by Yoss
It appeared that the blade really was steel, after all.
My eyes were incongruously focused on the twisted expression of sorrowful ferocity on the Japanese warrior’s masklike face. It seemed to be saying, “this is going to hurt me more than it hurts you.” Not the most reassuring message to be sending. Just in case, I began to reach with my one remaining hand for my gun….
“Shit, that animal nicked my blade,” I heard him say, and then I relaxed, though in disbelief. The mysterious samurai was none other than Old Man Slovoban. No one else could have made himself comfortable in armor of those dimensions. I put aside for later the inevitable question of how he’d rescued himself from the massacre of the Estrella Rom. “A work by Masamune himself, a dai-katana worth more than its weight in platinum, and to bring it here and mess up the blade like an idiot on the spine of a creature like this… ” and he kicked the fallen Colossaur with fury. Only then did he seem to notice my presence. He bent down, picked up my detached arm, which still grasped the maser in its hand, and passed it to me with his own hand, long and fine as the claw of a bird of prey despite the armor in which it was encased. “Are you all right, pozzie? You couldn’t have thought I’d miss the final showdown with Makrow. I’m sorry I didn’t get here earlier. I was so close, in Module 15, but Makrow’s and Vasily’s powers made things… a little difficult for me. That must be what’s slowing down your friends now, I suspect. Anyway”—and he kicked the defeated Colossaur again—“one less. I’m afraid we’ll never even learn his name. Now we’re three against one. Things are looking up, aren’t they, buratino? I admit, my idea had been to help El Afortunado first, but since you seemed to be in deeper trouble…. Besides, for now the kid looks like he’s holding up pretty well, don’t you think?” He calmly pointed over his shoulder. “In any case, I don’t think it would be easy to get close enough to lend a hand. Honestly, pozzie, don’t you notice anything odd?”
I took the hand he offered me and stood up—after first prying back my own fingers (not a very pleasant experience) and retrieving my weapon. The ancient Romani’s hand turned out not to be the limp squidlike thing I had expected; on the contrary, it seemed to be pure bone and tendon. I understood then that the samurai suit was not mere armor but a full exoskeleton. Without the help of servomotors, with his jellied bones and almost complete lack of muscles the Old Man would have found it impossible not only to handle a sword as expertly as he had done, but even to walk under gravity.
Makrow and Vasily were still facing off. But now they had abandoned any illusion of taking cover and stood literally face to face. Neither was firing at the other anymore, however. Either they had finally realized that it made no sense to try, regardless of how they aimed, or else they had mutually disabled each other’s arsenals with their Psi powers.
I had seen a couple of holovideos of duels between Psis, and what we saw here did look a little like a battle between telepaths. If you squinted, you could also catch a glimpse of the tremendous mental energies at play—something like thin colored veils swirling around the contenders. Psi fields.
It looked to me like Vasily’s field was navy blue, almost black, while Makrow’s was pinkish white—which for some reason I found almost shocking. Wasn’t the purest color supposed to be for the good guy? It’s hard to put any credit in archetypes after a surprise like that.
It also reminded me a little of a battle between psychokinetics. All sorts of objects were flying around the two rivals: broken boxes, an arm torn off from a victim of the human-bombing, a number of hats (including my own badly damaged fedora). None of it ever so much as touched either of them, though.
But the real, absolute novelty was the other thing. And I mean, a genuinely new thing. New to me, to Slovoban, and I imagine to almost every living creature in this universe. After all, it isn’t every day that two such statistically rare Psis fight face to face.
Revolving slowly around Makrow and Vasily and spreading out over the veils of their Psi fields, a structure of translucent blades was spreading, widening as the blades grew from the double center where they were being generated. And on those blades….
No. It wasn’t anything you’d like to watch. I don’t know what sort of effect it had on the hardened old Romani, but as for me, for once in my existence I felt that if I had any hair, it would be standing on end.
Destruction. Crowds of wrathful Grodos scuttling about the Burroughs destroying everything in sight. War. A contingent of Colossaurian assault troops disembarking on Earth. Chaos. A hail of missiles annihilating a Cetian ship on approach to the hyperspace portal. Mind-boggling visions of a space station falling to pieces, abandoned, a thousand years in the future. A depopulated Earth. The perfect, cerulean, malevolently inexpressive face of Makrow on a thousand holograms throughout the galaxy. Fierce unfamiliar monsters with insectoidal spikes and mandibles taking over interstellar trade. My own end, torn apart by the claws and mandibles of a kinsman of the criminal Colossaur that Slovoban had just carved in two.
What kind of shit was all that?
A terrible thought came to mind. I didn’t know much about the effect of Psi synergy between two dueling Gaussicals (of course, neither did anyone else), but it wasn’t written anywhere that it couldn’t produce a sort of collateral clairvoyance. So were these visions glimpses of the future? Advance notices of our inexorable defeat and Makrow’s victory, in spite of it all?
I hesitated, I admit. For one terrible instant, everything I had been fighting for seemed stripped of meaning and the cold tentacles of defeat and dismay gripped me tight. Nothing but chaos, destruction, war, death? Was there no way out? After all we’d been through? After Slovoban’s last-second lifesaving intervention, after he’d kept himself alive through I don’t know what miracle?
Then I noticed that, emerging from the whirling blades, between scenes of chaos and death were other images, less distinct: a human delegation touching down on a planet that I knew from its heavy, rough landscape and overwhelming illumination to be Colossa, even though I’d never seen it before; a string of megastations like the Burroughs spread across the entire Solar System, all operated and occupied by humans; my own gilded face in a silver holographic frame; the Trade Confederation Council awarding a recognition to Old Man Slovoban, who wore a dress uniform that must have consumed more fabric than the sails of a brigantine.
Perhaps all was not lost yet.
“I know what you’re thinking, Raymond.” For the first time, the Old Man had called me by my name. “I also think those are possible futures,” he said thoughtfully, verbalizing my intuition. “In fact, though I’m no expert in Psi, I’d dare to hypothesize that a Gaussical’s power consists in being able to select among them all through some unconscious means, or something of the sort. Take a good look, buratino. If we survive, we’ll have been eyewitnesses to one of the most mysterious forces in the galaxy.” He lifted his mask, his wizened and misshapen face twisted into a caricature of attentiveness. “But really look. I think things are changing. Maybe Vasily isn’t getting the best of it after all. What do you think?”
Silently, I had to agree: judging from the simple proportion between visions of hypothetical bright tomorrows in which we were triumphant and dark ones where Makrow had won, the Cetian was prevailing. In the blades of light, the alternatives in which Vasily, Slovoban, and I managed to muddle through somehow grew progressively smaller and fainter, while there were more and more visions of chaos, death, war, Makrow as emperor of the universe, the end of the Trade Confederation and of life on Earth, the bizarre spiny insect-lizard creatures laying waste to the universe….
“Yes, it looks like Makrow will win after all,” I had to admit at last, and it depressed me to do so. But hope dies hard. “If the cavalry doesn’t arrive first, of course.” Then another terrible certainty began to emerge in my positronic circuits. How had I missed it earlier? If Slovoban had taken so long to get here from as nearby as Module 15, it meant that….
“Well, that’s was I wante
d to talk to you about. I don’t think Vasily can expect help from anyone but us.” The Old Man’s words fell like a bucket of ice water on the flickering embers of my optimism. “Haven’t you figured out yet that something very weird is going on with time? I was less than a hundred yards away when the bomb went off, and I ran straight here with all the strength of my suit. But by my watch, it took me more than two hours to arrive. The funny thing is that I never had the impression that I had slowed my pace at all. And look at these two—”
“You mean they’re generating some kind of… temporal discontinuity? That’s nonsense! Outside of a hyperspace portal, it’s theoretically impossible. Time is relativistic,” I started to say, quite sure about the small bit of physics I knew. But when I looked where he was pointing, I shut up immediately: not at Makrow 34 and Vasily, but at one of the side entrances to the module’s transit hall.
Two survivors of the white-robed human-bomb were just about to leave the module, looking exactly like people who were running as fast as their legs could carry them.
Except that, from my perspective, they were practically motionless; one of them was even suspended impossibly in midair. Only with my acute electronic vision could I perceive that his legs and arms were indeed moving, infinitesimally.
I shouldn’t have been surprised—not after seeing the orange Pegasus, the hail, the flying ants, and all the rest, right? But all the same, it simply floored me.
“You’re right. This is a time acceleration zone. Time is passing at least ten thousand times faster than normal, and those two are the epicenter,” I heard myself say, in the pedantic, neutral tone I’ve always hated. “Remarkable. Very interesting.”
“Maybe, for a physicist. For us, and especially for Vasily, it’s terrible.” Looking at me sidelong, Old Man Slovoban again unsheathed his long sword and lowered the fierce Japanese war mask over his already masklike face. “Okay, buratino, what are you planning to do? This means that if we don’t help him ourselves… ” His voice was distorted by the metal sounding board inside the mask. “I still think we most likely have a bit of a chance, though. There’s a possible future which, from what I can tell, neither of them has taken into consideration.”
It took me nearly a second, but at last I understood what he was talking about.
Wow.
But I didn’t reply. There was no need.
All right, it seemed we had no choice. Everything for the good guys to win. To be on the winning side, even if we wouldn’t be around to enjoy it.
I wondered if Old Man Slovoban was also a chess player. Probably….
I drew my maser, checked the charge level, examined the few half-melted joints remaining in the shoulder of my detached right arm—all the little delaying maneuvers one does before facing up to the only possible course of action.
And then, together, with a savage war cry, the Romani and I went after Makrow 34.
Twelve
I’m telling the story, so it doesn’t take a genius to figure out that it all turned out okay, right?
But don’t expect me to tell you exactly how it happened.
All I can say is that Slovoban and I ran full speed into the aurora. We both did what had to be done, and there was a bright flash of light, and another, and another, and then—a great darkness.
The next thing I remember are the faces of Sandokan Mompracem and Einstein leaning over me. “Good, he seems to be recovering; shouldn’t be any lasting brain damage.” The image I had of them was pretty blurry, and I realized that I was looking at them through a single eye.
It turned out, not only was my other eye missing along with nearly half my head, but also one leg from the hip down, and the foot and part of the calf of the other. All destroyed by a series of blasts from my own maser (my colleagues couldn’t understand that part), still gripped tight by my left hand, which had been welded nearly shut.
I had suffered inexplicably few wounds to my torso, though. My cerebral computer was returning to full capacity. The peculiar blackout I’d suffered—the first time any such thing had happened to a pozzie—had been caused by some sort of temporary sensory overload from my constant adjustments to the shifting realities generated by the two Gaussicals. Or so Einstein theorized—and who was I, barely an eyewitness, to contradict an astrophysics expert?
While my buddies were picking me up with care so that I didn’t fall apart completely, I looked down and saw, to my great satisfaction, that Makrow 34 would never again be a problem for Vasily, for me, for the Galactic Trade Confederation, or for anyone else.
A good twelve inches of dai-katana jutted from his left eye socket like an impossible steel pupil. His right eye was opened ridiculously wide, forever frozen along with the rest of his face in a curious, almost human expression of surprise. As if he couldn’t understand how such a thing had happened.
Good for the Old Man. At last he’d had his revenge.
A couple of Grodo volunteers from Public Health and Hygiene (real volunteers this time, not wolves in sheep’s clothing), also looking like they didn’t understand what had happened, were covering the Cetian’s body with a white blanket, preparing to cart it off on an antigrav stretcher.
Another pair of volunteers, Colossaurs this time, were huffing and puffing under the apparently immense weight of another stretcher, long and with no antigrav system. Bouncing and sticking out from under this white blanket were a pair of feet and a long stretch of leg. On top of the sheet lay a tray, from which a very familiar Japanese war mask jeered at me for the last time.
I turned around to ask Einstein about it, but he cut me off. “Don’t even try. Your thoracic compressor was the only part of your torso that got torn apart. I’m sorry, but that was Old Man Slovoban’s last battle—at least he fought well to the end. His… assistants have already been captured. Actually, most of them turned themselves in, and none offered much resistance. That was how we learned how he managed to escape the attack on the Estrella Rom: he had time to get himself into the suit of armor he was wearing.” He pointed at the long figure that the Colossaurs were just then carrying out the door. “Not only did the suit have enough servomotors to move an army, it was also a fully functioning space suit. He must have hidden out among the debris from the station and evaded the Chimera’s sensors. Later, his flunkies smuggled him aboard here, armor and all, in one of those long, narrow, heavy boxes. There were lots of them around today, didn’t you notice?”
Of course: heavy boxes, ten feet long. That was the detail I’d been missing. How hadn’t I seen it earlier? In front of my eyes the whole time.
Well, it didn’t matter now. All’s well that ends well.
But had it really ended well? What about Vasily?
“Vaaa… ” I managed to half croak and half stammer.
“No worries, your human friend is fine.” This time it was Sandokan Mompracem who cut me off. “Totally exhausted, is all. Confronting Makrow was too much for his powers. He spent all his neural reserves and collapsed from the stress. But what a pity about the old gypsy. A genuine warrior. He’s been the hero of the day. Too bad there’s nothing to see but blurs on the holotapes. I’d love to watch him split that Colossaur in two, see how he did it. What I’ll never understand, though, is why he decided to cut off his own head.”
“I wish I could see how he did it, too,” Einstein added. “It’s incredible how he arranged it so that, when his sword fell, the blade bounced off the floor in the craziest way—imagine, bouncing up and stabbing Makrow straight through the back of the head! So weird. I’d say it was the most bizarre coincidence ever, except that with Gaussicals around there’s no such thing as a coincidence. I suppose Vasily must have called on his last reserves of strength when he saw his father figure die. Never underestimate the power of revenge for living creatures, right, Raymond? No, don’t try to talk.”
I didn’t say anything, didn’t even nod, though I easily could have. I only smiled.
Coincidence? Of course. A well-controlled coincidence.
>
Slovoban had hit the nail on the head. A future that neither Makrow nor Vasily had foreseen, a chess move that neither of the two great egotists expected.
A sacrifice. But not the queen sacrifice that Makrow had attempted by abandoning the Chimera; a total sacrifice. King sacrifice. A king to be avenged.
It was a matter of reflexes; I went first. One leg, then the other, finally a shot to my own head. I could have ended it all quickly just by shooting myself in the torso, but I didn’t. I’ll never know why. That’s the downside of not being a creature of logic. Was it from fear of ceasing to exist, what humans call the instinct for self-preservation, or was it to give Vasily more time to understand our plan?
Who could say? And who would care?
The main thing was that when Slovoban sacrificed himself, El Afortunado already had gotten the whole picture; he was alert, ready to make maximum use of that unforeseeable, extraordinary, foolish act, which introduced a new variable in the equation of the thousand possible futures that had been at play, the equation in which Makrow 34 had been beating him.
The Cetian, for his part, didn’t expect it at all. Perhaps because suicide is so extreme among living creatures that it’s not the sort of act anyone usually imitates just because they see it done—especially not a mere second later.
Coincidence or symbolism? I guess the almost impossible bounce of a dai-katana forged by the almost mythical Japanese swordsmith Masamune served Vasily’s purposes as well for the occasion as a twin pair of meteors would have if they had sliced through all the shields of the Burroughs and pierced both of the Cetian’s twin hearts at once. The fact that the sword blow was much more symbolic doesn’t count for much when there are so many probabilities at play.
I don’t think he even had time to choose.
Thirteen