Stuck inside his belt was a particularly effective laser gun quite like the one he had used on Deadrock. Arrayed about his body in secret places were a number of devices that he had, with Cog’s aid, constructed over the weeks to aid him in penetrating the stasis field defenses as well as the locking mechanisms that separated him from his goal—the antimatter device.
—By my estimate, only another twenty-five minutes to wait, said Cog. —Amber. Presently I am, in effect, controlling all those wearing Disbelief Suspenders. When it comes down to the actual effort to penetrate the labs, would you like me to control you as well? It would coordinate your attack better—
“No!” Amber cut him off abruptly, “This is something I have to do. For myself, if for no one else.” No margins for mistakes in this effort. One shot. That’s all they would get.
If Amber blew this, it would cost. Unimaginably. —Just inquiring. You’ve changed a great deal, Philip Amber. I am just beginning to understand you.
“Wish I could say the same.” Amber casually glanced up at a brace of togaed, bearded men strolling into the amphitheater. The bulges under their robes would be weapons. “I’ve just got one question, Cog. One that was never quite spelled out during the visions you presented us below the Melphic Temple. You say that your race evolved to its present heights collectively ... and that such is the destination of any race. That to reach out into the realms of space is a blind alley for development. Intelligent peoples must look within themselves and their society. But what about the individual? Like any of us humans now, in this existence which is after all comparatively barbaric set against your own. When we finally die ... does the personality simply disintegrate? Or is there actually a soul, as so many of the religions assure us? And if so, what is the soul’s destiny?”
The distinct feeling of amusement was evident in Cog’s reply.
—You silly, silly humans. You try to trap and hold reality with flimsy words and dogma passed from generation to generation like some DNA code for the human spirit.
“In the past weeks,” said Amber, “I’ve given some thought to the philosophy under which I should guide my life now. Anything you can say will help. It seems to me that human thought can be broken into two camps. The pre-creationist and the self-creationist. There are those who believe that a backdrop pattern of prefabricated reality exists… definite moral laws as well as physical laws, that each individual must grasp even as he reaches for the creating deity whose plan all known things contain. There are those who believe that we are chemical, physical, and spiritual accidents, who must chart out own individual and collective paths by realizing that then we must make our own decision on the direction of travel. Tell me this ... which is the doses I to the truth?”
—You may be surprised, but I am still learning myself. I can only say that truth lies, somewhere between here and there ... and includes both as well. But I suspect I sound as though I’m speaking in riddles.
“Well. Nothing ambiguous about what we have to do now, is there?”
—No. You’re quite correct about that.
“How are things progressing?”
—Quite well. The attack parties are presently forming in locations close to their objectives. We even have enough to storm the engine rooms ... but I need not emphasize to you that yours is the most important mission.
“How about Blicia?” The name drove painful cords of memory through him. And yet he was almost grateful for this agony ... it was returning his humanity to him. What he had loved in the creature who had called itself Blicia was, after all, merely a reflection of himself. And self-love was certainly a start.
—She is presently on her way to Ort Eath’s study, programmed and transmitting.
“The explosive is ready.”
There was a pause from Cog. —Yes, he said finally. —The assassination will commence soon.
* * *
Emotions churned within Ort Eath as he once more checked the separation procedure of the computer screen. All systems were go. He would depart the Star Fall in thirty minutes ... an hour short of detonation of the antimatter device. An hour was as close as he could cut it ... a great deal of distance had to be put between him and his ship. In fact he’d need time to use the moon as a shield from the radiation.
He felt simultaneously confident and nervous.
All had gone well so far. Not a hint of opposition had appeared ... and at this late time, there was nothing more that anyone could do to stop the completion of his plan.
The intercom blared to life. “Priority Communication. Staff Member 431 DdF—security clearance requested immediately.”
It startled him. 431 DdF—that was the cyborg created from Blicia Ginterton’s body ... maintained in operation to keep an eye on Philip Amber and Todd Spigot. Ever since their return from their sightseeing upon Feloria, the visual and auditory reports turned in by the cyborg had been quite innocent—matching precisely the vocal reports of Angharad Shepherd.
He swiveled the speaker so that its transmitter caught the full voice of his orgabox. “What is the trouble?”
“Request immediate personal audience. I have top secret information to impart.” He listened to the voice and was again impressed with how perfectly human it sounded. What a marvelous job he’d done on her. Amber had even fallen in love with her.
“I haven’t much time,” he returned. “There are many things to be done.”
“I repeat, this is of the utmost emergency.”
“Where are you?”
“At the security station beyond the room.”
Ort Eath thumbed the security communicator. “Everything in order?”
A gruff voice answered. “Nothing amiss here, sir.”
Good. Things were running smoothly. But he’d better let her in and see what she had to say. An escort might be in order. At this point of the game, there was limited area for chance-taking.
He hit the button for the security station. “Let her in. But Trenellix ... come with her. I might need to dispatch you immediately. Difficulties simply cannot be tolerated at this stage.”
“Yes sir.”
Within thirty seconds, they stood before his desk, not two meters away.
The cyborg wore a neutral expression and a plain brown coverall over which spilled her long tresses. The Azinatin dwarfed her.
Ort Eath regarded her impassively. “So, what is the important matter which had to be communicated to me personally,” he said, his eyes, from sheer habit, darting down to the scanner analysis readout before him.
A needle quivered anxiously in the red.
Instinctively, Ort Eath dropped to the floor, knocking over his chair.
The explosion thundered over him like a breaking tidal wave—enclosing him in almost crushing sound.
He clutched hard to his consciousness, held it fast amidst the tremor. Flesh, blood, and harder items splattered every which way against the walls and furniture. Amongst the ozonish smoke there was the smell like that of a reeking charnel house.
Ort Eath opened his nictitating eyelids and found himself drenched in blood that was not his.
With raucous confusion, security officers barreled through the cycling door, handguns at the ready. Ort Eath pulled himself up by gripping the top of the desk and regarded them balefully. I have only one question,” he pronounced from the fortunately unscathed orgabox. “Why did you not scan the woman before allowing her in?”
“But, sir,” said one of the Azinatins, confused. “We did—I mean we knew she possessed metallic and plastoid elements in her ... in the past you’ve said that was all right. She had visited you several times ...” They glared about them at the scattered remains of their colleague.
“There’s no time for chastisement,” said Ort Eath. “Somehow something has gone on under our noses ... and it threatens the Star Fall. See that my rooms are double-stationed with g
uards immediately. Have some robots come and clean this place up.”
Although shaken, he managed to retain his essential composure. He stabbed at a gore-filmed communications button. He’d been fooled. And he knew now by whom. But he had survived their attempt to kill him ... and his Plan would be just as hard to destroy.
Gods did not die easily, nor their destinies ...
“Security,” he said into the transceiver. “Red alert.”
* * *
Morphul Hee had exchanged his bulky and obvious rifle for a more inconspicuous derringer-shaped mini-laser, which now rode in his pants pocket.
He stood now in the communications room.
The part of him that was yet the Council member lay submerged beneath the powerful personality overlay provided by Cog. A personality specifically tailored to integrate itself with the repressed individuality of Hee. Thanks to Cog’s ingenuity, Morphul Hee was not even aware that anything was amiss.
The communications room of the space-liner Star Fall lay somewhere to the starboard of the great boat. Axial cables carried the messages to the hull transmission station, a cluster of synchronous units boosting one huge radio-telescope tachyonic wave pulser. Used in true-space, the messages would take years to transmit, limited by those natural laws. But here, in the vast darkness of Underspace, distances were effectively compressed—or rerouted through shortcuts. Thus, tachyonic waves carrying messages could be beamed to the communication stations situated beside systems, suspended half in and half out of the Underspace area aligned with the desired sector of true-space ... and then relayed by the systems network to the world to be communicated with.
Seeing Hee standing beside a compact recording machine, the second-in-command of the communications room, Lieutenant Munzor Chalzie, strode up smiling. “So what brings you up here, Morphul? In an hour we’ll be in Earth orbit. We’ve already passed the moon. Hey,” he said, indicating the wide straps of the D.S. “How did you get ...?”
Morphul Hee’s hand was in his pocket. He pulled out his weapon, jammed it against Chalzie’s abdomen. “Just shut your mouth, Munzie. In one minute, this place is going to be stormed. But in the meantime, I want a message dispatched to Central. Fast.”
The Lieutenant’s deep blue eyes shot wide open with surprise.
It was then that the squealing alarm sounded. The hulking Azinatins previously guarding the doorway bounded in, guns ready.
Their first blast caught Hee square in the shoulder, whipping him hard against a console,
The second slammed into his chest, sizzling the Disbelief Suspender into molten slag,
Just before he died, the Councilor had just enough time to wonder what such hellish agony was doing in a fantasy.
—THE ASSASSINATION attempt has failed, said Cog urgently. —Ort Eath is now aware of us.
“What happened?” Momentary fright halted Todd in midst ride.
Somehow he must have ducked behind his desk before the explosion. If only we could have manufactured a more deadly explosive ... .Ah well, the possibility of the failure had been taken into account.
Todd stood with Angharad and twenty-five others just beyond the security perimeter of the Bridge. A solitary Azinatin stood sentry, unalarmed, his energy pistol holstered, by an admission station. Only crew and authorized personnel were allowed past that point.
“Better do it now.” said Angharad through gritted teeth. “Before we have swarms of unhappy visitors.”
Todd peered once more around the corner which hid them from the guard’s view. “Just one of them, still. Mind taking him out, Angharad? I’m not exactly skilled in this sort of thing.”
“I’m just going to stun the guy,” said Angharad, adjusting her makeshift pistol accordingly.
“Sneak up on him?” asked Todd. The others listened patiently.
“Hell no,” snorted Angharad. The tassels on her purple and beige jumpsuit jostled as she jumped out into full view, leveling her weapon. Aiming seemed almost instantaneous; a bright vermilion jag of light spurted.
Her effort was immediately rewarded by a surprised grunt, and the sound of a heavy body hitting the floor, dragging all manner of rustling paper and jangling weapons with it.
Angharad lifted the tip of the gun to her lips and blew imaginary smoke from the barrel. “Strike one security man.”
—Okay. Take the hill, said Cog. —Charge!
The motley group screaming hoarsely behind them, Todd and Angharad did just that, running down the hall, weapons at the ready.
Perhaps out of playfulness, perhaps simply to infuse them with more enthusiasm, Cog briefly turned them all into Teddy Roosevelt’s Rough Riders charging San Juan Hill. By the time they reached the guard’s desk, however, they were reverted to their former selves, albeit with a touch of jingoistic patriotism lingering.
At the guard station, Angharad swiftly hit the appropriate switch. The door to the Bridge swooshed open, allowing them entrance.
The Bridge proved to be a large room, riddled with various control stations. The crew, unarmed, could merely gape as the party stormed upon them, leveling weapons—demanding attention.
“All right,” shouted Angharad. “Move anything of yours and we’ll move our trigger fingers! I want an immediate new course plotted and started, taking this ship away from Earth at top speed. Hustle it up, folks, if you don’t want to see your home planet become a sun.”
A man ran to the edge of the elevated command station. Captain MacNeil. He hit the barrier on the edge so hard, his face contorted in pain. “What’s going on?” he yelled. “Is this a mutiny?”
“No,” returned Angharad impatiently. “I’m an agent of Interworld intelligence. This ship is a threat to the well-being of Earth and must be immediately prevented from attaining proximity— ”.
With a furious howl, MacNeil suddenly launched himself from the command station, fingers clawed, reaching for Angharad’s face.
She jerked her pistol up and squeezed the trigger.
Mac Neil hit the floor, bounced once, then settled into a sprawled-out heap, unconscious,
“Okay, I get to be captain now,” yelled Angharad. “So punch some goddamn buttons, or you folks will get something a little hotter than what Cappie here got!”
Busy fingers began to move.
Todd had stationed himself by the yawning door. He heard the pounding of heavy feet, echoing down the corridor.
“Reinforcements,” he cried. “Lots of them!”
“And well-armed, I bet. So don’t just stand there and look stupid, Spigot! Close the door and let’s get to work.”
* * *
Philip Amber ducked a hissing stream of energy and weaved his way across to the edges of the fight.
What have you got in the way of reinforcements, Cog? How about a couple of divisions? We can use them.”
The attack had been a surprise. Two Azinatins had been taken out of commission on the preliminary melee. But the defenses had been more heavily emplaced here than at the entrance to the Bridge. The remaining four Azinatins had cover and were doing one hell of a job maintaining their position.
Which was merely the first of several layers of protection.
—Yes, said Cog. —There are more coming.
Amber lifted his pistol over his impromptu shield and fired a shot that succeeded only in coloring the Azinatin’s bubble shielding a cherry-red. “Well, bring ‘em on, ‘cause they’re dropping here.”
Five bodies lay burned and bloody on the floor beside him. And this, thought Amber, was supposed to be quick. Trouble was this corridor was too damned narrow.
“How much time do we have?” asked Amber.
—Sixty minutes by my approximation, until the Star Fall reaches a point—
“Okay, okay, I know the rest, Cog.” He cringed his nose at the smell of singeing hair—then realized it was his own. He
patted his head—but the swipe of fierce energies had not brought the hair to flames. “So. What’s happening elsewhere? They’ve been too busy to talk with me.”
—Ort Eath has alerted his guards. As I mentioned previously, spurring this attack, the assassination was a failure.
Amber shivered at the thought of the body he had lain beside so many nights—destroyed now.
—The Bridge, however, has been overcome .
“Well, there’s something for you,” muttered Amber, trying to let that knowledge comfort him. “What about the other points of seizure?”
—Not so well. And the full security force has been alerted.
“Yeah. They should be here any second. Then we’ve got no hope in hell of getting in there. Shit, what a bitch of a position, too. What I could use are some grenades!”
—What happens, Amber, said Cog speculatively, —when an energy pistol is jammed and overcharges?
Amber raised his eyebrows appreciatively. “Hey. Good idea.”
Quickly, he crawled over to a fallen man and secured his pistol. Then he slithered back, puffing. “I sure could use my MacGuffin now. How come you didn’t assign Todd along with me? With that machine he’s got on, we’d be halfway in by now.”
—There are reasons, I assure you, answered Cog.
Amber stared down at the pistol. “What do I do here?”
—It’d be faster if I just take over.
Amber switched the D.E. higher. Cog flowed in, taking possession of his arms and hands. Amber watched as his hands did things quite speedily to the coiled insides of the machine. “Pretty neat,” he commented as the hands snapped back a plate over the pistol’s guts. Then hit the warm-up switch.
—Count to thirty, said Cog. —Then throw. Cog gave him his arms back to accomplish that.
The air smelled like an atmosphere just short of an electric storm. “Well, “said Amber, “All I can say is I sure hope this thing we rigged up to get through the force field works.”
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