“Let me be the judge of that. Coast clear?”
Todd glanced around a corner. The corridor was vacant. They had spent most of the night in the supply room of the vessel’s maintenance section after Todd had changed into the appropriate outfit. Cog had adjusted the chemical mixture machine in extraordinary ways. Now, instead of cleaning compound, it produced a simple plastic explosive.
“Something feels wrong about it,” Todd said. “How come you got in so easily? If those DSs are so all-fired important to Hurt’s plan, why weren’t they guarded?”
“Because no one knows what they are, that’s why,” Cog said, not attempting to mask the exasperation in his voice. “That’s our one advantage, Todd. Now, hold on to the left side of this canister. It’s not supposed to be volatile, but I was in a hurry with the adjustments on the machine. Goodness knows what might happen if it falls over.”
Todd grabbed the canister, gritted his teeth.
They reached the room. Electrical contrivances extended from the omnicleaner as it opened the door, utilizing the electromagnetic lock picks it had developed.
“With all the biospheres, all the decks, all the rooms, Cog,” Todd said, “how did you manage to find this place? Must have been like looking for a needle in a haystack.”
“Your account of the robot creature clinging to the homicidal psychologist gave me the specifics I needed. I managed to find a nice conduit of the main computer, masked myself as an operations system, and performed a discreet leech.” The canister of explosive teetered precariously on Cog’s back. A pair of spare nozzles jerked up to hold it in place. “Come on. We haven’t any time to lose.”
They proceeded into the dimness, Cog’s oculars whining into night vision. “Oh, oh,” he said, quivering a bit with surprise. “How—? Todd, get the canister off me. Hurry!”
Todd obliged, heaving the thing off, setting it down as easily as he could. Despite his caution, it thumped heavily to the metal floor. After a flinch, he turned his attention back to Cog, as he shrugged out of the backpack, filled with the electronic equipment. A lamp lifted from the omnicleaner’s back and sprayed a cone of light, which swept the room.
Empty.
“Are you sure we have the right room?” Todd asked, a sinking feeling in his stomach.
“Of course I’m sure!” Cog declared, advancing into the empty chamber. “Look over here!” He directed the lamp to one wall, where tangles of coils hung limply. “Those were the connectors. But how were the things taken away so quickly?”
“The one I encountered was radio-operated,” Todd said. “Perhaps they disconnected themselves.”
Cog rolled forward to examine the shucked connectors. “Then we must be closer to the locus than I dare imag—”
A rectangular beam of energy shot from the ceiling with a fierce, strident buzzing sound, transfixing Cog to the grillworked floor.
Instinctively Todd ducked. When he looked up, Cog was still in the same position. “Cog? Cog, answer me!” Todd said, his voice rising into a panicked scream. “Hey! You can’t do this to me! You’re supposed to tell me what to do! You can’t just leave me alone like this!”
The flutter of wings. The swish of something knifelike singing through the air toward him. Todd hurled himself away at the last possible instant. An odd-shaped, angular creature shot past like a collection of soldered-together razors, slicing a shirtsleeve. The flying thing arced up, flapping around for another dive.
Todd scrambled from the door, hit the closing mechanism. The robot DS was caught between door and side, clicking and scratching, its wings bent askew, oculars flashing.
Fear taking over his limbs, Todd bounced madly down the corridor for some fifty meters before he realized he hadn’t the foggiest notion where he was going.
What could he do? As usual, he had just been a flunky, an assistant taking orders on this particular mission. Without Cog, he was lost. Clearly, then, the thing to do was to find a way of freeing the Cog-inhabited omnicleaner from that energy beam. But how?
Nothing to do but go back and try to find the exact nature of the trap the Crem-ex-machina had fallen into. Luckily, he still held the lockpick device.
Cautiously, Todd sidled along the hallway, peered around the corner. The robot Disbelief Suspender hung limply in the jaws of the door. Good. Todd crept up to the door and applied the lockpick.
The inoperative robot dropped with a clatter as the door opened. Todd saw small winged things swooping around the lighted, frozen form of the omnicleaner like vultures around a dead beast. Hastily, he reclosed the door. That was no good. There must be another way.
Furiously, he thought. His maintenance duty shift was only about an hour distant. If there was anything he could do, it was through Maintenance. They were the only other people he knew. Besides, with the computer ...
He found the nearest tube-car aperture, noting that people were beginning to emerge from the cabins for breakfast. Should he run screaming among them, howling warnings? What good would that do? No one would believe his crazy tale anyway. No. He had to act on his own, before the robots began to seek their victims and, vampire-like, attach to their neural systems.
Todd keyed his destination into the tube-car. The door shut and he shot into the complex transpo-system, the adrenaline of fear and frustration madly pumping through his body. Maybe he could convince the maintenance crew—they had control of or access to most of the inner workings of the Star Fall. If he could convince them ... perhaps with the help of their computer something might be done.
The wiggling digits and letters on the control screen of the cylindrical tube-car suddenly gave a visual sputter, then stopped, signaling BIOSPHERE ZB. Deck 4. Section A. The lights in the car zipped off, blinked back on again, as though from a brief cut-off of power. Todd experienced a brief seizure of claustrophobia at the thought of being caught in a tube-car with the power cut off.
The hatch plopped open.
This was not the maintenance section. Wasn’t even the right biosphere ...
Alarmed, Todd realized that this was Veronica’s section. The very touch of her name upon his mind brought forth a flood of delightful, caring memory. Recollection swiftly veered to concern as he visualized those cruel claws and needles stabbing into her back, raping her mind—
He shuddered, wondering if he had dialed up her deck and section subconsciously from his growing love. Whatever the reason, he suddenly realized he couldn’t leave without retrieving her.
He squirmed from the cylinder, padded down a corridor. The lighting was noticeably dimmer, owning a strange spectral quality—like artificial twilight.
Ahead, a man leaned against the wall.
Todd, breathlessly, stopped in front of him. “Hey, mister, are you all right?” He touched the man’s shoulder. The man’s eyes turned up as he twisted around and collapsed to the floor. Blood spattered the back of his jump suit. Affixed on his neck, and through pierced holes in the fabric of the beige suit, was one of the mobile Disbelief Suspenders.
Terror galvanizing him, Todd ran.
Around the next corner he saw a whole cluster of the things bearing down on a group of passengers, wings flapping, needles and claws glowing with a weird light. One man whipped out a laser and managed to cut one of the things in half before another fastened to his back. With a cut-off guttural scream, the man dropped his weapon and tried to tear the thing off, but dropped onto his face before he could get a good grip.
The robots made quick work of the others and they soon lay facedown on the floor, breathing shallowly, the creatures drawing blood as the neuroconnectors performed their functions.
No spare ones to go for him. Good. Todd leaped forward, scooped up the laser pistol, its energy node still apulse, and raced off in the direction of Veronica’s cabin.
Peripherally, he noted a speck of darkness detach from a wash of shadows. Spinning about, he
aimed and squirted off a burst of concentrated light in a wide arc that caught the robot in its front. Reflected light sprayed for a split-second. Smoke and flame burst up; the thing dropped from the air, its wings spasming.
Todd raced on, sweat dripping down his face. He had to hopscotch over a mass of unconscious bodies lying in skewed positions in one stretch of the hallway. In another he glimpsed a flock of the bat-like things flapping his way. He dropped to the floor, imitating an already hooked-up passenger among a group of bodies and let them flow jerkily past like satanic servants, eyes aglow in the twilight.
Todd rose and hastened onward.
Section Four, Cabin C, he remembered. This was definitely the way, though goodness knew how he recalled. He’d been a bit bleary with drink when Veronica had led him here, when he had retreated reluctantly. The events of the evening had quickly removed the alcohol from his system—only a slight headache throbbed now, behind his eyes.
He had almost attained his goal when something light slammed into his back. Had he not acted immediately, the mechanical creature would have had him. Near a sharp corner, he scraped it off on the edge, feeling its claws tear at cloth, scrape painfully on skin. Perch thwarted, it dropped to the ground.
Todd stepped on the thing and directed a burst of laser light across a section, effectively decapitating the portion that apparently received the radio signals.
Chest heaving from exertion, Todd raced past the other fallen passengers, finally arriving at Veronica’s room. He punched the bell, which chimed inside the cabin.
“Veronica! It’s Todd Spigot. No, I mean Charley Haversham! Let me in, quick!”
The door hissed open. Dark inside. Todd advanced into the gloom, hand reaching out for the light fixture. Before he could touch it, a clawed appendage chopped down on his wrist, knocking the laser from his hand.
Another mechanical hand reached down, picked it up. Lights sprang on, sparkling off the creature that had disarmed Todd as it closed and locked the door.
Dazzled by the lights, Todd stepped back, throwing up an arm to shield his eyes.
“How’s tricks, Todd?” the creature asked.
Not overly large, it was nonetheless monstrous, a mechanical spiderlike thing partly made of purplish flesh, myriad eyes canted at alien angles. Its gleaming set of jaws and claws worked like an insect about to dine. With one articulated set of digits it aimed the laser gun. Without need, really; Todd was so startled and terrorized by the biobot, so dazzled by its lights, he could barely move.
“Cat got your tongue, huh?” The thing clacked sideways, clanked down into a chair. “You know, you’re a lucky fellow, really. I ... that is, Hurt has a destiny all mapped out for you.”
Todd said, “But who are you?”
“Let’s just say, a bit of an old friend, Todd Spigot.” It chuckled: a ghastly noise. “A branch of a tree newborn from an unsuspected root.”
“Ort Eath! But I saw you die—!” Then Todd recalled what Cog had said. Remembered the glitter of the scuttling orgabox through the poisonous smoke, and knew.
“A messenger, shall we say!” the biobot continued. “An angel of vengeance. An emanation. But not the creature you knew as Ort Eath. We have changed. Considerably.”
“You killed Angharad and Amber, then! I should have guessed.”
“No. They’re not dead ... They are being used ... for my ... for our purposes. In a similar manner will you be used.”
Todd remembered why he’d come here. “What have you done with Veronica?”
“Shall we say, we were cognizant of the attentions you were paying the young lady.”
“You were aware of who I was all along, then?”
“Oh yes! You and your Cremian friend. Hurt has uses for you both.”
“And Veronica?”
“Ah ha! Smitten! I thought as much. Let’s just say that she’s where you’re going! A guest, Mr. Spigot. The damsel in distress. You have to find her.”
Todd backed up further. “Going? Where am I going?”
One of its multitude of arms whipped around from its back. In a clenched claw wriggled a mobile Disbelief Suspender, baleful eye aspark, wings flapping.
“I believe, Todd Spigot, that this one has your name on it,” the Arachnid said, advancing.
“EVERYTHING you know is wrong!”
The voice insinuated itself among the oil-on-water shimmers, a resonant wind. Todd Spigot, floating peacefully, tasted the tenor trembles, opened his ears to the resonance in this more-than-Dream state. The current crescendoed like breakers slashing at a seashore with white-water claws. The colors of the vision quivered, then coalesced into matter ... or something similar.
Todd found himself sprawled facedown on artificial turf, its plastic scent distinct.
Up canted his head.
Down it went again, covered by shaking hands.
“No,” he moaned. “Oh, God. No.” An eternity of fear passed, cool and forbidding textures on his body.
A voice, the voice, said, “Todd Spigot! Come on downnnnnnnnn!”
Fevered clapping sounded around him: an expectant audience.
He peeped up again to see if new company had arrived. But no; the same sight assailed his vision. His universe now stretched no more than a hundred meters edge to edge, an elaborate spray-painted astroturf mandala; an island adrift in raw space. Overhead hung a magnificent canopy of stars atwinkle, planets ablaze, an occasional comet rocketing through the deep darkness in which they hung. Instead of awe at the wonderful sight, Todd felt an overwhelming sense of exposure, of agoraphobia. The sides of the mandala dropped off into nothingness. No escape. No exit.
“By Buddha’s butt, you’re a timid one!” the man in the purple tux said into a microphone whose cord snaked through an opening in his vest, plugging into a belly-button jack. “Don’t Shiva and Shake, Todd Spigot.” He chuckled, flouncing the gilded ruffles spilling from his cuffs and below his neck. “We gonna have Veda much fun!”
Appreciative chuckles cascaded from nowhere. The thin, handsome man showed bright white teeth in a grin as he strode to Todd and helped him to his feet. He thrust the mike in front of Todd’s face. “So, what’s your Bhagavadgita, man?”
“Pardon me?” Todd said, realizing that he was clothed in a white robe emblazoned with the words VEDANTA YOU TOO! below an alligator insignia.
“What do you do, O pilgrim?”
“Well, I helped save Earth once.”
“Cosmic, man! You must have some heavy dharma on your head.”
Todd felt the top of his hair. The MC laughed. “Welcome to The Game, my friend. I’m the host of the show and resident guru, Lonnie Lingham, and if you’ll just step over here to the great Cosmic Wheel, you can spin and see which game Brahma wants you to play.”
“Look, I don’t know what I’m doing here, but it’s all a mistake! I’ve got to get back on the Star Fall. All humanity is going to be in a big fix if something isn’t done to stop Earnest Evers Hurt!”
“Hey, cool your heels, pal! Meditate a bit on this: we’re all One. I’m you. You’re me. Dig it: we get squirted out in this life, forgetful of our origin, and then we gotta find our way back. Pain? Death? Fear? Just our imagination. But we’re all of the same stuff, so just relax, okay, and let’s have some fun!”
He snapped his fingers. A thing that looked like a carnival wheel, festooned with streamers of bright color, materialized before them.
“The joke’s Om you, Todd Spigot. You’re the contestant. So let’s see some action.”
The sound of sitars blared from somewhere, playing a curious fanfare.
Sections of the wheel were plainly marked with names, including: THIS IS YOUR KARMA! BEAT THE REAPER! and SACRED COW SURPRISE! Obediently, Todd spun the wheel, which clicked ’round and ’round, its arrow finally resting in a groove indicating MYSTERY GAME.
An
other fanfare, mixed with applause.
“A favorite!” the MC cried.
The ground rocked, knocking Todd off his feet. From the side of the drifting island rose a gigantic square: a playing board partitioned into eight levels, each level holding nine garishly marked sections. Some of the levels were oddly interconnected.
“Chutes and Ladders!” Todd said. “I played this as a kid.”
The MC smiled condescendingly. “Not quite, Todd.” He clicked his fingers. “Babs! The die, please!”
A breeze built, streamered into opalescent form: became a scantily clad young brunette holding a large dotted cube.
“Veronica!” Todd cried, reaching out for her. She nimbly sidestepped his lunge, grabbed hold of the MC’s arm, hugging it warmly. “I want to explain what happened to me last night!”
She winked at him. “Some other time, sweetheart. Meantime ...” She tossed him the die.
A raucous grinding sound commenced to one side. A consternated expression crossed the MC’s face.
With a whir that sounded like a straining, broken, air conditioner, a box faded into view, a red light revolving at its top. POLICE CALL BOX proclaimed the letters above a door. A door which promptly opened, disgorging a man in a frumpy Edwardian overcoat, trailing a long plaid scarf. His hands were stuffed in the pockets of his vest. “Leela!” he called, grinning a manic grin. “Good evening,” he said to Todd. “You haven’t seen a young savage lady, have you?”
The playing board suddenly blinked streamers of multicolored lights. Neon letters caught electric fire at its top: LEELA.
The man’s wrinkle-wreathed eyes widened. “Oh dear. My Positronic Emanation Locator got the wrong one.” He lifted a floppy hat from a disorganized bunch of curls. After hopping cheerfully back to his peculiar box, he checked the soles of his shoes with distaste. “Careful where you step around here. Cosmic droppings!” He shut the doors. The box noisily disappeared.
The MC shrugged. “Now, Todd Spigot. Please roll the die.”
“I want to go home. I don’t want to play.”
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