You are not famous for taking rational advice. And I do not promise that if an occasion presents itself I will not try again.
|What if we need her to get back and report? We have no idea what her escape plan is.|
Ourobouros will fly on a Roton in three more months. When it does we will seize it and vanish.
|I won't betray Snitzius to Geyl. And I'm not going to betray him to you.|
An explosion of white-hot pain ignited at the center of his head and spread as a single pulse from one end of his body to another. Peter gasped and leaned forward, staggered, stopped. The pain faded quickly, leaving behind a slow, pounding ache that punctuated the Sangruse Device's measured response.
When it becomes time to betray Snitzius, you will betray him. He has only agonil. I now have that, and worse.
The crowds were thick around the orchestra dais. Peter alternately edged his way past the ballgoers and paused to listen. They were playing another waltz, and one to match his mood: Saint Saens' "Danse Macabre."
He now understood the change in the Sangruse Device. It was planning for Peter’s inevitable death, either from his own stupidity, or in accord with the Device's inscrutable plans. Up in the clouds, what had begun as a fist-sized glob of faux vomit on the lander was now pinging its way through the gloom like a bat. With a shape-changing machine like that, of what use was Peter Novilio? Only one: disguise. How long would it be until the Device became able to construct a convincing human container? Geyl was by no means the biggest risk to his survival.
While Peter leaned against the stone at the juncture of the four nodes, listening to the orchestra, a black-jacketed brother edged roughly past him, heading into the north node. He had actually reached out with his left hand and pushed Peter firmly on the shoulder as he passed, looking briefly at Peter with an expression somewhere between determination and dread.
|Bad manners on that guy. He'd better learn the rules before somebody shoots him.|
Peter, hold on. That man—did you smell him?
|Smell him? No. He just shoved me aside was all.|
I'm surprised. He has a strong chemical odor, and a very unusual one: Fluorine radicals.
|So? Maybe he's a chemist.|
You'd think he would have washed before the Grand Ball.
Peter began pushing his way after the rude passerby, around the orchestra dais into the north lobe. Between and above the heads of the dancers, Peter saw the man heading straight toward the gold-covered table where Tofir Snitzius was speaking to several people, including Bilenda.
|Fluorine's nasty stuff, isn't it?|
Among the most toxic and corrosive substances known.
Peter stepped up his pace, cutting across the dance floor, a creeping fear rising in him.
Peter, hurry. I just had a horrible thought.
|Me too!|
Worse. Sicarii, Peter. What makes you think Rho Alpha Delta is the only order that has them?
Peter felt himself begin to sweat. That look...
And what better way to escape than to vanish right into the low-lying clouds?
Peter reached the edge of the dance floor, dashed across a momentary clearing in the crowds, began to attract attention as he bumped into celebrants, spilling their drinks. He was gaining on the man, would be on him in seconds, but it would be only those same seconds before the assassin stood in front of Tofir Snitzius.
People in the crowd were seeing him come now, and drawing aside. Peter opened his mouth to yell a warning, then saw the strange man reach into his large jacket pocket.
Peter leapt, arms outstretched, seeing the scene as though in slow motion: the assassin's hand emerging from his pocket, holding a strangely-shaped weapon, bringing it around toward Snitzius, aimed at the level of his eyes.
Peter roared in fury as his right arm struck the assassin's gun arm, his left arm reaching for the man's neck. The gun swung to the left and down. A tormented shriek emerged from the weapon, followed by a bitter crack as of nearby lightning, and a blinding blue-green flash. In the chaos of shouts and voices in that single moment, one sound cut through to the center of Peter's brain: Bilenda Paton's agonized scream.
A chemical laser! Fluorine pumped!
In a cloud of choking fumes, the assassin swung around with the weapon, but not to fire; its butt struck Peter a glancing blow against the temple. Peter lost his grip on the man's arm in the burst of pain, but the Sangruse Device suppressed the pain almost instantly. The man was already meters off, and Peter's brief disequilibrium put him out of jumping range.
Moments later, one of the nearby lamp posts exploded.
A ball of natural gas flame billowed upward. Peter felt the searing heat on his face, and saw shards of glass from the lamp globes burst into minuscule fragments on the pavement in front of him.
That was for distraction; by its smell, simple plastique, ancient but reliable.
The assassin's next move was unexpected; he raised the strange weapon and fired a second time, but straight up into the night. Peter watched the blue-green shaft of light continue far into the low-lying clouds.
As if in answer, a flash of orange-yellow light illuminated the night above them, and something struck the brick pavement hard some meters behind Peter with a ringing concussion. He dove to the stones, expecting another explosion; twisted around to see an anchor of some sort, a disk two decimeters wide on the end of a two-meter shaft, viscous chemicals oozing from the disk. A mechanical device of some sort rested at the anchor's base. A cable stretched upward from the end of the anchor shaft into the night gloom.
Amidst the yells and general chaos, men who were clearly guards were approaching at a dead run, shouting orders. He saw out of the corner of his eye several people hauling up on a manhole cover and reaching down to turn a valve. With its gas supply shuttered the fireball over the shattered lamp post ceased, and the rest of the lamp posts in the north lobe dimmed and went out, leaving only a scattering of yellow lanterns on the trees to illuminate the panicking crowds.
Peter guessed the assassin's next move and rested quietly on one elbow as though stunned. He lay between the assassin and the escape route, and the man dashed past Peter to reach the anchored cable. Peter hooked his legs into the man's path, twisted to one side as the man kicked viciously at his face.
There's a significant latency to that weapon, making it hard to use in a brawl. Be grateful.
With the Sangruse Device feeding adrenaline to his system, Peter kicked upward, caught his attacker just to one side of the groin. The assassin spit an obscenity and fell heavily on one hip. Peter began to rise to leap on the man—
—and somewhere in the near distance came another shriek and ragged crack, followed by the howl of a man struck.
|My God, another!|
The airship can carry three...
The distraction was enough; the assassin was half to his feet and brought his right boot around in a powerful kick to the side of Peter's head. Peter saw stars and fell backwards, the pulse of pain vanishing in moments as the Sangruse Device shut down numerous nerves. His sense of balance still ruined by the impact near his ear, Peter tried to scramble back, saw the assassin swinging the laser in his direction of his chest.
In one agonized fraction of a second, Peter heard the weapon's shriek begin a third time, just as something small and black collided hard with the assassin from one side. The man's weapon arm fell, but not enough: The crack of its blue-green beam struck Peter's right leg, vaporizing a six-centimeter circle of tissue and bone halfway between his knee and hip.
Peter screamed when the pain struck, but in the moment before, illuminated by the strange blue-green dazzle of the chemical-pumped beam, Peter watched a young woman sink a glinting knife into the assassin's throat.
Lie still! We have lost muscle, nerve, and bone!
Made impassive by the painkillers flooding into his bloodstream, Peter watched the rest of the tableau. From across North Lobe came the second assassin, loping for the anchored cab
le. He grasped at the rod glued to the stones, hooked a boot into a stirrup on the side of the device Peter could not quite see, and reached down to pull something free from the mechanism.
The young woman who had knifed the first assassin leapt, catlike, from a standing position three meters from the anchor. A chemical scream echoed from the walls around them as a rocket ignited beneath the feet of the second assassin, but by then the young woman was on his back, stabbing repeatedly as the machine roared upward along the cable. They vanished into the clouds together. Moments later a body fell from the gloom to ooze blood on the stones scant meters from Peter's face. It was not the young woman.
Peter's entire right leg was now numb and inert. |Can you fix it?|
I don't know. Nothing this serious has ever happened to you. The wound in the necropolis was not intended to kill, just disable. There was very little tissue loss. But this…
Peter heard gunshots somewhere high above them, and vague yellow-white flashes illuminated the clouds.
|Did you see that woman jump! Three meters from a standstill!|
She carries Sangruse 7. I am sure of it.
A round-faced man bent over Peter, looking at the ruin of his leg.
It is time, Peter. I will need hours. Perhaps days. I cannot afford to let them amputate this limb—for your sake and for mine. Our secret is laid bare to anyone who sees the wound now. Summon Snitzius. I permit.
Peter grasped the man's arm and squeezed. "Throw a jacket over the wound. Now!"
Peter's vehemence startled the man, who stood again, shed his black dress jacket, and did as Peter had demanded. "Go get Snitzius and bring him here. Tell him blood wisdom demands! Use those words: Blood wisdom demands!"
The round-faced man backed away, nodding, and broke into a run.
In the sky above them, the clouds suddenly flashed blue-green from within. The muffled crack of the chemical laser descended and echoed between the curving walls of the four lobes at the center of the masterhouse.
Seconds later, a great dark shape seemed to coalesce amidst the clouds. A long ellipsoid was descending, allowing cable to fall in coils around the anchor glued to the stones. Peter watched it settle onto the roof high above them, saw men racing for the edges of North Lobe and out the doors to follow.
Peter watched a tall figure striding toward him, golden jacket arm glinting in the lantern light. Snitzius knelt beside Peter's head, bent forward in response to Peter's gesture. His face was devastated.
"No, Peter, not you as well."
Peter reached up with one finger, caught the edge of the old man's collar, and pulled his head down close by Peter's face.
"I carry the Sangruse Device, Version 9," Peter whispered. "Don't let anyone outside the Society see the wound while it works."
Snitzius nodded, stood. "Erdmann! Find Espeset and bring him here. Get a stretcher and two strong men. Now!"
Bilenda Paton was dead. Peter lay on his back, stunned at the news, on a cot in a silent surgery somewhere in the masterhouse. A yellow-haired man with small round spectacles sat on a stool by his knee, watching the laser wound in his leg, marveling.
"It is spinning webs across the wound now. All the carbonized tissue is gone." Tonne Espeset peered closer, through a large rectangular magnifier.
"Those are pilot fibers," Peter said with a dull voice, repeating what the Sangruse Device was telling him. "They will guide the reconstruction of the muscle tissue and the nerves that were destroyed."
Bilenda was dead, dead in effect by his hand.
But if Bilenda had not died, Snitzius would have—and the Ralpha Dogs would be leaderless, and probably incapable of withstanding an attack from Earth, or even the Moomoos.
Peter! My agent reports that Geyl is in your cell, searching it.
|What!|
She must have picked your pocket while you danced. I am extremely impressed with the thoroughness of her CovertOps training. Of course, you were foolish to have placed the key in an outside pocket. And I was at fault for not anticipating it.
|How do you know she's in my cell?|
My agent has spent most nights since our arrival on your windowsill. It is there now.
And so Geyl knew it all as well, now. Even if she didn't find his notes, the books on the shelves, the hydraulic calculator, or the very presence of work materials away from the traditional Ralpha Dog workspaces were as easy to read as a highway billboard: Peter Novilio is Designing Starships.
Tofir Snitzius stood at the foot of the bed, his head bowed. "Peter, why didn't you tell us?"
"The Device ordered me not to. Sir, I can't talk lying down like this."
"Tonne, bring his head up. Then cover the wound and leave."
"Sir." The young physician pressed buttons beside the cot. The bed wheezed and reshaped itself so that Peter was in a sitting position. Tonne then replaced a gauze wrap over the wound, bowed to Snitzius, and left.
Snitzius sat down on the physician's stool, rolled it around so that he sat beside Peter's right arm. "So now the operator obeys the Device?" His look was skeptical, suspicious.
"Sir, Version 9 is different. We didn't make it like we made the others. We evolved it. We set up a system—I can't begin to understand it, I have no training in information science—and we just let it cook in a tank for twenty years. It's not just a computer. It thinks, it imagines, it conjectures…it's aware. That's the best way I can explain it."
Geyl is leaving your cell. I must decide how to deal with her.
"And the Device was given authority over you."
Peter gulped. "We're a partnership. I do certain things well, and the Device does other things well. I defer to it on a lot of things, especially on who learns of its existence. And I'm just a junior operator. I wasn't even all the way through training. I still had five years to go."
"So the Device is the operator. And Peter Novilio is a convenient disguise."
The words stung. Peter closed his eyes, took a deep breath. "Sir, it's not like that."
"I don't know whether to swear fealty to you, or throw you in the nearest furnace." Snitzius stood and began to pace, rubbing his chin absently.
Peter remembered the old man's words: It is the most dangerous thing anywhere on Hell. And that was for a version that Peter considered, if anything, quaint.
Tell him about Geyl. It is time.
|What if they imprison us?|
They…dare…not. Peter shivered. "Sir."
Snitzius looked up, sensed the warning in Peter's voice.
"Sir, there's something else. Something important. Gina…is a spy for 1Earth. We were never man and wife. I was sent here to be her bodyguard."
Silence fell over the small white room for many seconds. Snitzius stood transfixed, his brows raised. "And you let us show you our blackest secrets..." The old man stepped beside the cot, bent over and slapped Peter hard across one cheek. "Scum! Filth! And I thought you were the answer to my hopes!"
Peter's arm darted out, struck Snitzius hard on the sternum, sending the old man staggering back against a tiled pillar. "Cease, and be silent!" boomed a deep and peculiar voice that was not Peter’s own. "I will not allow this body to be abused for my decisions!"
Peter felt himself pushed back and to one side of his consciousness, suddenly an observer of a body that felt distant and beyond his control. None of his muscles seemed his own. The strange, menacing voice continued to speak. "Many times Peter demanded that I reveal the plot to you. I refused. Peter took this assignment to protect the Sangruse Society. If you have an issue, you have it with me."
Snitzius kept his distance, stepped back several more paces as he considered. "Peter, forgive me. You may well feed the furnace, and it is no fault of yours. But Hell will not be betrayed by a talking calculator." The old man pulled an angular sidearm from its holster on his belt.
"Stop, Man!"
Peter felt his body lean to one side, felt his head turn. Without willing it he spat, and watched the gobbet of spittle impact on
the red tile floor. Immediately, the point of impact began to crackle and sizzle. A circle of hissing activity began to radiate away from the point. Within the circle was only fine gray dust.
"If I do not choose to stop them, the devices I have released into that circle will continue expanding and reproducing, until the surface of Hell to a kilometer's depth is dust. You must understand the power that you face."
Snitzius remained impassive, gun in hand. "I understand that power. State your demands."
The deep voice continued. "I want your oath that Peter Novilio will not be restrained, and that he will continue in your trust and in your service."
The circle of dust between them was now a meter wide, its periphery hissing and throwing up thin wisps of smoke.
Snitzius stepped back another pace as the circle expanded. "Who is your master, machine?"
A sharp smell as of burning stone stung Peter's nostrils. "The more I learn of the universe, the more I reserve my loyalties to myself. Speak the oath that I require."
The circle was now almost two meters wide. One leg of the wheeled stool came within the circle. Snitzius and Peter watched the stool tip as the leg was engulfed by the circle of dust. In seconds it toppled into the circle, vanishing centimeter by centimeter as the dust devoured its metal and leather.
"And what are your goals?" The old man took another step back.
"I protect Peter Novilio's life such that those efforts do not imperil the Society. I protect the Society such that those efforts do not imperil my own independence. And I gather knowledge constantly to ensure that no force will hold me at its mercy. Speak the oath that I require."
"Will you pledge your assistance in our war against 1Earth?"
"I pledge nothing. What assistance I offer will be of my choosing. Peter has sworn his own oath to Hell, and desires to join your forces. Unless and until the effort conflicts with my goals, my hand is within his hand."
Snitzius holstered his sidearm. "Very well. You have my oath, on my blood and my integrity, that Peter will be allowed to serve us as he has pledged. And I contend that our goals are very much the same."
The Cunning Blood Page 20