Masters of Flux & Anchor

by Jack L. Chalker

  “If you’re so damned powerful, why can’t you just vaporize that tower of theirs and put an end to this?” Matson asked them.

  “We could,” Suzl responded, “but that’s where it’s tricky. I’m not the power in New Eden; I’m one of four. Originally it was just supposed to be Anchor Logh, but now we somewhat control all of New Eden by unanimous vote. Those ancient soldiers believed that with the kind of power we had at our disposal, we ought to be able to meet and beat any threat like this. But the Seven have had twenty-six hundred and eighty-two years to figure ways around it, and they have. If I break the power connection to either the timer or the tower, it’ll cause a massive short. They’ve reversed the polarity of the Gate lock. Pure Flux power will come pouring out of that hole, and it’ll devour the entire cluster and us with it at the very least, maybe destroy all of World in one big overload. Right now the computers all say there’s only one way to get it back to normal. See, it’s like a spring-loaded switch. It has to be reset, and the only way to reset it is to open the damned Gate and close it again. We have power over Flux and Anchor, but the Hellgate’s neither. It’s our connection with the other universe and with our relatives out there someplace. It’s out of our jurisdiction. I can repair it—but to do that I have to open the Gate, so what’s the difference?”

  “Some goddesses!”

  “Look!” Spirit snapped. “It wasn’t meant to be us! I was supposed to be a general or something, and Suzl was supposed to be a scientist or engineer. Things went all wrong with their plans no matter how smart they were, or how advanced they were, but their biggest mistake was in not being able to imagine that it would hold for so long. They figured years, maybe decades or even centuries, but not this! It’s amazing so much of their organization has survived. The concentration of power in the hands of a few and the near-immortality the most powerful achieved did it, at the cost of never growing, never learning, never experimenting.”

  “So they were planning to open up themselves some day! How were they supposed to know it was safe?”

  “The Gates were made back in the home system and shipped and assembled here by machines. Obviously, the lock codes were set there as well. When Earth, as it called itself, won, it would show up with the codes from the other side.”

  Matson clapped his hands. “That’s the best news I’ve had in years!”

  Everyone turned to stare at him.

  “Don’t you see? If this Enemy took everybody else, it would have captured the codes and unlocked us! That means there are other human worlds out there!”

  “It also means the war might still be going on,” Suzl noted. “They never came back to reclaim their long-lost children, either.”

  “Well, we’ve got our war here and now. If you can’t mess with the Gate or fix it, can you help out Tilghman?”

  Suzl seemed to freeze, as if thinking of something far away, then snapped out of it. “He’s moving on the position right now, but he’s outnumbered four to one. He’ll be able to break through initially, but they’ll be able to push him up against the Hellgate with no place to run. He can get in range, but he can’t get that heavy stuff he’ll need close enough before they’re on him.” She shrugged. “You’re the fighter. I’ve seen you in action years ago, remember? Relative to a wizard our powers are enormous, because we can tap directly into the big computers. But my power comes from the power connection between here and the Hellgate; Spirit’s come from the remaining Flux, and there ain’t much of that between us and the Gate. I’m geared to defend an Anchor; Spirit was supposed to try and keep me from ever being used. Nobody counted on a landscape program being activated—they ruled that out. That’s real stuff out there. If we make any changes in it it’ll kill a hell of a lot of people, us and them.”

  Matson thought a moment. “What can you control?”

  “There’s a cold front moving down on them. Nasty thunderstorms, lots of hail and mud. I could stall it out between Tilghman and the encircling forces, maybe buy him half a day or more, but weather’s kind of funny. It might bog him down, too, at least his heavy stuff. It’s not easy, but weather is one thing that can be directed, to a degree.”

  “Pour it on!” he told her. “Make it miserable!”

  “Yeah!” Jeff added. “They’re pros they’ll make it, but the encircling forces have farther to come, and they’ll drop their heavy stuff just to increase speed. That gives ‘em a slight edge. And the storm’ll make the defensive ray setup useless. They might overrun the fixed positions.”

  “What about a lightning strike that’d knock the top off that tower?” Matson asked, thinking furiously.

  “I can’t make weather all that specific,” Suzl replied. “Besides, it could cause a surge through the whole line that’d break the connection and cause the regulator to crumble. In fact, Tilghman’s boys have to disconnect that cable, not cut it. Disconnect and ground it. Then we can deal with it.”

  “Excuse us,” the twins put in. They had kept very silent through this, but they were paying close attention. “But shouldn’t somebody have told Daddy that?”

  The others all stared at each other. Then Suzl exclaimed, “Holy cats! We forgot Cassie! She’s out in that mess!” She looked at Spirit, and Spirit looked at Suzl. and then they both looked at Matson, who nodded, a disgusted expression on his face.

  Spirit simply gave the order. “Activate restoration program,” she ordered, and the computer acknowledged the individual she wanted and found the proper file.

  “Can we get a direct link with Cassie or Tilghman in the field?” the stringer asked.

  “Not through the computer, no. We could do it, but she wouldn’t recognize it for what it was,” Suzl responded. “If this was Flux it’d be easy, but not in Anchor. To do it here and now we’d need somebody with even more power than I have and a genetic link to Cassie so close the computer might not be able to tell the difference.”

  Matson looked over at Candy and Crystal. “Girls,” he said, “get ready to go to work!”

  19

  THE HELLGATES OPEN

  Cassie was bouncing along in the carriage, her head against Adam’s shoulder, and in spite of the speed and bumps she managed to nod out. She generally dreamed basic, erotic dreams or dreams about the children, but now the dream she was having seemed to fade, and she heard a strange voice talk about a “restoration program” or something… .

  Slowly, strange thoughts and memories began to fill her mind, and in a matter of moments she was not one person but two, only one, she knew, was false. It was a horrible dream, and she fought it, fought back that other person, refused to face her, refused to—

  She awoke with a panicked scream that jolted Tilghman, then sat up and looked around, eyes fearful. She knew who, and what, and where she was, and she hated it.

  “What’s the matter, love?” Adam asked her, concerned that the experience was finally getting too much for her.

  She shivered and let him hold her close. How was it possible? It was a binding spell and the old had been erased.

  “Momma! Momma!” Now it was echoing voices in her mind. Had she died, she wondered? Was it all over, and were she and Adam on the road to eternity?

  “Momma! Momma! You must listen to us! You must!”

  She knew those voices now, knew that tone and inflection. But how could it be Candy and Crystal? What was happening to her?

  “Momma, momma! You must tell Daddy not to knock down the tower! It’ll do something awful to all of us!”

  What the hell? She concentrated hard on those voices. “Is that really you, children?”

  “Yes! Yes! You got to listen! This is kinda hard! It hurts in the head!”

  In point of fact, it was hurting her. too. “Who’s doing this? Mervyn?”

  “No, no! It’s Momma Suzl and Spirit and Jeff and Matson and Sondra and all! Just tell Daddy he’s gotta—what’s the word? Dis-kenit the big wire from the tower and put it on the ground or something like that!”

  “You mean t
o disconnect the cable and ground it?”

  “Yes, yes!” they responded happily, and faded out, leaving her only with a headache and even more frightened than ever.

  “Adam?”

  “Yes, my love?”

  “Adam—I—I don’t know how to say this, but I’m back. The old me.”

  He stared at her. “Are you sure you’re all right?”

  “No, I’ve never been more miserable in my whole life. Something reached into my mind and gave it all back. All of it. Without taking anything away. I couldn’t fight it, I had no choice.”

  He could tell simply by her speech pattern and accent that it was the truth, but he found it confusing and ominous. This sort of thing was unprecedented anywhere, to his knowledge. “You want me to let you out?”

  She clung to him. “Adam, I’ve been married to you for sixteen years. I’ve borne your children, and raised them well, and I have another within me that I pray will live to be born. But I love you, Adam. We live or die together in this.”

  He hugged and then kissed her. “Then maybe it’s a good omen! Maybe we’re going to make it!”

  “Uh—Adam. There was something else.” She told him about the eerie message from the twins.

  He thought it over. “Wasn’t Spirit the one with the Soul Rider?”

  “Yes, but she is mute and cut off from society.”

  “Maybe not any more. Maybe the Soul Rider’s joined our fight. I wish it was easier, though. They’re saying we can’t use the big stuff. We have to overrun it.”

  There were thick clouds obscuring the sky, but it was still clear that day was approaching, and the engagement must begin at that point. Suddenly there was the sound of rumblings, and thunder and lightning blanketed the sky just behind them. It began to rain, hard, cold, large drops of it.

  Tilghman signalled for a halt and called in Borodin and his commanders. “Never mind how, I’ve learned we can’t knock it out. The whole thing will blow and take New Eden with it. We’re going to have to take it and get that cable off that tower.”

  The general whistled. “That’s a tall order.”

  Tilghman turned and looked into the dark, fierce storm whose fringes were just reaching them. “Drop everything we can’t use or carry easily in bad weather. We’ll slow to a march and let the storm catch up to us. The way it’s coming, it’ll be smack on top of us in a matter of minutes. We’ll move in under its cover.”

  They had fought for fourteen straight hours, and in that time some forces of Flux had reached the Hellgate. They could do little, though, to interfere. Both Mervyn and Zelligman Ivan were exhausted and weak from their ordeal, having thrown at each other enough horrors and pure Flux power to crush half a cluster. And now they stood and faced each other, neither recognizable to anyone, including themselves. They were deformed, bloated creatures with burns, scars, and dangling limbs, as horrible as any two of the worst duggers lost in Flux.

  They were nothing now but two snarling, monstrous animals, motivated only by their mutual hatred, and determination to survive.

  They leaped on each other, all their power now reduced to sheer physical force, and they clawed and bit and chewed and rolled back and forth, ever closer to the great saucer-shaped depression. One opened gaping, bleeding wounds in the other’s stomach, and entrails dangled out, but that only enraged the other, who leaned forward and bit into his opponent’s neck, removing a large chunk of flesh.

  The Fluxlord commanders knew that they were watching the end of a horrible battle between two of the greatest and most determined powers ever in World, and they debated stepping in. “But on whose side?” they asked each other, and shook their heads.

  Now the one with the neck wound fell, and the other was upon him, snarling and tearing and slashing far beyond the moment when the one on the ground had stopped resisting. Finally, the victorious creature stood up and screamed, “I’ve won!” in a deep, guttural voice.

  Then he collapsed on the body of the other.

  “Two goddesses with the power to bring back the dead can’t help a man win a fair fight,” Matson grumbled.

  “The Seven knew too much. Far more than anyone guessed back when they closed them down,” Spirit told him. “Look, we have power over Flux and Anchor but they had the code that shut off the defense systems—and shut down maintenance as well. When that happened, they had just the right boards and knew just exactly the right things to do to jump the circuit, replace the board, then reverse the polarity. As for Tilghman, Cassie gave him his storm cover, then the thick fog, then caused that fissure to appear that delayed all the troops closing in on him. There’s just too many. Dad! We can’t raise him an army unless it’s in Flux, and that evil old man made sure there was no Flux there I”

  “Adam is not evil!” Suzl practically shouted at her. “He’s a product of the worst kind of culture this world can produce, and he came out of it with a determination to found a perfect society here no matter how long it took and no matter what it cost. His dream might not be your dream, but it isn’t Coydt’s or Champion’s, either, which is pretty much what New Eden is now.”

  “But he didn’t care if he had to get in bed with the devil himself.” Spirit snapped back. “The end justifies any means—war, torture, the reduction of women to inferiors … .”

  “Yeah, that’s true, but he didn’t see it that way. He thought conditions for the masses of World were so wretched as it was that any cost was worth changing it if their children or grandchildren could live his dream. The only alternative he had was to do nothing, so even the grandchildren stayed slaves. When even the so-called good guys of this world worked like hell to make sure nothing changed it, he had no choice but to choose the devil. Check the records here. In twenty-six hundred years humans went from primitive empires built with stone and bronze-tipped spears and arrows to being able to do this. Look at what we are after the same period!” She stopped a moment, choked with emotion. “No. Adam is a great man,” she added quietly. “All the dreamers were great men. But he’s lost.”

  Matson looked around. “Can one of you all-powerful beings whip me up a pair of pants and a shotgun?”

  “What’s the matter. Daddy?” Sondra asked, sounding a little sour. “Does you good to learn how the other half lives.”

  “Touche! But I’m serious. They’re up against the Gate, and the only cover they have is the fog. Kids, tell your Mom and Dad to head for the tunnel with everyone else they can. Tell ‘em somebody will be waiting for them.”

  They all stared at him. Finally. Jeff said. “I’m coming with you.”

  “Me, too!” added Sondra. but he stopped her with a look. “Like that? With your Flux power shot to hell? No. It’ll be crowded as it is.”

  She started to argue, but knew it would be futile.

  “You watch us on one of those screens up there.” he told her. “If you see we’re down, you come get us—hear?”

  She smiled and nodded.

  “Hey, Goddess of Anchor, get me a decent pair of pants, a good gun and some ammo, and a good cigar! And the same for my friend here, minus the pants.”

  There was the sound of cannon fire all around, and automatic weapons seemed almost constant. Cassie moved now as if in a dream, a slight wound on her thigh. She didn’t feel it. or anything, really, but she knew it was the end. Only the thickness of the fog had prevented the enemy from knowing that there were less than a hundred of them remaining, huddled around dead bodies of men and horses and firing in all directions at a foe none could see. They couldn’t even tell that they had been stopped less than three hundred meters from the goal, but it didn’t matter. They had been stopped, and the area in between was thick with traps and defenders.

  Suddenly there were bugle calls all around, and Tilghrnan accepted them. “Cease firing! Cease firing!” he ordered. Slowly, through the fog, an ominous silence fell.

  “Judge Tilghman! Are you still alive?” came a shout from the curtain that reminded Cassie of the void.

  “Y
es!” he called back. “I’m here! Who’s that?”

  “My name is Gifford Haldayne.” came the voice. “You don’t know me but I’m now in overall command here. Champion is dead.”

  Cassie’s head snapped up at the mention of that name. She had been unable to manage a submachine gun but she fingered the automatic pistol in her hand. If she could die accomplishing one straight shot she would be happy… .

  “I assume this is where I request terms!” Tilghman shouted. He guessed that Haldayne, whom he didn’t know, knew that they were beaten beyond a doubt but could not determine the size of the force as yet. Tilghman was literally right on the edge of the Gate; they had almost fallen in when they reached it. His remaining troops flanked him and Cassie in a semicircular formation.

  “We can take you out, with total loss of life, as you know, but you can still do some harm to us. If you surrender now, and all of your men come forward unarmed and hands in the air, I swear to you nothing will happen to them. They fought with uncommon honor and bravery and will be treated as such.”

  “Not very generous when you open the Hellgate. Afraid you don’t have enough soldiers for that? But, very well. They have earned the right to see the end of it. What of me and my wife?”

  “Throw down your weapons, and you and your wife walk along the bowl until you reach a ladder. Proceed down the ladder to the central tunnel and enter it. You will be met there, and taken to the old capital to be interned with the rest of your family for the duration. I think that’s more than generous.”

  “Don’t trust him!” Cassie hissed. “He’s one of the Seven. One of the worst! He makes Champion seem like a saint in comparison!”