Star Fall
Page 29
“What’s he doing?” Todd said, moving forward.
Angharad grabbed his arm, holding him. “Stay back.”
Ort Eath’s eyes glazed into a frozen, infinitely haunted gaze, wide as Death’s engulfing mouth. He teetered, jaw twisting oddly, a black tongue protruding like solid bile.
“You’ll not have,” croaked the orgabox speaker. “Not ...”
The eyes began to melt, leaving empty cavities.
“Some kind of acid,” choked Angharad, putting her hand up to her nose and mouth. “What a way ...’
The body wobbled as the liquefied brain began running from the strange ears. What kept the body erect, Todd had no idea. Certainly the being within was dead.
“The smoke might be poisonous,” he said.
“You’re right. We’d better seal this off, quickly,” she replied.
They dashed from the cubicle and Angharad scrabbled about for a control switch to the sliding door. Todd glanced back into the small room. Ort Eath’s body began to collapse like a melting candle—and then blossomed into an open wound. Suddenly, a report like that of gunpowder. Flame burst forth from the rear of the body. Gusts of smoke began to cover the orgabox like grave shrouds.
Then Angharad found the door switch and the partition whispered forth, cutting off the roils of smoke—Ort Eath’s funeral pyre—and the sight of his decomposition.
But, in the split-second before the door clamped closed fully, Todd saw, or thought he saw, something odd.
A flash of gleaming metal. Scuttling legs. A glimpse of a mechanical crab moving through a sea of smoke.
He wasn’t sure that it wasn’t just his imagination, but a dark shadow studded with muted light, seemed to scurry from the destruction, a metallic soul released from its body.
Angharad exhaled, leaning against Todd. “It’s for the best, I suppose. I couldn’t stand to see him in the hands of justice. Best that he decide his own fate.”
“He was a monster,” said Todd. “He almost destroyed Earth, God knows what else—”
Angharad cut off his words with a searing gaze.
Then she moved away, collapsing in a chair, covering her face with her hands. “Just shut up, Todd. Okay? There will be plenty of time for words, later.”
“Sure, Angharad. But how do we get back?”
She gazed over at the silent group of Morapns, then back to Todd. She gave him a humorless smile. “Oh, I guess we’ll just have to feel our way back, won’t we?”
She jerked up from the chaise and walked to the aliens, arms outstretched toward the future.
TODD SPIGOT stared down at his body.
Still and lifeless, the body did not stare back. It’s like being at my own funeral, Todd Spigot thought.
Angharad touched him, trying to comfort, but she could not comfort.
He stared down at the body in the tank—gaunt now, instead of fat—in death owning so much nobler an expression than in life.
The room in which they stood was solemn and silent, in marked contrast to the animated confusion that marked much of the rest of the Star Fall. The Planetary Service ships surrounded it, too late to be of any service, but hovering nonetheless.
With the help of the Morapns, Todd and Angharad had managed to streak off a message to Luna Central. A ship was dispatched to pick them up; other ships were delegated to attend to the Star Fall.
The vast starliner, with the exception of the sizable hole in its hull, was much as it had been. Inside, however, was general wreckage and confusion; a party come to an abrupt and harrowing end.
The military was busy sorting things out. Todd and Angharad had answered their questions perfunctorily, promised a full story later on; and then asked to be shown the room in which Ort Eath had kept his bomb.
There they met the Morapn who had averted the explosion.
There they learned of Philip Amber’s fate.
“What I want to know,” murmured Todd, bitterly, “is it worth it. Is a good friend’s death worth it?”
“Who said that Amber is dead?” A voice squeaked behind them. Todd turned. The robot leg, its own limbs extended, stood in the doorway of the cryro-room. “Well,” Todd nearly spat, “if it isn’t the great spiritual leader. What do you have to say about this?”
Cog ignored him. “I repeat, what makes you think Amber is dead? You think I’d just let him lay on the floor dying? No, I hauled him here, scooped out his brain, put it in a preservation chamber, then stuffed this ugly thing ... yes, ugly Spigot, you spiteful snot,” Cog’s voice was full of humor, “stuffed it in this cryogenic chamber for cloning samples. Thoughtful, huh?”
“You’ve been letting us think Amber was dead all this time?”
Angharad said. “That’s cruel, Cog. He’s not exactly a gem, but we have grown rather fond of him.”
“You folks need some rest. Don’t you understand ... it was for the authorities’ benefit I let them—and you—believe Amber dead. In fact, if you looked inside that skull there, you’d find a brain. Not Amber’s. One of the passengers, beyond recall. No? You don’t remember? Amber is wanted on Earth, badly. This way, we keep him on the Star Fall ... and the law thinks he’s dead. We have the facilities here to transfer him back to the MacGuffin, and he and I will lie quiet here, until the Star Fall ships out again.”
“Well, you’ve figured out everything, haven’t you?” said Todd. “Except maybe what you’re going to do with me. I’m in the MacGuffin now, remember?” He tapped his chest. “Remember me? Do I get to float in a tank for a while?”
“Sure.”
“What?” Todd was outraged.
“No, I see what Cog is saying.” said Angharad, smiling, obviously happy at the turn of the events. “Cloning, Todd. Accelerated cloning. We take a sample of your body’s tissue down to Earth and get the scientists there to create an exact replica, in just a few weeks, Then we transfer your brain to that body and voila! The true you, finally. No more masks, Todd.” She wore a quiet, secret little smile.
“Yes, quite,” said Cog. “There have been quite a few of those, haven’t there?”
“What are you talking about?” demanded Todd.
“None of us, darling, all this time, have been what we seem,” returned Angharad. She strolled over sexily, slid her arms about Todd. “Me, for example. You know my name’s not Angharad.”
“Sure. Ort Eath called you Tracy.” He kissed her, returned the hug. “But then, what’s in a name.”
“But then, what’s in a body?” she said.
“Okay, I know that’s not your body, dear. I can live with that.”
“Oh, can you.” She blinked her eyelashes at him. “Try this one then. I’m really a man.”
Angharad slipped away from him silkily and began to laugh.
Began to roar ... and her laughter was joined by a little pixyish giggle as well. Cog.
Todd Spigot thought on this for a quiet moment.
He then barked one sharp laugh, stood, picked up an astonished Angharad, and gave her a big kiss.
“C’mon,” he said. “This is all too much for me. I need a drink.”
In a flurry of laughter and good feeling they swept out of the room, Cog toddling behind them, muttering with concealed envy.
* * *
Eventually, the vessel of Ort Eath’s escape was welded into place. The great starship orbited the planet of pale green land and wine-dark seas, a mobile monument of imagination.
In the dark heart of the Star Fall, muffled by the giggling and pleasured sounds of entertained humans and aliens, a few bars of Wagner filled the air like faint ominous thunder—and then were gone.
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