Paul slowly turned his head to look at the evil wizard and noticed that Shirazi was with him.
Clarke shook his head in amusement. “I wish I had a dozen like you in Errabêlu. It’s too bad, really, that you have chosen to oppose us. Really too bad. We’ve checked out the information that you gave us and most of it has been confirmed. We really have no further need of you. And after all the vexation you’ve caused us, I’m afraid I have no choice now. Your time has run out. Shirazi, please terminate him as painlessly as possible, as a favor to me, okay? You may dispose of the body out at sea.”
Shirazi grinned from ear to ear. “As you wish.”
“Before you feed me to the fishes, would you consider one last little favor?” Paul asked with feigned nonchalance.
With obvious misgivings, Clarke studied Paul’s face for a moment. “If it’s reasonable.”
“You see, there’s this office bet,” Paul explained coolly. “The Lancaster nuke, the one on West L Avenue buried behind an empty residence. Was that a Soviet model 15F173? Or a Soviet 15F183? There’s a fiver riding on your answer—”
Clarke’s face turned bright red. With a snap of his right hand, he created a microportal at eye level. And he shouted, “Hans! Trigger the device in Los Angeles! Hans! Right now!”
“Right away,” came a reply Paul could barely hear.
Paul silently activated the transceiver. “Okay, Daneel, Red Alert! Time’s up!”
“How did you know where the bomb in Lancaster was located?” hissed Clarke, his nostrils flaring. “And who are you talking to now?”
“Let me kill him!” Shirazi screamed, spittle flying.
“The same way I found out the location of all the other warheads,” Paul said as casually as he possibly could.
Clarke again went totally red in the face. “Hans!” he roared. “Activate—”
A sudden sonic boom ripped through the building. Startled, both Shirazi’s and Clarke’s heads snapped upward.
The distraction was Paul’s only opportunity. He couldn’t let Clarke run down the entire list of warheads. Paul wasn’t certain the Scotties had deactivated all of them yet.
Somehow, he managed to draw on his meager internal strength. He threw himself forward, dodging past a startled Shirazi and leapt, clearing the ground, sailing right into a shocked Clarke, bowling him over backwards.
“Sir!” Paul heard through the transceiver. “We’ll be there in three seconds!”
With exceptional strength, Clarke fought back, leveraging Paul off and onto the concrete floor. Clarke pushed hard, forcing his open hands to Paul’s throat.
Fighting the other man’s wrists, Paul tried to keep them at bay but he didn’t have the strength anymore. He was completely tapped out. Gleefully, the evil wizard closed on Paul’s throat, throttling the life from him. His vision began to narrow.
“Kill him!” screamed a hysterical Shirazi.
Paul heard but didn’t see several Scotties streak through the front door, catching Shirazi by surprise.
He felt his hands fall away from Clarke’s wrists, all his muscles melting like butter in a hot sun. And his vision disappeared completely. All the loud noises faded away too, merging into a steady hissing noise, like the sound of surf at a beach. That too died as he finally slid into a black pool of nothingness.
TWENTY-EIGHT
Hilton Suites
Ocean City, Maryland
Tuesday, 11:22 a.m. EDT
July
Paul came awake slowly. The surface on which he lay was soft and warm, the air fresh and clean and his level of pain was much lower. For a time, his mind rebelled at the idea of full consciousness. That voice, the one belonging to the small man in the back of his head, had returned. This time it was telling him to relax, go back to sleep, that the outside world wasn’t going anywhere. Well, what did it know? Paul ignored it.
He opened his eyes to see Capie’s bright face smiling down at him.
“Hello, sleepy head,” she purred at him. “How are we feeling?”
“‘My mind is so numb and brain-dead, I feel like I’ve just attended a three-day seminar entitled ‘the future of plumbing’,’” Paul managed to croak.
“Ah, Red Dwarf, I think. Was it Rimmer who said that? British comedy is so—unique,” Capie observed. “Anyway, if you can quote Red Dwarf, you can’t be too bad off.”
Paul slowly worked the muscles in his neck, gently turning his head to look around the room. It was upscale with a nice inoffensive color scheme, such as could be found in half the motels in the United States, but it otherwise told him nothing. His vision was blurred a bit around the edges.
“Where are we?” he asked. Blinking his eyes, he stared across the bed. Either he was seeing double or Patches had suddenly acquired a twin brother.
“The Hilton Suites in Ocean City, Maryland,” Capie answered. “This is your convalescence room, until you have recovered from your ordeal.”
Paul chuckled softly and concentrated on seeing one of everything again. “What ordeal? A mere stroll in the park.”
Capie pursed her lips in doubt. “Gee, that was not what all the doctors said.”
“What doctors?” he asked, suddenly suspicious. He experimented with trying to raise an arm. No luck. Someone had replaced it with lead weights when he wasn’t looking.
“You know, the usual suspects. McCoy, Maxwell, Bashir, Franklin…those guys.”
“Oh. Those doctors.”
“Yep. And they mostly said the same thing. Nerve damage, strained ligaments, broken collar bone…”
“My collar bone was broken?” Paul asked, startled. Yep, his legs were refusing his mental commands too. The traitors!
“It was. We used a little magic to knit it back together again, but all the doctors told me to watch you carefully. You are not to lift anything at all with your right arm for at least a week and nothing heavier than five pounds for the week after that. Got it?”
Paul could tell she was serious.
“Got it,” he wisely and softly answered. He glanced at his right wrist. The disrupter manacle was gone.
Capie noticed his look. “Daneel 1 and Daneel 2 removed that—whatever it was—when they brought you here. They said it had some magical properties that they wanted to study. They also took out your transceiver too. So, don’t worry about it anymore. Right now, I prescribe rest, and lots of it. Maybe later we might go out and enjoy a ride along the beach in the sunlight. You’ll be the one in the wheel chair this time.”
“Got it,” he repeated dreamily. “Is it permitted for the patient to ask a few questions? You know, to sort of catch up on current events sort of questions?”
“If you promise not to jump out of bed and run off trying to do anything silly, like maybe saving the Earth from an alien invasion.”
“Got it,” Paul repeated again. She should have asked for something hard. The way he felt, crawling was totally out of the question, let alone things like jumping and running. And the world was around a long time before he showed up. “I so promise. So give, please. What’s going on? Oh, a better question. What day is today?”
“Tuesday. And yes, you’ve been asleep, almost comatose, Franklin said, for 28 hours.”
Paul wiggled his head in his pillow, enjoying the softness. “A new personal record, I think. Though I did come close to that once or twice after an all-night binge back in my college days.” He paused. “And?”
“Yes, the Scotties did get to the nukes before Clarke issued his orders to detonate any of them. So, nobody got fried, thank Heavens! And the Scotties found some wizard named Hans. He was the one who held all the warhead detonation transmitters. All twenty five of them.”
Paul blanched, feeling the blood drain from his face. “Twenty five?!” he squeaked. “We missed five warheads?!”
“Yep. It’s a good thing that you charged Clarke and distracted him before he could order a few more detonations. Otherwise, we might be missing Austin, Texas right now. Or Kingston. Or Lagos, Nigeria. Or Chengdu
and Jinan in China.”
“So there were two more in China and one in Africa,” Paul muttered, feeling an overwhelming degree of fatigue descending on him. “Oops. I’m glad the Scotties found Hans so quickly.”
“They did a superb job. We can be very proud of them.”
“And?” Paul asked.
“The Scotties took Shirazi and Clarke to Azkaban prison.” Capie looked down at her hands for a moment. “I seriously considered having them killed but Daneel 1 talked me out of it. Instead, Rommie 451 burned out their neural links, converting them to Normals.”
“You did the right thing,” Paul said, forcing his two ton hand to reach out to lie on top of hers. “It’s what should have been done. Those two would have killed millions of people…come to think of it, they probably already have killed millions, if you count their involvement in World Wars I and II plus all the brush wars.”
Capie smiled. “Good. I’m glad you agree. Now, that’s enough talking. It’s time for your nap before we go for the walk.”
He blinked in relief. “A nap? What a wonderful, fantastic notion…”
Paul fell asleep in mid-sentence.
Ω
The next morning, he felt a great deal stronger though he was sore in more places than he knew he possessed. His talisman was back on his right arm, and he had already used it for a few minor spells to help speed up his recovery process.
The warm sunshine flooding through the bedroom window significantly boosted his spirits as well. And the décor of the room was starting to grow on him.
Capie fed him breakfast in bed, a treat Paul told himself not to get accustomed to, lest she spoil him too much. After breakfast, Capie sat with him the rest of the morning, in general catching him up on world events.
“Daneel 1 is begging to meet with you,” she told him, sometime during the conversation. “I told him later today, after lunch and an afternoon nap. I also told him that he couldn’t take up too much of your time, that you still need lots of rest.” She gave him a firm stare. “And I intend to make sure you get that rest.”
Paul winced a little but forced a smile. “No problem.”
Ω
The afternoon nap was a short one. Already he was beginning to develop cabin fever and itched to get out and start working again. His fertile mind was busy making lists of things to be done, as soon as he could escape his convalescence.
Daneel 1 showed up at 3 p.m., entering the room through the door instead of using a portal. Capie kept her seat close to the bed, the better to monitor their conversation, Paul was sure.
“Daneel 1!” Paul whooped for joy. “It’s so good of you to come visit me!”
“It’s good to see you looking well, Dad,” the Scottie replied, a bright smile displayed on his holographic face. “We miss you and hope you recover soon. Quite frankly, we need your help—”
Capie coughed pointedly.
“—after you are fully rested, of course,” Daneel finished circumspectly.
“Yes, of course,” Paul said, with a careful smile. “But for now, let’s just deal with the highlights.”
“Good idea,” Daneel 1 responded.
“Yes, of course. What about those injured at Manassas? How are they doing?”
“We finished fabricating all the spare parts we needed and then some. All Scotties are back up to full health now.”
“Good! Excellent work. Thanks.”
“Next topic: the human wizards. We have taken almost all the wealth that they have stolen and transferred it to where it will do the most good. I can give you a full break-down on where we put the money—”
Another pointed cough from Capie.
“—at a later date, of course,” the Scottie lamely said. “In terms of numbers, we have captured and converted two hundred eighty two wizards. Our best count is that there are twenty-nine Errabêlu wizards unaccounted for and several hundred Oni. For the moment, it appears that all of them are in hiding or are on the lam.”
“We will eventually track them down, especially if they try to make trouble for us or for any Normal,” Paul said, still smiling.
“Good. I was hoping that would be the answer,” the Scottie said.
“Anything else?” Paul asked with an innocent air.
“Ah, I think I’ve already pushed my luck to the limits,” Daneel 1 observed. “The rest will wait.” He turned to leave.
“One moment, son. There is something I want to tell you.” Paul said, his throat suddenly dry.
The hologram on the black cube turned back around.
Paul wrung his hands a bit. Why was it so hard to tell the ones you loved how much you loved them?
His eyes teared up a bit and he quickly rubbed the excess water away. “I just want to say how grateful and how proud I am of all the work that you and all the other Scotties have done. I love you all, each and every one and couldn’t have asked more of you. Thanks for a job very well done.”
Daneel 1 smiled. “I’ll pass that along. You just get well, Dad. We love you too.”
After the Scottie left, Paul kicked back in bed and thought about dinner. For some reason, he was craving a nice thick steak, with all the trimmings.
EPILOGUE
Atlantic Ocean, Bahamas
Eleuthera Island
Double Bay Beach
Tuesday, 2:09 p.m. EDT
August
“Daddy! Daddy!” the young freckled-faced redheaded girl shrieked in delight, flying through the air and throwing her small arms around Paul’s neck. “Lookie what I found!” she twittered in delight.
Behind her, suspended in mid-air, dripping both water and sand, was a seashell. As seashells went it was decent enough, though far from a perfect specimen by any means. Still, it was the largest one that Alisha Christie Armstead had produced so far today for her father’s inspection.
Paul hugged his daughter tightly. “That’s wonderful!” he cried, with a huge smile. “That’s a perfect seashell! Where did you find it?!”
“Underwater, silly!” Alisha said, with a shy smile as she pulled back out of Paul’s embrace. “I had to hold my breath and everything!”
“What a big girl you are now,” Paul praised her. “We’ll take this one home and put it on top of your dressing table.”
“Not that one!” Alisha cried and then giggled. “I’m going to find one biggest and bestest!” And she spun on one heel, laughing as she ran up the beach. “Joccie! Selmie! Race you to the water!”
Behind her, airborne, two black Scottie cubes, Jocasta 1 and Selma 1 flew along, lazily trailing the hyper-active young girl toward the water. They had no trouble keeping up, even when Alisha, rubbing the talisman armband on her left wrist, lifted off the beach sand, sailing twenty feet into the air, clearing the breaking waves and diving into the clear turquoise tinted water fifty feet off the beach.
“Careful, that smile might break your face,” Capie said as she assumed a sitting position on a nearby beach towel.
Paul displayed a wide grin in amusement at his beautiful wife. “She definitely is a daddy’s girl, isn’t she?”
“And you wouldn’t have it any other way, would you?” Capie replied, in challenge.
Paul’s smile was all the reply his wife needed.
“And what will we do with two of them?” he asked, nodding at the pregnant status of his wife.
“Ah, no!” Capie responded with a phony frown. “This one’s a boy! He kicks too much to be a girl!”
With a laugh, Paul got to his feet and helped Capie to hers. “Let’s take a walk while Alisha is seashell hunting.” He took her hand and together they strolled down the beach, leaving a string of footsteps in the warm white sand.
Five years had passed since Earth had been liberated from the clutches of the wizards of Errabêlu. Five peaceful and productive years.
Oh, to be sure, there were still wizards unaccounted for at large out in the world. Twenty-nine by Daneel 1’s latest count. But apparently, they weren’t much of a threat
. There hadn’t been so much as a peep out of any of them during those five years. Apparently, all twenty-nine of them had quickly figured out what had happened to the other wizards of Errabêlu and had decided to keep as low a profile as possible, lest they too have their magical powers stripped from them.
The same sort of thing had seemingly happened to their government puppets around the world. The voices of the people were finally being heard and more responsible individuals were being elected and appointed to represent their constituents. And the changes in the world in just five short years had been striking! Gone were the totalitarian dictatorships of North Korea, Syria, Zimbabwe, and Uganda. Others were on their way down as well.
In the United States, President McCluskie had been soundly defeated in her re-election bid. The new President was Derek Smith, a former chemist, data analyst, and rock climber from Portland, Maine. Paul had personally met the man and was favorably impressed.
True, paradise had not yet descended on the world. There were still problems in the Middle East and a few other corners of the globe. People were still people. But even the press, clueless though they might otherwise be, had noticed a big downward shift in armed conflicts. All the talking heads were endlessly chattering like magpies about the growing trend of reasonableness and the peace initiatives around the world.
One of the larger developments in Asia was China’s announcement to leave Nepal, including the retraction of hundreds of thousands of Chinese residents from the embattled country. Paul was particularly proud of that accomplishment and had personally praised the Scottie team that had “encouraged” the Chinese government in their decision.
The warm sea air blew gently over the water, stirring Paul’s hair. In addition, the warmth of the sun on his face likewise buoyed his spirits. He glanced over at Capie, grinning at her radiant, pregnant figure in her maternity outfit as they ambled along the beach. He squeezed her hand gently, eliciting a warm smile in return.
Two more days. Just two days and they would go back to work, helping the poor and needy of Earth. To be sure, in five years, they had helped quite a few of the Normals, delivering life-saving vaccine, averting droughts, floods and pestilence as well as providing many other forms of sundry assistance. And the Scotties were an enormous asset in that effort as well. But, since the Scotties couldn’t reveal themselves to humans, and since Paul and Capie could not reveal their magical powers, those restrictions limited all that could be done for the needy of the Earth. However, even within those limits, there were still an ample number of opportunities available and Paul intended to see that they gave the maximum assistance possible.
The Genie and the Engineer 3: Ravages of War Page 31