The Regiments of Night

by Brian N Ball

  “Des… des…” the little man muttered. And then: “Destruct circuits. Unauthorized personnel. Ab… ab…”

  “Abort?” said Danecki. “The fort is on a destruct circuit if unauthorized personnel use the controls?”

  Knaggs whispered, “Yes.” His eyes closed and he was in a kind of peace.

  The Jacobi youth began to moan.

  Khalia saw the hardening in Danecki’s hooded eyes. The look of the hunter was in his face again as he glanced at the wounded youth.

  “Please,” she said. “He’s hurt badly too.” But Danecki was uninterested in the youth now. He got to his feet. “He’ll die without immediate help,” Danecki told Dross. They both turned to the inviting banks of controls.

  “No robot. No systems engineer. The spin-shaft gone. No way of knowing how to get out of here,” said Dross slowly. “What am I to do?”

  “I should think that’s obvious,” Mrs. Zulkifar said, with all of her former venom. “You managed to get us down here. Now get us out!”

  “I wish I knew how,” said Dross.

  Wardle was becoming impatient with the irate, splendidly-handsome woman. “Have patience, Emma!” he said firmly. “We’ll do all we can. Myself… the Doctor here… and—ah—Mr. Danecki. It may take time. But we’ll see that poor Mr. Knaggs has medical attention. And soon. Soon!”

  He looked quickly at the raggedly-breathing little figure, with its blood-stained lips. Khalia was wiping Knaggs’s mouth frequently. It was obvious by Wardle’s look that he knew Knaggs was dying. They all knew.

  Mrs. Zulkifar was close to screaming: “Do something! Find a way out! Use the controls!”

  “I’m afraid, Madam, that it would be an act of criminal irresponsibility to do that,” Dross told her coldly.

  “What the Doctor means—ah—Emma,” Wardle explained, “is that if we try to use the installation’s systems, it will destroy itself.”

  “Then what can we do!” At last the woman was beginning to realize the extent of their predicament.

  Khalia watched her for a moment. Then she said: “Who can set a broken arm?”

  Danecki took the boy’s own dagger. He sliced through the material of his tunic, revealing the shattered arm.

  Jacobi was crying as the first shock waves of pain flooded around his grating bones; Danecki saw him recognize who it was that stood over him, and, incredibly, the boy conquered his agony. It was a pitiful gesture, but one that was sufficient to recall Danecki to a state of distant terror. The long year of pursuit, violent death and nightmare fears came back.

  The boy saw him standing next to Mr. Moonman. He lurched up onto his good arm and tried to take the dagger from Danecki. Almost at once, the screaming nerves in his broken arm jolted him into unconsciousness, but the movement had been made, and Danecki was the licensed victim again. The boy’s throat lay exposed.

  One foot on that slack neck, a crushing heave, and there would be no more nightmares.

  Mrs. Zulkifar stopped him. She shrieked: “Just where are we, Doctor! I mean, I don’t like to be kept in one place for long! I don’t like it here!”

  Danecki restrained himself as Dross explained what had happened to them since the fury of the iron-black cube had taken them from the ruin above. “Madam, like it or not, you’re here. An accident of incredible importance has resulted in our being sent down the entrance to a long-lost military fortification dating from the days of the Second Interplanetary Confederation. It is known through legend. Some called it the Hidden Fort. Others, the Lost Fort. Now, it is neither hidden nor lost. You, Madam, and the rest of us, including my unfortunate colleague Mr. Knaggs, have been permitted to see what has not been seen by the eye of a single human being since the last battle of the Mad Wars!”

  They all looked about them to see the smooth surfaces. The walls, floor, and ceiling had a bright, clean deadliness that thrust itself upon the imagination with a grim and glittering force. The great chamber might have been polished only that hour.

  Danecki looked back to the youth as Mrs. Zulkifar gobbled her incredulity. He shut her out of his mind. “He’ll need splints,” he told Dross. “A pain-killer would help, but you haven’t one?”

  “No, nothing! Nothing for Mr. Knaggs or the youth. I haven’t any experience with this sort of thing. Batty knows where everything is. Can’t you do something for him?”

  Danecki made his decision. The boy reminded him of the rain-streaked face on the surface, the face with its eyes open to the steel-gray sky. “I’ll splint the arm.”

  Khalia began to understand the effort it had taken Danecki to make the decision.

  * * *

  CHAPTER 6

  Wardle watched Danecki’s quick hands. Then he pointed to the control banks. “The fort could save Mr. Knaggs,” he said. “This is a very big installation. There’ll be a fully-equipped casualty station somewhere about here. Why not? There’ll be food, medical supplies, all the equipment for a garrison of hundreds. Damn it, surely we should try. We have to try! And what about the spin-shaft? Where is it? Gone! Not a sign of it. Dr. Dross,” he called. “We could search for hospital faculties!”

  Danecki paused in the act of forcing fragments of bone together. For a moment he thought that Wardle would not be able to resist the urge to find out more about the incredible underground redoubt.

  Dross halted the Brigadier. “Everything here will be controlled by automatic systems,” he said heavily. “Somehow we have been allowed to enter the fort without causing it to become active. Should we do anything that would activate the control systems, I am sure that the fort would recognize us as unauthorized intruders. I have to rely on Mr. Knaggs’s judgment, and my own researches into the period. No, Brigadier, we may not investigate the fort at all! For, if we do, the fort, as well as ourselves, will certainly be destroyed.”

  Danecki heard the bones click and Jacobi shriek in his pain-filled delirium. He splinted the joint with the scabbard of the ceremonial hunting knife the boy carried at his belt. He bound the arm.

  Wardle was talking, almost to himself. “It was the ultimate weapon. A Hidden Fort that could last for a thousand years! Self-perpetuating—completely automatic—the final undiscoverable fortress! And fully efficient after a thousand years. Even the spin-shaft worked!”

  Mrs. Zulkifar said angrily: “Do you mean that I’ve been traveling down a spin-tunnel that’s a thousand years old? Why, that’s illegal. It’s madly dangerous!”

  “You have, Madam, and it certainly is. Illegal, dangerous and mad,” Dross assured her.

  “Then where are all the people?” she said, quietly now.

  Dross was almost amused. “People?”

  It was obvious that no human had trod this bright, polished floor for centuries. No one had died down there. There were no bones, no little heaps of ancient dust, no sense of human intrusion for year after year after year.

  Mr. Moonman spoke to Mrs. Zulkifar. “We are the first to see this fortress in ten centuries, Madam. One thousand years.”

  “Precisely!” Wardle said. He turned to face Dross. His eye fell on the shuddering figure of Mr. Knaggs, and, though the Brigadier flinched with pity, he went on with a subdued air of excitement, “We’re the first! The assault regiments didn’t reach here! Can it be possible, Doctor? That somewhere down here—”

  They understood one another.

  Khalia knew too. “ ‘The Regiments of Night,’ ” she quoted. “Is that what we’ll find?”

  “Oh, goodness,” said Mrs. Zulkifar. “You’re all so calm about it. Why, it’s an outrage—isn’t it?”

  “I suppose it is,” said Khalia.

  “But you’re so calm yourself!”

  “That doesn’t mean I’m not scared.”

  Danecki was glad to hear the girl’s confession. There was no hysteria in her voice, nor any sign of fear on her face. She was a self-contained, resolute, and beautiful young woman. Yet it would have been wrong for her to claim the hard fearlessness that he had molded himself into.


  “I don’t understand you,” Mrs. Zulkifar said. “Really, I don’t! It isn’t feminine to be so quiet! It isn’t natural. I’m not sure that it’s even decent!”

  The girl smiled, a slight crinkling of the features that tore at Danecki’s heart. He smiled back at her.

  Dross turned to Danecki. “What are we to do?”

  Danecki asked Mrs. Zulkifar’s unasked question. When Dross had turned to him, she had glared viciously. But she remained in her angry, hurt silence. “You’re asking me?” Danecki said. “You’re the expert, Doctor. And the Brigadier knows about military installations.”

  “So I do,” strutted Wardle. “Studied ancient fortifications for years!”

  “I know a good deal,” Dross said quietly. “I expect to know more should we conclude this adventure satisfactorily. The Brigadier, unless I’m much mistaken, shares my interest in this remarkable find.”

  “What? Certainly!” put in Wardle.

  “I am the foremost authority on the Second Interplanetary Confederation, Mr. Danecki. Yet I still have sufficient humility to recognize my own limitations. You’re a qualified hyperspace navigator?”

  “I was,” said Danecki, “in another life.”

  “Worked your own ship?”

  “Yes.”

  “Small planetary system—remote from Center?”

  Danecki appreciated the archaeologist’s shrewdness. “Yes. Not such a small system, though. But remote. You’d call it primitive.”

  “I’d call it barbaric,” said Dross with complete sincerity. “And yet you’ve survived—for how long?”

  Danecki thought of the months and weeks and days of tumbling about the eddying whirlpools of hyperspace; of the sudden desperate encounters that lasted for fifteen seconds or, once, for seventeen long days and nights. “A year. Just a year.”

  Khalia sensed the utter weariness of spirit in the man. But he was not broken.

  Dross went on: “Then you are an expert in precisely the skills we need here and now, Mr. Danecki!”

  Danecki nodded.

  Dross glanced at Wardle. “I know you held field rank, sir, but you commanded armies. We need a man who can adapt instantly to any bizarre set of circumstances. An expert, Brigadier, in the art of survival!”

  Dross turned to Danecki. “How do we survive, Mr. Danecki?”

  Invulnerable, massive, the ultimate in defensive fortification building, the ancient fort glinted in the bright lights. The control panels waited for long-gone officers. The great black doors at one end of the cavern pressed stiflingly in on Khalia. She began to fear their massive presence. She began to notice the structure of the fort.

  There were corridors she had glimpsed only vaguely before.

  There were three great corridors, wide tunnels, but not high. They would allow easy passage for a considerable number. How many? A hundred? A thousand? Khalia wondered what sort of people the long-dead builders had been. What sort of future had they imagined for the Galaxy? Had they seen their own place in the long series of frantic Mad Wars as that of a civilized minority keeping at bay the forces of wild, black revolution? And why was the fortification deserted? Danecki was thinking about the fort too. “How good is Mr. Knaggs?” he said, surprising Dross as well as Khalia.

  She had watched him surveying the bleak banks of controls with a close, detailed scrutiny—as if he would wring out their secret knowledge by hypnotizing the bare screens. And yet she could see the inevitable logic of his question. After all, Knaggs had almost condemned himself to a miserable death by his warning.

  “He was the best,” said Dross. “I’ve never known him to be wrong. He holds qualifications few at Center could match. I’ve seen him take robotic systems to pieces and put them together again with a skill that I can only describe as uncanny. But that’s not what you mean, is it, Mr. Danecki?”

  “What?” Wardle put in. “What do you mean, then?”

  “It’s a matter of judgment,” said Dross. “Can we rely on the judgment of a man who is as badly hurt as my engineer. Can we, Mr. Danecki?”

  It rested on Knaggs, Danecki knew. It was becoming increasingly obvious that the little systems engineer could not last much longer; even skilled surgery might not save him, and it might be that the fort itself was not equipped to handle such severe cases.

  But it might!

  For a moment Khalia caught herself wondering what life could be like on Danecki’s own iron world—where a savage justice was still permitted that had long since been abandoned in her own advanced system. The men she knew were safe, self-contained, tender. Danecki radiated an energetic despair that shocked, yet thrilled, her.

  Danecki crossed to the large, functional chair where a Confederation battle commander might have sat. Mrs. Zulkifar saw him touch the smooth, elegant back of the chair.

  “Don’t!” she yelled. “Don’t touch anything. It might be dangerous. Leave it all to the proper authorities when we get out! Just think what happened when that madman came in with the fusor! We might all be killed—in this place. It’s horrible! Didn’t the engineer say that we’ll all die if we touch anything?”

  Khalia caught the infection of terror from the woman; she had a moment of pure horror as she imagined herself remaining in the bright, blue-steel pit until the air failed, or some nameless enemy contrived a lingering death. She was shocked to realize that she was ready to believe Knaggs. And it was because of the fear of death in the underground fort.

  Danecki shrugged. “We have to trust him,” he said. “He knows more than any of us about the engineering systems of the Confederation. Another thing—” he said, indicating the banks of controls. “The fort is becoming active.”

  Wardle was again the keen student of military affairs. He bustled about the control room with a professional stride, as if he were about to take charge of the great fortification.

  “Should have guessed!” he said. “Eh, Doctor? Mr. Danecki? Here we are, intruders, and the installation recognizes that it must provide the essentials to keep life moving— light, heat, air! Fuel cells to power the place. Ah! Thought at first we were going to have a surprise—find the descendants of Second Confederation survivors. But no!”

  Dross half-listened. Like Danecki, he was staring at the control panels. A single sensor-pad, part of the control mechanisms in front of the battle commander’s chair, began to waver blindly. It sought a human hand to begin pumping out information about the state of the Confederation empire.

  Khalia saw the sensor-pad. She willed Danecki to move away from it, and she felt sweat break out all over her body as he did so.

  “It’s happened before!” Wardle went on jerkily. “Heard about the odd affair on Cygnus VII? Tribe of primitives thought they’d be wiped out. Went to earth. Lasted more than three hundred years. Moles! Came out blind. Could have happened here—Confederation survivors stranded down here—maybe a few ignorant soldiers or lower-grade base personnel—they could have bred down here. But no! No sign of life. Not till we came down!”

  He stopped. Khalia realized that Wardle, as much as Dross and the others, was waiting for Danecki.

  The wide shoulders were erect, and the face was set in a grim mold when at last he completed his survey of the control room. “We don’t dare try to get out,” he said quietly. “Your engineer is probably right. That means trying to call for help before we try anything else.”

  “Anything else?” asked Mrs. Zulkifar. “What else can we do? You must report our danger to the ship. I’ll certainly have you turned over to the proper authorities if you don’t!”

  Danecki found the woman’s defiant hostility wearing. But he merely said: “So far as you are concerned, I am the proper authorities.”

  “No! The Brigadier here—he should take charge! He’s an older man. He’s a person of position, not a criminal on the run! Doctor, I demand that you ask this man to show a proper respect for me. I demand it!”

  Dross said wearily: “Please, Madam, try to be realistic! Try to have
some understanding of other viewpoints than your own. We have a man who may be dying in our midst—have some respect yourself, Mrs. Zulkifar. Leave matters to me, at least for the moment. I know that Mr. Danecki is the proper person to make our plans!”

  “It might help the lady if I consulted with the Brigadier,” Danecki offered, “and with the Doctor.”

  The woman inclined her head.

  Khalia unclenched her fist. She wished she dared strike the crass middle-aged woman, who was adding another strand of tension to the situation.

  “Well, Mr. Danecki?” asked Dross. “What can we do to save Mr. Knaggs?”

  “Get help from your ship,” Danecki answered at once. “Even at the risk of activating some of the fort’s systems.”

  “You think that will happen?”

  Danecki pointed to a faintly-glowing screen that seemed to be the centerpiece of the great control panel before the armchair. Its gray blankness had gradually changed into a faded, light-blue, glowing haze. It seemed to be waiting to be called into life. “Minor systems are beginning to function,” he said. “If we start to use any kind of electrical impulse down here, other systems are going to be alerted. It won’t take much of that kind of activity to get the major systems working.”

  “Then why aren’t they in action already?” Khalia found herself asking. “Why isn’t the fort on the alert now? As the Brigadier says, we’re intruders. Why haven’t we been asked to account for our intrusion?”

  It was, Danecki realized, a question that he had already put to himself and discarded. But not explicitly. He had found a situation and accepted it.

  “Been asking myself that!” said Wardle. “Surprising, eh, Doctor?”

  Dross shook his head. “The thought had passed through my mind too,” he told the others. “I dismissed it. You see, the Second Interplanetary Confederation was obsessively security-minded. They lived by the robot. Cybernetics was their way of life. Apparently, the robotic systems that have sensed our presence consider that we are here by right. The Brigadier has pointed out that light, heat, and air are provided. Therefore we are legitimate entrants. There is also the fact that we entered the fort by the customary means—we did use the Confederation’s own spin-shaft, remember. I believe, along with Mr. Knaggs, that it’s only if we should attempt to use the control systems, that we will be recognized as intruders. Until that time, we are, in effect, members of the Second Interplanetary Confederation.”