“Danger exists in every part of human life,” said Timor.
“We are here to see that it does not.”
Lieutenant Commander Timor now had his armor completely on.
So did Colonel Craindre.
Exchanging a quick look, they moved in unison.
A direct hit on the fortress by a heavy weapon set the deck to quivering, and distracted the humanoid. It turned its head away, scanning for Berserker boarders.
In a matter of seconds, the two humans in armor had disabled the one robot, but only after a serious struggle, in which the colonel had to shoot off both its arms. Being unable to use deadly force against the humans had put the humanoid at a serious disadvantage in the encounter.
When the contest was over, their opponent reduced to a voiceless, motionless piece of baggage, Colonel Craindre said, breathing heavily: “I am of course remaining here, at my post. But your duty, Lieutenant Commander, requires you to report to headquarters.”
Smashing open one door after another, Timor and Craindre ranged through a fortress temporarily devoid of humanoids, hastily releasing the few humans who were still locked in their cabins. Soon everyone but the colonel—she ordered all her people to leave—was aboard the little courier.
Timor considered it all-important that humanity be warned about the humanoids, without delay. One of his first acts on regaining his freedom was to send a message courier speeding on to headquarters, ahead of the crewed vessel: the message contained only a few hundred words—including the prearranged code which identified him as the true sender.
Now, aboard the escaping courier, the surviving humans, bringing along the disabled humanoid, embarked on their dash for freedom.
As the small ship with its human cargo, launched from the fortress at the highest feasible speed, came into view of the attacking machines, Berserkers sped toward it from three sides, intent on kamikaze ramming. Instantly humanoid-controlled fighters, careless of their own safety, hurled themselves at the enemy in counterattack, taking losses but creating a delay.
The courier broke free, plunging into c-space.
“Our only wish is to serve you, sir.” A last plaintive appeal came in by radio, just before the curtain of flightspace closed down communication.
“On a platter,” Timor muttered. He looked up at his human friends, whose bodies, mostly bulky with space armor, crowded the cabin as if it were a lifeboat. Triumph slowly faded from his face.
One of the pilots who had been inclined to accept the humanoids wholeheartedly, and who had in fact volunteered to stay behind with them, spoke up, in a tone and with a manner verging on mutinous accusation: “We couldn’t have got away without the help of those machines. We couldn’t have survived that last attack.”
The lieutenant commander faced the speaker coldly. “Just which set of machines do you mean, spacer? And which attack?”
His new shipmates stared at him. He saw understanding in the eyes of many, clear agreement in some faces. But there were others who did not yet understand.
“Think about it,” Timor told them. “The Berserkers—yes, the Berserkers!—have just helped us to survive an attack. An assault launched at us, you might say, from a direction opposite to their own, and with somewhat more subtlety. Not that the Berserkers wanted to help us—they didn’t compute that trying to blow us to bits would work out to our benefit. But if it hadn’t been for the Berserkers, the humanoids would have taken our sanity and freedom, given us sweet lies in return.”
He paused to let that sink in, then added: And, of course, if it hadn’t been for humanoids piloting fighters just now, covering our escape, the same Berserkers would have eaten us alive.”
Timor paused again, looking over his audience. He wanted to spell out the situation as plainly as he could.
His voice was low, but carried easily in the quiet cabin. “I can see how things might go from now on. It might be that only the threat of Berserkers, keeping the humanoids fully occupied, will make it possible for us to sustain humanity in a Galaxy infested with humanoids.
“And without humanoids fighting for our lives, we might wind up losing our war against Berserkers.
“Now we face two sets of bad machines instead of one,” he concluded, his tone rising querulously at the unfairness of it all, “and the hell of it is, not only are they depending on each other, but we’re going to need them both!”
BLINDMAN’S BLADE
The gods’ great Game of Swords, and with it the whole later history of planet Earth, might have followed a very different course had the behavior of one or two divine beings—or the conduct of only one man—been different at the start. Even a slight change at the beginning of the Game produced drastic variation in the results. And Apollo has been heard to say that there have been several such beginnings.
One of those divergent commencements—which, in the great book of fate, may be accounted as leading to an alternate universe, or perhaps simply as a false start—saw all of the gods’ affairs thrown into turmoil at a remarkably early stage, even before the first move had been made in the Game. It happened on the day when the Swords, all new and virginally fresh, all actually still warm from Vulcan’s forge, were being brought to the Council to be put into the hands of those players who had been awarded them by lot.
The sun had just cleared the jagged horizon when Vulcan arrived at the open council-space, there to join the wide circle of deities already assembled in anticipation of his coming. They were his colleagues, all of them standing much taller than humans, their well-proportioned bodies casting long shadows in the lingering mists, but still dwarfed by the surrounding rim of icy mountains. There were moments when they all looked lost under the breadth of the cold morning sky.
The Smith brought with him a whiff of forge-smoke, a tang of melted meteoric iron. His cloak of many furs was windblown around his shoulders, and his huge left hand cradled carefully its priceless cargo of steel and magic, eleven weighty packages held in a neat bundle. And, despite the fact that a small but vocal minority of the Council still argued that no binding agreement on the rules of the Game had yet been reached, the Swords—almost every one of the Twelve Swords—were soon being portioned out among the chosen members of the meeting.
Among those gods and goddesses who received a Sword in the distribution, no two reactions were exactly the same. Most were pleased, but not all. For example, there was the goddess Demeter, who stood looking thoughtfully at the object limping Vulcan had just pressed into her strong, pale hands. She gazed at the black sheath covering a meter’s length of god-forged steel, at the black hilt marked by a single symbol of pure white.
Demeter said pensively, in her high, clear voice: “I am not at all sure that I care to play this Game.”
Mars, who happened to be standing near her, commented: “Well, many of us dowant to play, including some who have been awarded no Sword at all. Hand yours over to someone else if you don’t want it.” Mars had already been promised a Sword of his own, or his protest would doubtless have been more violent. Actually he thought he could do quite well in the Game without benefit of any such trick hardware; but he would not have submitted quietly to being left off the list.
“I said I was not sure,” Demeter responded. A male deity would probably have tossed the sheathed weapon thoughtfully in his hand while trying to decide. Demeter only looked at it. And she was still holding her Sword, down at her side, the dark sheath all but invisible in one of her large hands, when her tall figure turned and strode away into a cloud of mist.
Another of her colleagues called after her to know where she was going; and as an afterthought added the question: “Which Sword do you have?”
“I have other business,” Demeter called back, avoiding a direct answer to either question. And then she went on. For all that anyone could tell, she was only seeking other amusement, displaying independence as gods and goddesses were wont to do.
Meanwhile the distribution of Swords was still going on, a slow pr
ocess frequently interrupted by arguments. Some of the recipients were trying to keep the names and powers of their Swords secret, while others did not seem to care who knew about them.
The council meeting dragged along, its proceedings every bit as disorderly as those of such affairs were wont to be, and not made any easier to follow by the setting—a high mountain wasteland of snow and ice and rock and howling wind, an environment to which the self-convinced rulers of the earth were proud to display their indifference.
Hera was complaining that the original plan of allowing only gods to possess Swords, which she believed to be the only good and proper and reasonable scheme, had been spoiled before it could be put into effect: “That scoundrel Vulcan, that damned clubfoot, enlisted a human smith to help him make the Swords. And then chose to reward the man!”
Zeus stroked his beard. “Well? And if it amuses Vulcan to hand out a gift or two to mortals? Surely that’s not unheard of?”
“I mean he rewarded the human with the gift of Townsaver! That’s unheard of! So now we have only eleven Swords to share among us, instead of twelve. Am I wrong, or is it we gods, and not humanity, who are supposed to be playing the Swordgame?”
The speaker had meant the question to be rhetorical; but not even on this point could any general agreement be established. Many at the meeting expected their human worshipers to play a large part in the Game—though of course not in direct competition with gods.
Debate on various questions concerning the distribution of Swords, and the conduct and rules of the Game, moved along by fits and starts, until Vulcan himself came forward, leaning sideways on his shorter leg, to demand the floor. As soon as the Smith thought he had the attention of a majority, he haughtily informed his accusers that he had decided to give away the Blade called Townsaver, because the gods themselves had no towns or cities, no settled or occupied places in the human sense, and thus none of them would be able to derive any direct benefit from that particular weapon.
“Would you have chosen that one for yourself?” he demanded, looking from one deity to another nearby. “Hah, I thought not!”
As the council meeting wrangled on, perpetually on the brink of dissolving in disputes about procedure, at least one other member of the divine company—Zeus himself—complained that the great Game was already threatened by human interference. How many of his colleagues, he wanted to know, how many of them realized that there was one man who by means of certain impertinent magic had already gained extensive theoretical knowledge of the Twelve Swords?
Diana demanded: “How could a mere human manage that? I insist that the chairman answer me! How could a man do that, without the help of one or more of us?”
Chairman Zeus, always ready for another speech, began pontificating. Few listened to him. Meanwhile, Vulcan sulked: “Who pays any attention to human magic tricks? Who cares what they find out? No one said anything to me about maintaining secrecy.”
In another of the rude, arguing knots of deities, the discussion went like this: “If putting Swords in the hands of humans hasn’t been declared officially against the rules, it ought to be! It’s bound to have a bad result.”
“Still, it might be fun to see what the vile little beasts would do with such weapons.”
Mars drew himself up proudly. “Why not? I hope no one’s suggesting that theycould do usserious damage with any weapon at all?”
“Well . . .”
Someone else butted in, raising a concern over the chance of demons getting their hands on Swords. But few in the assembly were particularly worried about that, any more than they were about humans.
A dark-faced, turbaned god raised his voice. “Cease your quarreling! No doubt we’ll have the chance to learn the answers to these interesting questions. If we are to use Vulcan’s new toys in a Game, of course they’ll be scattered promiscuously about the world. Sooner or later at least one of them is bound to fall into human hands. And, mark my words, some demon will have another.”
Meanwhile, in a small cave at the foot of a low cliff of dark rock about two hundred meters distant from the nearest argument, a mere man named Keyes, and another called Lo-Yang, both weather-vulnerable human beings, shivering with cold and excitement though wrapped in many furs, were sitting almost motionless, watching and listening intently as they peered from behind a rock. Keyes, the leader of the pair, had chosen this place as one from which he and his apprentice could best observe the goings-on among the gods and goddesses, while still enjoying a reasonable hope that they would not be seen in turn.
A dark and wiry man, Keyes, of indeterminate age. His companion was dark as well, but heavier, and obviously young. They had come to this place in the high, uninhabited mountains searching for treasure, wealth in the form of knowledge—Keyes, an accomplished magician, was willing to risk everything in the pursuit.
Lo-Yang was at least as numb with fear as with cold, and at the moment willing to risk everything for a good chance to run away. He might even have defied his human master and done so, at any time during the past half hour, except that he feared to draw the attention of the mighty gods by sudden movement.
Keyes was in most matters no braver than his associate and apprentice, but certainly he was more obsessed with the search for knowledge and power. He cursed the fact that though some of the gods’ stentorian voices carried clearly to where he crouched trying to eavesdrop, he could understand nothing that he heard. Despite his best efforts at magical interpretation, the language the gods most commonly used among themselves was still beyond him.
Keyes, exchanging whispers now and then with his companion, whose teeth were chattering, considered an attempt to work his way even nearer the place of council. But he rejected the idea; it would hardly be possible to do better than this well-placed but shallow little cave, inconspicuous among a number of similar holes in the nearby rock.
He was in the middle of a whispered conversational exchange with his apprentice Lo-Yang, when without warning a great roaring fury swirled around him, and Keyes realized that he had been caught—that the enormous fingers of some god’s hand had closed around him. Hopelessly the man tried to summon some defensive magic. Physically he struggled to get free.
He might as well have endeavored to uproot a mountain or two and hurl them at the moon.
Mars, who had captured Keyes, was not really concerned with the obvious fact that the man had been spying. Who cared what human beings might overhear, or think? The god was focused on another problem: he was due to receive a Sword, though Vulcan had not yet put it in his hands. Mars wanted a human for experimental purposes, so that he could learn a thing or two, in practical terms, about the powers of whatever Sword he was given before he used it in the Game. Mars considered himself fortunate to have been able to grab up a human so promptly; the creatures were not common in these parts. Keyes had happened to be the nearer of the two specimens Mars saw when it occurred to him to look for one.
The captured man, knowing nothing of his captor’s purpose, certain that his last moment had come, could feel the cold mist on his face, and thought he could hear the echo of his own frightened breath.
The god-hand which had scooped Keyes up did not immediately crush him into pulp, or dash him on the rocks. The sweeping breeze of god-breath, redolent of ice and spice and smoke, told Keyes that an enormous face loomed over him.
But his captor was not even looking at him. Only when the man saw that did he fully realize how far he was, for all his impertinence, beneath the gods’ real anger. Nothing he might do would be of any real consequence to them—or so most of them thought. Some mice were doubtless nearby too, scampering among the rocks, but none of the debaters paid any heed to them at all.
The god who had captured Keyes considered how best to keep him fresh and ready. Physically crippling the subject might affect the results of the experiment; and anyway some measure less drastic should suffice to do the job. A simple deprivation of eyesight, along with a smothering of the man’s ability to
do magic, ought to make him stay where he was put . . . so one god-finger wiped Keyes’s face . . .
Now. Where best to put him, for safe-keeping, until Mars should come into possession of the Sword he wished to test?
The captor, still holding casually in one hand the wriggling, moaning, newly blinded human form, looked about. Presently the terrible gaze of Mars fastened on the handiest hiding place immediately available. A moment later, treading windy space in the easy, heedless way of deities, he was descending into a house-sized limestone cave, by means of the wide, nearly vertical shaft which seemed to form the cavern’s only entrance and exit.
At the bottom he set his helpless captive down, not ungently, on the stone floor. Keyes was still mewing like a hurt kitten.
“Here you will stay,” Mars boomed in Keyes’s human language. “Until I get back. That won’t be long—there’s something I want to try out on you. As you can see . . . well, as you probably noticed when you could see . . . the only way out of this cave is a vertical climb up a steep shaft with slick sides and only a few scattered handholds.”
The god started to ascend that way himself, but disdaining handholds, simply walking in air. Halfway up he paused in midair, looking back down over his shoulder, to warn the once-ambitious wizard about the deep pits in the floor. “Better not fall into one of them. I don’t want to find you dead and useless when I return.” The tone seemed to imply that Keyes would be punished if he was impertinent enough to kill himself. And then the god was gone.
The newly blinded man was seized by an instinctive need to try to hide, some vague idea of groping his way voluntarily even farther down into the earth. Maybe the god who’d caught him would forget about him—maybe he wouldn’t even notice if Keyes disappeared—
But soon enough the man in the cave ceased his gasping and whimpering, his pointless attempt to burrow into the stone floor, and regained enough self-possession to reassure himself that although his vision was effectively gone, at least his eyeballs had not been ripped out. As far as he could tell his lids were simply closed, and he could not open them. There was no pain as long as he did not try. Attempts to force his eyes open with his fingers hurt horribly, but produced not even a pinhole’s worth of vision.
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