placing Pegasus in a cross fire. McCade forced himself to wait, hoping they would interpret the sudden cut in speed as a sign of cooperation. Evidently they did, because as they drew abreast of Pegasus they didn't open fire. Of course it could be just an effort to capture someone alive. Or some thing dead, he corrected himself, thinking of Mungo's head now resting on the top shelf of the galley refrigeration unit.
Finally both ships were level with Pegasus. "Fire!" McCade yelled into the intercom as all the weapons that could be brought to bear fired in unison. Both destroyers were suddenly bathed in fire. Neither was in any danger. Their defensive screens were much more powerful than anything Pegasus could hope to equal. So when they fired in reply, they did so with the care and precision of someone who is invulnerable.
And stupid. For as they opened fire, McCade punched full emergency power again, bringing the already hot tubes to the very edge of burnout, and setting off a host of alarm buzzers and flashing lights. But McCade was deaf to the ship's protests as he watched the rear screens with the fascination born of extreme fear.
Without Pegasus between them to shoot at, the destroyers were suddenly shooting at each other. And before human hands and tongues could intervene, the battle computer on each vessel used part of a second to reevaluate the source of the incoming fire, the strength of the opposing defensive screens, and initiate appropriate countermeasures. A second later one destroyer vanished in a brilliant explosion and the other suddenly slowed and then stopped, apparently the victim of a damaged propulsion system.
With a groan of relief, McCade slumped back in his chair, cutting the emergency power as he did so. As the cacophony of warning buzzers and klaxons slowly died away, the computer's dulcet tones flooded the intercom. McCade would have sworn there was an edge of criticism under the apparently neutral words.
"Recent damage to this ship and its operating systems, due to actions taken under manual override, necessitate docking at a class C or better maintenance facility within the next one hundred hours of operation. The bar is open."
Sara and Van Doren's laughter echoed his own as he punched in a course for Alice, handed over control to the ship's computer, and headed for the lounge, where he intended to order a double, no a triple, Scotch. He didn't see Laurie cancel the course for Alice and enter a new set of coordinates into the computer, or hear as she selected a certain ship-to-ship radio frequency and made contact with the massive battleship some distance away.
Instead he was seated in the lounge, watching as Sara carefully applied a salve and bandages to Van Doren's burned wrists, while the marine pretended it didn't hurt. Moments later Laurie joined them. Then, when everyone had settled down to their favorite refreshments, McCade proposed a toast.
"To a successful mission and safe arrival on Alice!"
Each smiled, raised a glass, and took a sip.
Eleven
Hours had passed since their escape from the Rock, and McCade was feeling rather pleased with himself. Bridger had been stopped, Pegasus was his, and there was every reason to expect a bonus. He glanced at Sara, who was engaged in friendly conversation with Van Doren, and took another sip of his third drink. Yes, things were definitely looking up.
His thoughts were interrupted by the computer's soft chime. Laurie beat him to it and reached out to tap a few keys. The screen across from McCade came to life. Displayed on it was the likeness of a ship, along with the technical specifications pertaining to it. McCade didn't need the specs to know what it was. There's no mistaking an Il Ronnian ship of the line. A fraction of a second later, its incredibly powerful tractor beams leapt across thousands of miles of space to look on to Pegasus. The computer confirmed tractor beam lock-up as the Il Ronnian vessel began to reel them in like a fish on a line. McCade turned and was heading for the control room when Sara's voice stopped him.
"Sam, look!"
He spun around to see Sara pointing at Laurie. It seemed as though her face was slipping. Her beautiful features had become elastic somehow and seemed to flow and ripple in an impossible way. Suddenly she appeared to collapse and then dissolve into a pool of shivering protoplasm. The Treel! But it had died on Weller's World! Except it obviously hadn't . . . because here it was in the repulsive flesh!
"Give me the word and I'll blow her . . . I mean it . . . to mush, boss!" Van Doren growled, aiming his blaster at the Treel. Sara sat perfectly still, looking back and forth between the Treel and McCade in amazement.
"I don't think that'll be necessary, Amos," McCade replied calmly. "It appears our friend here already is mush."
"Jape as you will, rigid ones," the Treel replied, switching now to its own hoarse voice. "For seldom is true beauty understood by those unblessed by the great Yareel.
"However," the Treel added pragmatically, "notice who is in possession of this small but
effective blaster." With that a pseudopod emerged from the alien's liquid presence, grasping a shiny new weapon only recently taken from the ship's small arms locker.
McCade gestured for Van Doren to lower his weapon. "Don't bother, Amos. I don't think your blaster's up to the job anyway. On Weller's World, I put enough needles in it to kill six humans."
"You speak the truth, primate," the Treel replied smugly. "Since my race is perfect, we are impossible to kill, however on Weller's World it suited my purpose to let it seem otherwise."
McCade didn't believe Treels were impossible to kill. He just hadn't figured out how to do it yet.
He lit a cigar and said, "So what's up?" He followed the question with a stream of blue smoke.
"I would have thought that obvious . . . even to you," the Treel replied. "We must deliver Mungo's head to the Il Ronn. In a few minutes they'll take us aboard, where they will extract what they wish to know from Mungo's brain. At that point my job will be over. Excuse me while I inform them of the situation here."
With that the Treel extruded another pseudopod which promptly transfigured itself into a perfect likeness of Laurie's hand—right down to her fingerprints, McCade imagined. Nimble fingers entered a series of numbers and letters, which were no doubt part of a prearranged code.
Watching the alien's confident movements, McCade silently cursed himself for the worst kind of fool. It had finally dawned on him that Laurie, the real Laurie, the one who had both saved and betrayed him, was dead—and had been since Weller's World.
Carefully he searched his emotions, trying to find either sorrow or satisfaction. Both seemed justified. But neither emerged to dominate the other. Yet the Treel was running up quite a butcher's bill. A bill that would have to be paid one day. First there had been Cadet Votava, then the crew of the tug, Laurie, and God knows how many others who had died supporting the Committee for Democratic Reform.
"So you killed her," McCade said flatly. His voice calm, even conversational. But his eyes were cold and bleak. Looking at them, Sara suddenly understood the part of his life she'd never seen. The professional killer stalking his prey.
"Yes, I'm afraid so," the Treel replied calmly. Now that the message had been sent, the alien seemed relaxed and almost gregarious. "No sooner had she rendered you unconscious with her traitorous dart than she turned on me. Injured though I was, my marvelous body was still able to momentarily assume the form of a Linthian Rath snake, with predictably fatal results. It seems, like most of you rigid ones, she was duplicitous in the extreme, appearing to work for the Imperial Government, but actually in the employ of the pirates." The alien's gelatinous body undulated for a moment as though to aid its thought process. "I will admit, however, that while assuming her form I learned that she was quite loyal to the Brotherhood's full Council. I doubt that Brother Mungo could have corrupted her as he did me."
"And then?" McCade asked.
The Treel sloshed back and forth a little in what might have been a shrug. "Events conspired to frustrate my noble plans. Laurie's henchmen soon arrived, evidently to help neutralize you, a task she had already carried out with admirable efficiency, and I was barely able to hide her body before assuming her identity. The situation forced me to reveal Bridger's location in the hotel. He was comatose and badly in need of medical attention. The rest should be obvious even to one of your limited mental acuity.
"In my role as Laurie, I had to accompany Bridger to the Rock and wait there for an opportunity to, ah, serve my employer. Fortunately Bridger's illness delayed their attempt to gain access to his mind. For a while it looked as though I would fail. Bridger grew increasingly less coherent and finally they brain pumped him. Fortunately you blundered in, presenting me with an opportunity to obtain the desired information and to escape as well."
McCade did his best to shrug nonchalantly. "So just for the record . . . what is the War World like?"
"Who knows, rigid one," the Treel replied conversationally. "Bridger never did tell me . . . that is, Votava . . . anything you couldn't surmise from the name alone. It is evidently a world having to do with war. More than that I couldn't say. And for that matter I don't think Bridger could either, for all of his raving. All he knew for sure was that it exists. And where. Soon the Il Ronn will retrieve that knowledge from Mungo's frozen brain tissue, and I shall be free of the entire matter. A freedom I shall relish, by the way."
With that the strange being seemed to withdraw into itself. Only the unwavering blaster suggested its continuing attention.
As they neared the Il Ronnian vessel, it grew in their screens to blot out nearby constellations with its complex tracery of hull, weapons platforms, power modules, and other less identifiable parts. A lighted rectangle appeared in the black metal hull as a hatch slid aside to admit them. Inside the enormous hanger bay, Pegasus came to rest next to a row of one-man interceptors. The human ship was only slightly larger than the alien fighters.
They were searched and then escorted, without ceremony, through a maze of passageways and corridors. Their guard consisted of a heavily armed squad of tall, thin Il Ronnian troopers. Their uniforms identified them as members of the Sand Sept, an elite fighting force roughly analogous to the Imperial Marines, and just as famous for their valor.
As they walked, McCade began to sweat. The temperature within the ship was uncomfortably high. It served to remind McCade that the Il Ronn had evolved on a desert planet. Which of course explained their preference for hot, dry worlds.
Finally they arrived on what was clearly the ship's command level. The ten or fifteen Il Ronn present didn't even glance up from their glowing control panels and monitors as the humans were led through and ushered into a side compartment.
As the prisoners entered, McCade experienced a brief moment of disorientation. As quickly as it came, it was gone, and he found himself standing on extremely fine white sand which shifted under his feet. The sand was tinged here and there with streaks of red, and it reached out to meet a violet sky. The sun beating down on his shoulders was incredibly hot. McCade looked at his two companions and shrugged. There was no one else in sight.
The Treel had been escorted off under separate guard shortly after they'd left the ship. Instinctively it had assumed the guise of an Il Ronn. McCade was amused at the obvious discomfort of the Il Ronnian troopers who had marched it off, with Mungo's cold-packed head tucked securely under one arm.
To their right, the air seemed to buzz and shimmer. A huge Il Ronn seemed to appear from nowhere, although McCade realized the alien was actually entering via the same hatch they had used. The sensurround was that realistic. Suddenly he realized he'd have a hard time finding his way out of the compartment without help. The alien paused for a moment as if inspecting them. Its eyes were lost in the black shadow cast by the prominent superorbital ridge above them. McCade was struck by the resemblance between the giant alien and ancient pictures he'd seen of a mythical being known as the "Devil."
He stood on long, spindly legs which ended in broad, cloven hoofs. McCade noticed these hoofs seemed to float on top of the fine white sand rather than sinking into it as his boots tended to do. The Il Ronn's leathery skin was hairless, and even had a reddish hue. It seemed to blend with the red streak in the sand behind it. Long, pointed ears lay flat against his head, and to complete the devillike image, the Il Ronn had a long tail ending in a triangular appendage. At the moment, this appendage hovered over the alien's head, providing shade from the blistering sun.
McCade knew he wasn't the first to notice the resemblance between Il Ronn physiognomy and the traditional Judeo-Christian image of evil personified. In fact some scholars thought that the aliens' devillike appearance might account in part for the almost instant enmity which sprang into existence shortly after the first recorded contact between human and Il Ronn. They suggested that after thousands of years of exposure to an evil image closely resembling the Il Ronn, humans could not view them objectively. This was a favorite argument among those opposing
war with the Il Ronn.
Other scholars disagreed, suggesting that early depictions of the devil were not imaginary, but real, and were based on early visits to Earth by Il Ronnian explorers. This theory couldn't be simply laughed off, since there was ample evidence that the Il Ronn had developed a star drive thousands of years before Man. However, being a more deliberate and cautious race than Man, their empire expanded slowly, allowing humans to eventually catch up. Proponents of this last theory went on to point out the brutal tactics still employed by Il Ronn scouts when contacting less advanced indigenous races. They maintained that if the Il Ronn did establish and maintain a temporary colony on Earth, their dealings with humans might have earned them a well-deserved reputation for evil, which they eventually came to symbolize.
So in their view, the hostility between the two races was natural, and based as much on history as on current events. This particular argument was favored by those who felt all-out war with the Il Ronn was inevitable. As far as McCade knew, the Il Ronn themselves had never commented on either theory.
He noticed that unlike many traditional images of Satan, the Il Ronn in front of him had no horns. But he more than made up for this biological oversight when he opened a lipless mouth to reveal a wealth of deadly-looking teeth. His voice was surprisingly melodious.
"Greetings. I am called Reez. Commander Reez of Star Sept Four. I apologize for receiving you here in the comfort of my own environment. But that is the privilege of the victor, is it not?
"I'll assume your silence implies acquiescence," he continued after a moment. "I would like to thank you for delivering such important information into our hands . . . even if it was only through your incompetence. I assure you we will use it to speed the inevitable end of your pathetic empire."
McCade was really sweating now—small rivers of perspiration running off his body. Reez evidently understood the significance of that.
"I see you find the heat of our native environment uncomfortable. However I fear even greater discomfort may await you in the slave markets of Lakor. I'm told that conditions there are quite rigorous. Pleasant though, when compared to your subsequent existence on some mine world." He paused to study Sara in a calculating way.
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