Devil's Hand

by Jack McKinney

  Watching her with an almost palpable intensity. Wolff repositioned himself for a better view of the stranger, a maintenance tech by the look of his uniform. But there was something disturbingly familiar about him. Wolff was sure he had never met the man, but was equally certain he had seen him somewhere. As he studied the man’s tall, lean figure and bearded face, an image began to form. The beard would have to go, Wolff decided, and the hair would have to be a lot longer and darker…But where had he seen him-in the Control Zone, maybe-and why did martial arts and old movies come to mind?

  Karen Penn, her father, and Dr. Lang were eating slices of wedding cake when a slovenly-dressed civilian joined them at the table. Lang introduced Karen to Dr. Lazlo Zand, a cold-handed man with eyes as pupilless as Lang’s own.

  “Good to meet you,” Karen said, forcing a smile and wondering if Zand ran on ice water.

  “Charmed,” he returned. “That blond hair. You remind me of little Dana.”

  Karen felt a chill run through her, and something seemed to make her fork leap from the plate. She bent to retrieve it, but someone had beat her to it.

  “Allow me,” a red-haired ensign told her. “I’m pretty handy with hardware.”

  “Karen, Ensign…Baker, if I’m not mistaken,” offered Lang.

  She and Baker were both still holding on to the fork and locked in on each other’s eyes.

  “The pleasure’s at least fifty percent mine.” Baker smiled. He let go of the fork. “Consider me at your service, ma’am.”

  Karen’s eyebrows went up. “I’ll keep it in mind.”

  “And I’ll keep you in mind,” Baker said, excusing himself and moving off.

  “Bit of a hotshot,” commented Lang.

  “That’s the sort of person you’ll be wasting your time with from now on,” Harry Penn added gruffly.

  Karen smiled. “I’m not so sure about that, Dad.”

  “But your father’s right,” Zand interjected, narrowing his eyes. “Scientists are more fun.”

  Karen couldn’t hold the man’s gaze. Absently, she tried to raise a forkful of cake to her mouth. The utensil was twisted beyond recognition.

  The party was still cooking eight hours later, but Rick and Lisa were ready to call it a day.

  They said their farewells from the balcony overlooking the hold; and Lisa got ready to give the bridal bouquet a healthy send-off.

  At the last minute, Janice had thrust Minmei into the midst of the crowd of eligible women, but had herself taken off for parts unknown. Now Minmei was pressed tight in the center of that mass of supercharged youth, surrounded by officers, enlisted-rating techs, and cadets, most of whom were younger than she was. One honey-blond-haired ensign to her left couldn’t have been more than seventeen.

  On the balcony, Lisa was warning that anyone who hoped to remain single should stay out of the line of fire. Then she gave the thing a windup underhanded toss, and Minmei saw it coming.

  She barely had to stretch out her hands, and what was stranger still, the women around her seemed to give it to her.

  “See you all after the honeymoon,” Lisa shouted, perhaps unaware of the bouquet’s landing zone.

  “Yeah, in about eight hours from now!” Rick added, tugging his bride away.

  Minmei lowered her face into the flowers, then gave her head a quick shake when she looked up. It’s over, she thought, recalling a sad song she used to sing. Now I’ve got to get on with my life.

  “Good-bye, Rick,” she said softly. It is you I still see…

  On Optera, the Invid Regis learned of her husband’s imminent return and made immediate plans to leave the planet. She didn’t delude herself with thoughts that this might be some trial separation. Of course, it meant abandoning all the Genesis Pit experiments in evolution she had begun here, her progress in the Great Work of transmutation and freedom from the base condition; but what strides could she hope to make in his presence, what chance did she have to fulfill herself? No, he had held her back long enough. Further, it meant that she would have to decide what constituted a just division of their resources.

  He already had the living computer; but there were other Protoculture instrumentalities that would serve her as well as the brain once had. And she would take along half her active children, but leave him that sleeping brood she had not yet seen fit to awaken.

  Their home on Optera, their castle, was an enormous hemispherical hive, once the sacred inverted chalice of the Great Work, but now a profane dwelling filled with his things-his servants and ridiculous possessions. He had claimed to be doing all this for her sake, and for a time she could almost believe him, pitiful as his attempts were. But she soon realized that he was merely nurturing himself with these conquests and acquisitive drives.

  The Regent’s ignorance and stubbornness had been enough to drive her mad. He was in every way her intellectual and spiritual inferior; and yet his will was powerful, and in his presence she could feel his sick mind reaching out for her, trying to smother her. She was certain that unless she left Optera, he would one day succeed in dragging her down to his barbaric level.

  But she was free of him now, her mind clear on the path she had to take. No longer subservient to his dark demands, she would strike out on her own. If the matrix was to be found, it was she who would find it. Not by sanitizing the Masters’ insignificant worlds, but by sending out her sensor nebulae to the far reaches of the galaxy to locate Zor’s dimensional fortress. Then she would take the Flowers back from the thieves who had stolen them; she would liberate them from their matrix prison and find a new Optera for her experiments! In the meantime the planet Praxis would suffice. And woe to any who would stand in her way!

  CHAPTER SIX

  Actually, I’ve been thinking about it for months now, but I just didn’t know how to ask, and I wasn’t sure if you would understand my decision. Could you see me walking up to Lang or one of those council stiffs and saying, “Uh, do you think I might be able to go along on the ride?” And then have to tell you that I was going to be doing a tour by myself this time.

  Taking my act to Tirol-you would have brained me. I hope you’ll forgive me, and l want you to know that we’ll pick up right where we left off when the Expeditionary mission returns. I mean, who knows, maybe I’ll have added a bunch of new stuff to our repetoire. Anyway I’m certain the experience will be good for me.

  Lynn-Minmei’s good-bye note to her manager, Samson “Sharky” O’Toole The alarm went off at 5:15 a.m. “Rise and shine,” said a synthesized, possibly female voice from the room’s control deck.

  Rick pulled the sheet over his head and buried his face in the pillow. He could sense Lisa stirring beside him, sitting up and stretching. In a moment he felt her warm hand on his bare back.

  “Morning.”

  “What good is it being an admiral if you can’t sleep late?” he asked without lifting his head.

  She laughed and kissed the nape of his neck. “Not today, Rick.”

  “Then tell me why five-fifteen never seemed this early before.”

  “Maybe because bed never felt this good before,” she purred, snuggling against his back.

  Rick rolled over and put his arms around her. “That’s a fact, ma’am.”

  The door tone sounded, ending their embrace. Rick muttered something and climbed out of bed, stepping into trousers before answering the door.

  “Good morning, Mr. and Mrs. Hunter,” a robo-butler announced. The thing was squat and silly-looking, with a rubber skirt that concealed its wheels; it was holding a full breakfast tray in its plasticized grips. “Dr. Lang wanted you to have breakfast in bed,” the butler continued in the same monotone. “Please enter the appropriate commands.”

  Rick allowed the piece of Robowizardy to enter, but shut it down soon afterward, taking over the butler’s program and conveying the tray to bed himself.

  He bowed theatrically as Lisa sat up. “Service with a genuine smile.”

  They ate hurriedly and said little, famis
hed all of a sudden. Then they showered together and began to dress. Rick watched Lisa in front of the mirror, smoothing her uniform and adjusting the collar of her jacket.

  “Off to work,” he said, looking himself over. “Do you realize that the next time we’re in this room together, I’ll be asking you what you did today, and you’ll tell me that you commanded a starship across the galaxy. Does that sound a little odd to you?”

  “Odd how?” she said, with a crooked smile.

  “Odd like not something we do every day.”

  Lisa came over to tug his black torso harness into place. “Just think of it as a honeymoon.”

  Rick made a face. “I’ll be sure and tell that to the Masters.”

  Jean Grant had cried at the wedding; those, however, had been tears of joy and remembrance, while the ones streaming down her cheeks today were anything but. Bowie was on the verge of tears himself, but was trying hard to be a man about it. Not that mom and son stood out any, though; the shuttle hold was filled with like scenes: tears, embraces, heartfelt exchanges. Wedding guests and family members would be shuttled home over the course of the next few days, but with the SDF-3 launch window less than four hours off, this was the crew’s last chance for good-byes. Within a month, Human factory personnel would be transferred to new assignments on-planet, or at Moon Base or Liberty Space Station. No decision had been made concerning the satellite itself, but speculation was that the Zentraedi crew would remove the installation from Earth orbit-to where, no one knew.

  Vince Grant bent down and put a hand on his son’s head, giving it an affectionate rub. “It’s going to be all right, Bowie. We’ll be back before you know it.”

  “But why can’t I come with you?” he wanted to know. “Other kids are going-kids not too much older than us,” he added, including Dana. Bowie was thinking of one kid in particular he had met at the wedding, Dr. Lang’s godson, Scott Bernard.

  “That’s true, sweetie,” Jean said, smiling through her tears. “But you know you can’t go.”

  She touched Bowie’s chest with her fingertips. “Your heart won’t let you go.”

  Dana, who was bored and practicing spin kicks against a bulkhead, frowned and said, “Come on, Bowie. We don’t want to go with them anyway. Space is no fun, anybody knows that.”

  Max and Miriya regarded each other and shook their heads as if to say, where did that one come from?

  “Dana’s right, Bowie,” Jean smiled, tugging in a sob. “It isn’t going to be any fun.”

  “Yeah, Dana, but you were in space already,” Bowie pointed out. “I’ve never been there.”

  Rolf Emerson took advantage of a momentary silence to step forward and put his arm around the boy. “We’re going to have a good time, Bowie. You wait and see.”

  Vince and Jean embraced Rolf. “Take good care of him for us, Rolf,” Vince said with a serious look.

  “You know I will.”

  Just then Lazlo Zand walked by headed for the shuttle ramp. Instinctively, Emerson hugged Dana and Bowie to his legs, a look in his dark eyes like he wanted to put a stake through Zand’s heart.

  Elsewhere in the shuttle boarding area, Janice and Minmei had received their seat assignments and were walking off in the direction of the VIP lounge. They were ordinary folk this morning, dressed in slacks and simple blouses. There was plenty of time to kill until the prep call, and Minmei wanted to get a drink.

  “What’s with you today?” Janice asked while they moved through the crowd. “The clouds are below us, so I don’t see how you can have your head in them.” When Minmei didn’t respond, Janice took her by the arm. “Earth calling Lynn-Minmei. Please relay your hyperspace coordinates.”

  “Huh?” Minmei said, turning to her.

  Janice made an exasperated sound. “What is it-Rick?”

  Minmei looked away. “He always looked out for me. I just don’t know if I can leave him like this.”

  “Look, Lynn,” Janice began in a worried voice, “I don’t think Lisa is going to appreciate your cutting into their-”

  “If I could just see him once more. Both of them. Only to wish them good luck.”

  “You already did that-about two dozen times!”

  Janice could see that she wasn’t listening; Minmei’s eyes were searching the bay for something. “There!” she said after a moment, pointing to a small EVA vehicle near a secondary launch port reserved for maintenance craft.

  “I’m afraid to ask,” Janice said warily. But Minmei was already on her way.

  “Admiral on the bridge!” a young enlisted-rating tech announced, snapping to as Lisa stepped through the hatch She couldn’t help remembering Captain Gloval constantly smacking his head on a hatch very similar to this one. And indeed he would have felt right at home on the SDF-3 bridge, which for all intents and purposes was identical to that on the SDF-1. Lisa had insisted it be so, even though Lang had tried to convince her of the giant strides his teams had made since reconstructing that doomed fortress There were redundancies and severe limitations to the design, he had argued; but in the end Lisa had her way. It was her command, and this bridge was as much a tribute as anything else. To Gloval, to Claudia and the others…Of course, there were some changes that had to be allowed…

  The crew, for example: they were all men.

  “At ease, gentlemen,” Lisa told them.

  She led herself through a tour of the now completed room, running her hands across the consoles and acceleration seats. Along the rear bulkhead were two four-by-four monitor screens linked to internal systemry and astrogation. Starboard was a complex laser communication and scanner console, crowned by a tall multiscreened threat board. And forward, below a wraparound forward view port, were twin duty stations like the ones she and Claudia had manned for almost three years.

  Lisa shook hands with her exec and crew-Forsythe, Blake, Colton and the rest. It was a formality, given the fact they all knew one another, but a necessary one. She wished each man good luck, then moved toward the raised command chair that was hers alone. She took a long time settling into its padded seat, but why not: the moment was six years in the making.

  A terrible memory of her last shortlived command flashed through her mind, but she willed it away. She took a lingering glance around the room and declared in a determined voice, “Mister Blake, I want systems status.”

  If Lisa’s new space was compact, tidy, and familiar, Rick’s was large and impersonal.

  Constructed concurrently with its Earthside counterpart, the command, control, and communications center was an enormous room more than two hundred feet square and almost half as high. A fifty-by-fifty-foot screen dominated the bulkhead opposite Rick’s command balcony with its half-dozen consoles and monitors. Below, a horizontal position board was surrounded by more than twenty individual duty stations, and adjacent to this forward, a bank of as many stations tied to the central display screen. Along the port bulkhead were peripheral screens, tech stations, and banks of sophisticated instrumentality, with a great Medusa’s head of cables, feeders, and power relays running floor to ceiling.

  “Quite a sight, isn’t it, Admiral?” said someone off to Rick’s right.

  Rick turned, aware that he had been staring openmouthed at the room, and found T. R.

  Edwards regarding him analytically from the command balcony railing. “Uh, impressive,”

  Rick returned, underplaying his amazement. He had of course been here often enough, but still struggled in unguarded moments with the enormity of his responsibility.

  “`Impressive.’” Edwards laughed, approaching Rick now. “Interesting choice. I think I would have said `awesome,’ or ‘incredible,’ or even `magnificent.’ But then, I didn’t spend three years in space on the SDF-1, did I? Did you think the Grand Cannon impressive, Admiral? You did get to see it, didn’t you?”

  “Actually, I didn’t, General,” Rick said, wondering what Edwards was getting at. “I only saw it in ruins…where it belonged in the first place.”


  Edwards grinned. “Oh, of course. I forgot. You were the one who rescued the Hayes woman, uh, the admiral.”

  Rick caught a reflection of himself in Edwards’s faceplate, then looked directly into Edwards’s good eye. “Something bothering you, Edwards?”

  Edwards took a step back, motioning to himself with elaborate innocence. “Me? Why, no, not at all. I suppose I’m just a bit overcome by this room of ours.” Edwards folded his arms and stood at the rail, a prince on a battlement. He turned to Rick and grinned. “Has anyone ever had a finer War Room, Admiral?”

  Rick’s lips were a thin line. “I prefer Situation Room. I thought I made that clear at the briefings.”

  “Forgive me,” Edwards said, throwing his hands out apologetically. “Situation Room.” He swung round to the view again. “What an impressive Situation Room.”

  Belowdecks, Jack Baker cursed-the RDF, his commanders, his luck, himself ultimately. It was because of that oversight in the simulator, he decided. That was what had done it, that was what had turned off Hunter and Sterling. And that handwritten invitation to the reception-ha! Richard A. Hunter indeed. Richard Anti-Baker Hunter was more like it. Or why else wouldn’t he have pulled the assignment he wanted? Skull Squadron…that was where the fun was. Even Ghost would’ve done the trick, although he did have some reservations about that General Edwards. But, hell! to be stuck with Commander Grant!

  Grant was all right, of course, but his unit was ground-based, for cry’nout loud. And what kind of action could a guy expect to see on land on a mission like this! And what was an ensign doing there? Temporary duty or not, it just didn’t make any sense, no sense at all.

  “I shoulda gone to college,” Baker muttered as he shouldered his way through a group of enlisted ratings to report in.

  Most of his Expeditionary Force mates in the mecha hangar were marveling at the two transports that were central to the battalion’s strength-the GMU, and the dropship that conveyed it planetside-but to Jack the devices were just modular nightmares: overworked, underpowered, and unimportant. Veritechs were what made it happen. One pilot, one mecha. Plenty of speed, range, and firepower, and nothing to drag you down. Nothing extraneous in mind or body, as Jack was fond of quoting, often fantasizing about what those early Macross days must have been like, pushing the envelope and azending!