"Troubles?" he said.
"Yes," she told him, surprising herself.
"Anything I can do?"
"I need to get back to Tiresia. Are any shuttles leaving soon?"
"I'll take you myself," he said after a moment.
It made her laugh. "What-in an Alpha? I don't know...
"I'll take you wherever you want to go."
She stared at him, wondering why she was ready to believe him. "How about Garuda or Haydon IV...uh, 666-60-937?" she asked, reading the pilot's REF service number from his helmet.
"Long trip," he told her. But he didn't laugh, didn't think she was putting him on.
The elevator doors opened. The pilot extended his hand and Minmei allowed herself to take hold of it.
"A simulagent, a simulagent," Tesla mumbled, stuffing the last of Garuda's Fruits into his mouth. "I've been tricked-tricked!"
The two scientists the Sentinels had captured from Garuda backed themselves toward what they hoped would be a safe corner of the dimensional fortress's hold, certain that Tesla's ingestion of the mutated Fruits from that infected world had driven him half mad. First there was all that nonsense about the Regent being dead, and now this talk of simulagents and assassination.
"Has he been doing this everywhere you've been?" one of the Invid asked Burak in the lingua franca.
"Only on Karbarra, Praxis, and Garuda so far," the Perytonian devil said in low tones, shrugging. "I suppose his killing the Regent was nothing but an imagining, then-"
"An imagining!" Tesla had heard Burak's whisper and swung around to the three of them, monstrous in his anger. He knows that I tried, he knows that I'm out to usurp his throne...And I shall have it, do you hear me?! Tesla will rule!"
"He's going to get us all sent to the Pits," one of the scientists groaned. "We won't be repatriated-we'll be devolved!"
Something, some force, suddenly brought Tesla to his feet. Tesla's skin was rippling, muscles and sinews contorting beneath the flesh as though his internal systems were rearranging themselves, reconfiguring. An aura of light was swirling around his head, throwing rainbow colors across the ceiling, bulkheads, and floor of the hold. His head was listed, neck stretched out, mouth agape in a kind of silent scream. Burak stood rooted to the floor, astonished as he watched the Invid begin to lose stature and bulk, while at the same time Tesla's neck, head, arms, hands, and feet reshaped themselves. The two scientists had buried their heads against one another, but Burak was too awed to summon the will even to look away. He saw then what the Fruits were after, the final form they tried to birth, and he could hardly believe his eyes, much less grasp what such a transformation meant. For the shape was a humanoid one-like that of Jack Baker or Gnea or Rem.
Tendrils of energy were whirling around Tesla, reaching out to Burak where he stood. They danced between his horns and sent a downward rush of paralyzing light through the top of his head. Tesla's eyes were fixed on his as something beyond language coursed between them. Burak stiffened, as a cold fire engulfed his heart. He bellowed, and Janice came rushing through the hatch.
She had been outside listening to their muffled exchange, and though baffled by the sudden silence, she had not wanted to risk tipping her hand. Burak's animallike wail had changed all that, but now she couldn't see what was happening. Something or someone was throwing blinding, colored light across the hold. She could make out Burak and the two shadowy shapes of the Invid scientists behind him, but Tesla was concealed by the dazzling prismatic intensity, seemingly at the center of it. She brought her hands to her face, trying to shield her eyes, and all at once the light was gone. Tesla was on the floor, flat on his back.
She rushed over to him; he was alive, but his breathing was labored. And something else: he looked different. His snout was shorter, his head more defined, his hands and feet more humanoid than reptilian. His skin was a pale green, waxy and smooth.
"What happened to him?" Janice asked, turning around to Burak.
The Perytonian stared at her. "I...I..."
Janice took him by the arms and shook him. "What happened?"
Burak cleared his head and gave her a blank look. He reached up to feel his horns, then regarded Tesla for a moment. "I think he ate too much."
The Regent sat slumped in his throne, feeling as though some great weight had been placed on his chest. It was a mistake for him to have viewed the recordings of the Regis's nostalgic lovefest with the Zor-clone, a terrible mistake. Looking for guilt, for some sign of regret, he had found only love, genuine and unfulfilled. And he began to wonder if he hadn't been wrong in not following her lead when there was still time; when she had pleaded with him to allow himself to be evolved. But he had been stubborn about it, hurt, unforgiving, and now she was lost to him. He had seen, too, the Zor-clone's memories of a world far removed from Optera and Tirol's strife, linked somehow to the Protoculture matrix planet was anything more than Zor's fanciful imaginings? Besides, he had good reason to believe that the Regis had gone off in search of that very world, and he would know if and when she found it. No, what he needed was accurate data, data the clone had not yet surrendered up to Haydon IV's mind-probe devices. Perhaps, he thought, it would have to be conjured from the clone, the way Zor had conjured Protoculture from the Flowers of Life.
In the meantime, however, his empire was crumbling. Garuda had fallen to the Sentinels, depriving the Invid of the Fruits needed for the mecha nutrient baths. And Tesla was still unaccounted for-although at times the Regent thought he could actually feel the traitor's bloodlusts reaching out for him.
Much the way he felt at the moment. Even his pets seemed stricken by the same lassitude. He overcame his mood somewhat when a servant entered to announce that an important message had been received. But it was the lieutenant's words that brought the Regent back to life.
"The Sentinels! Here?"
"Yes, m'lord. They are requesting permission to land. Four of their number are in need of treatments apparently only Haydon IV can provide. They are seeking a truce by way of surrender."
The Regent shot to his feet. "This is a dream!"
"No, m'lord."
The Regent stood motionless for a moment, then laughed. "Here! Of course they would
surrender here, where to fire first means certain death." He reached up to feel his swollen cowl. "However..."
The lieutenant waited while the Regent paced in front of his throne. "Yes, yes, it could work." He swung around. "Inform the Sentinels that we accept their terms. And bring the Zor-clone to my chambers. I will put it to him simply: the matrix for the lives of his comrades. What could be more just?"
"May the Great Shaper Haydon watch over you this day," Teal told the shuttle group from the balcony in the SDF-7's launch bay.
Vince, Cabell, Max, and the others saluted their friends as the hatch sealed itself. In a moment the shuttle's attitude jets flared, and the craft began to descend toward the green and silver crescent that was Haydon IV.
The second group numbered twelve, including the three Invid-one in each of the three armored Alpha Veritechs. Jack had a no-nonsense air about him as he strapped into the forward cockpit of his mecha. Bela was behind him; Gnea, Kami, and one of the scientists in the Beta module. Janice was piloting the second VT, with Burak in the copilot's seat, and Lron and Tesla in the Beta. The third VT held Learna, Crysta, and the second scientist. Jack had taken one last look at Rick, Lisa, and Karen before they had been moved into the shuttle, and the sight of their slack, colorless faces was with him now as he engaged the Alpha's thrusters and maneuvered the ship out of the launch bay. The SDF-7's human and XT crew had been instructed to keep the fortress clear of the Invid fleet, but in close enough proximity to Haydon IV's surface to eliminate any threat of an enemy sneak attack.
Veidt and Sarna had done their best to convince the Sentinels to abandon their plans for an unannounced approach, but Jack and the rest were determined to give it a try. Besides, it wasn't like they
were going in with weapons blazing. Their approach would be a gentle one, Jack had insisted; a simple landing in the forests west of the planet's principal city. Surely, three small mecha weren't going to touch off Haydon IV's legendary (and somewhat questionable) defenses.
It is merely intent, Veidt had tried to tell them.
Jack heard the words surfacing in his thoughts, and made an effort to push them from his mind. In a moment he would be able to discern details of the planet's surface topography. It was bound to be an extraordinary sight-an entire world reconfigured to conform to the demands of its inhabitants.
Jack found himself wondering about the guiding intelligence behind such a feat.
Then he began to notice that the forest they had chosen as landing zone, was, well, moving-sliding east to west across the variegated landscape like some sort of by-pass door. And something very bizarre was rising up at them from the space that forest had vacated...Swirling vortices of energy, radiant silken scarves riding Haydon IV's savage updrafts.
Jack sent a telephathic plea to the planet: We've come in peace. We've come in peace!
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