Zirpola cursed, his voice suddenly thin with anger:
“Damn all scientists. That is the second time this week that the lights have gone out.”
It was Polna who gave patient reply. Polna always trusted and trustworthy, steady as a rock but lacking in the imagination that would have given him the burning ambition of his two companions:
“We will have to wait but a moment, My Lord, before the auxiliary power comes on.”
In the continuing darkness there came the rumble of a humourless chuckle from Ankar Moor:
“It is but a temporary thing. In a few months we will have the fuel for all the power we could ever hope to need.”
Zirpola echoed him:
“Yes, in just a few short months. But perhaps that is too long a time to wait. I wish we could make it sooner. I need it now if my plans are to be fulfilled.”
“Patience, My Lord, and all you desire will be yours.”
“Patience. Patience? Should I, the Lord Zirpola, the ruler of Helix, need to show patience? We must survive and grow stronger if we don’t want to be overrun by those damned Mutants. They are the only ones who hold a real threat to our plans.”
Again Ankar Moor’s voice rumbled out, confident and strong:
“The Mutants. They are no match for us in light or darkness. They will never overrun us, My Lord.”
“You make that boast when you cannot even keep the power going.” Even as the Lord Zirpola snarled out his reply, there was a flicker of light, another moment of gloom, then the lights came back on steadily, but at a lower level than before. The Lord Zirpola’s face showed his dissatisfaction with the level of the power and he turned again to the tall commander of his Obedience force:
“So, the auxiliary power has not let us down this time. Now let us see if it will provide enough light for us to see these machines in which you place so much faith.”
Ankar Moor inclined his head and the three men resumed their march to the great door at the end of the long corridor. They halted a pace short and it was Polna who sprang forward to first tap out the special code on the light panel at its side before his huge strong hands gripped the wheel in the centre of the door, spinning it as easily as if it were a small child’s toy, before opening the great door and standing aside for his masters to pass through.
He followed them and shut and secured the door behind them with a loud clang that echoed and re-echoed round the chamber into which they now passed. In the main part of the City, above, doors opened and closed by the mere use of palm or voice prints and simple light encoding. Only down here, in the lowest and most secure parts of the City, were these more complicated security measures in being.
The pair waited for him just inside the door and once he had stationed himself at the Lord Zirpola’s left hand, they moved forward again. They were at the entrance to a huge workshop that had been planned and put in by the builders of the City, but, with the loss of technology and interest amongst the citizens over the centuries, the machines were now silent and unused. They passed down the centre of this chamber, past giant presses, lathes and all the other great machines from before the great disaster. Zirpola swung a hand in the direction of all this silent machinery:
“If only we had the science and knowledge still. We would be strong if we had the knowledge to work these things.”
“There are those who know, My Lord, those who still have the skills. But they use so much power. It was agreed not to use them any more in your great-grandfather’s time, or so I have been told.”
Zirpola nodded.
“You speak truly. He was soft but he had great wisdom and foresight. But when we have the power, then we will need the skill to use these machines again.”
Polna said:
“There is Sarnoff. He can teach these skills.”
Ankar Moor said proudly:
“Sarnoff is leading our project now. He does have the skill,”
Lord Zirpola nodded. Sarnoff was the finest scientific brain now available to the City of Helix. In the past he had given all his skills merely to keep the power working, training technicians to work under him just as he had himself been trained. Perhaps his concentration on the great project had something to do with the repeated power failures over which his assistants seemed to have so little control.
“Yes, Sarnoff is a good and valuable man, but he is so slow.”
Ankar Moor boomed proudly:
“Yet he has told me this day that he has been able to assemble the first unit of the Death Machines from the parts already machined and stored away in the vaults. He also tells me that he and his men have inventoried enough parts to build up to one hundred more of them—and that, he estimates, is the maximum number we can fuel. He has done well enough so far, My Lord.”
He was puzzled by the shadow of anger that now passed across Zirpola’s face. He was not to know that the Lord of Helix was fighting off yet another wave of pain.
“He seems to have done well enough for now. But let us see this great machine and decide.”
They had reached the far end of the huge silent workshop and stood now in front of a solid door as imposing as the first that had been opened for them to pass through. Once again, Polna went forward and went through the routine that opened the door, standing aside to let the others pass through before closing it again. They found themselves at once in another workshop, but one filled with activity. Ankar Moor, whose hearing was more acute than the others, heard Sarnoff’s voice.
“Be quick. They are coming.”
There was more light in this shop than outside and Zirpola screwed up his eyes as he watched the activity before him.
He was standing at the entrance to a vast assembly shop. Even as he watched, two pairs of strong, trained hands were lifting up a huge rubberised tyre, attached to a gleaming chrome-spoked wheel, into its position on the front of the telescopic air-spring forks of the front of a gleaming black and silvered motor-cycle. The cycle was of the type that had been specially developed and built for the Combat Rangers of the third world war, some nine hundred years before.
Almost a thousand years of undisturbed storage had done nothing to dull the impressive look of the machine as it hung suspended in mid-air from its assembly carriage.
The same two overalled men, Sarnoff’s assistants, their whites smeared with oil from their work, tightened the bolts on each side of the forks that held the huge wheel in place. As the Lord Zirpola stared at it, transfixed, it seemed to hang free in the air like a great flashing jewel on some huge metallic necklace. The strong hands spun the wheel to test it and it rotated freely in the air, sparkling in the artificial light like a moving diamond.
Now Sarnoff stepped forward to inspect the machine. His voice had the same tone as Ankar Moor had heard when they entered:
“Good, it is finished. Now stand out of the way.”
The two technicians immediately backed off and the wheel was left to spin unattended. Only when it had come to a natural halt did the Lord Zirpola step forward, his two companions following him, the door clanging shut behind them.
He walked straight forward, right up to the suspended machine, until it was directly above him and he was able to look up at it, much in the same way as Sir Galahad might have done during his vision of the Holy Grail or Arthur when he saw the great sword Excalibur for the first time, according to the ancient legends. To him this vision was every bit as powerful.
“It is beautiful.”
The other occupants of the room merely stood and watched him. It was Sarnoff who finally stepped forward, slightly impatient at this interruption to his work.
His face still held traces of youth, but Sarnoff was almost completely bald, a phenomenon that the people of the City put down to his great brain power, put to the use of the magic of the technology that was a closed book to most of them. In truth, his brain had never been stretched and his own opinion was that his hair had receded out of sheer boredom. A fastidious man, he regarded himself as a scientif
ic genius and, though he would never give vent to such an opinion, he believed he was cleverer than even the Lord Zirpola himself. His whole life had been dedicated to keeping the machines that powered the city going and he was not surprised at the power cuts, which he put down as a result of his having to leave his post to blundering assistants. He now sighed his effete little sigh.
“Yes, My Lord, it does look rather nice, doesn’t it?”
The looks he received both from the Lord Zirpola and from Ankar Moor told him that his opinion was not as enthusiastic as it might have been, and he recovered himself with his quick wits, going straight into a lecture, rather like a successful and confident salesman discussing his latest surefire product.
“It is powered by a single-cylinder, two-stroke, four-hundred-and-fifty cubic centimetre engine. Flat out, it will produce over one hundred horse power at about eleven thousand revolutions per minute. It has a top speed of well over a hundred odd miles an hour and, with the special mixed fuel I have prepared, it has a maximum cruising range of approximately six hundred miles with the new enlarged tanks.”
He paused, suddenly aware that he might have given his visitors more information than they could absorb in one bite, but they seemed to be merely waiting for him to go on. Now he really had to feign enthusiasm, for he mistrusted and abhorred weapons of destruction and these were the special feature of the machine. He pointed up to the front and then the rear of the great machine.
“As you can see, it carries four omni-directional anti-matter blaster bulbs, two fore and two aft.”
He let his hand drop to his side before glancing first at the frightening mask of Ankar Moor, then at the bland face of Polna, but their eyes told him nothing. He was not sure whether or not they were impressed.
As for the Lord Zirpola, he continued for the moment to contemplate the sparkling machine above his head, wrapped in his own thoughts. At last he dragged his watery blue eyes away and looked at the scientist.
“You have served me well, Sarnoff—very well. You will be rewarded substantially for this service.”
Almost purring with pride at the compliment, a rare occurrence from the Lord of Helix, Sarnoff puffed out his chest while blushing with an almost girlish modesty.
“Our ancestors designed and planned these machines, My Lord. I have only been the instrument of its assembly.”
Lord Zirpola hardly heard him as he reached out with a talon-like pale hand and set the front wheel of the great monster of death spinning round once more. After a moment of further contemplation, he reached up again and stopped the wheel, so that the machine merely swung from its assembly carriage.
“Amazing . . . Beautiful.”
Sarnoff relaxed inwardly. He had been a witness to too many of the Lord Zirpola’s sudden changes of mood from sunshine to anger to be entirely at ease in his presence and he had been mortally afraid of failure when he had taken this assignment. He wished he were alongside his two assistants who were almost visibly cowering against the far wall, away from the machine and their lord and master. Terror was a common emotion amongst those who had to come into contact with the Lord of Helix, the man who had the power of life and death over everyone in the City.
Zirpola looked away from the machine abruptly and turned to Sarnoff, snapping out:
“How does it go? Can you start it for me?”
Sarnoff bowed low.
“Certainly, My Lord.”
He flicked his fingers and, in spite of their fear, the two assistants came forward at the run.
“Lower it. Be careful.”
The two men went over to where the assembly-line chain was tied off. They unwound it and lowered the cycle slowly so that the wheels came into contact with the floor of the assembly room, before they tied it off again, still holding the machine up but making it look as if it was balanced only on its wheels.
A moment later, Zirpola lifted his robe out of the way and bravely swung his thin leg over the wide saddle until he was straddling the machine. Ankar Moor took a pace forward as if suddenly alarmed.
“Take care, My Lord.”
Zirpola looked at him.
“It is only a machine, Ankar Moor. There is nothing that I should fear from it.”
He looked pleased that the other man had shown caution and Ankar Moor stood back again, satisfied at the reaction that his apparent concern had produced. There was no better way to flatter the old fool and keep him sweet than this. At his side, Polna kept a straight face with a great effort. He took some joy in seeing his superior snubbed from time to time. He knew Ankar Moor better than most and was mortally afraid of him.
Sarnoff now stepped forward, kneading his hands nervously, like a salesman whose product is being tested. Zirpola said to him, “Now you may start it for me.”
Sarnoff minced slowly round the rear of the machine until he was leaning in from the right-hand side. His assistants had backed away again, one of them to one side, one against the wall directly in front of the machine. Sarnoff pointed at the left-hand grip.
“My Lord, you will find an extension in the left handle. Please pull it out as far as it will go.”
As the Lord of Helix obeyed this instruction from his servant, Sarnoff reached forward and pressed down a little red button that was on the top of the right handle of the machine. There was a cough, a moment of silence while Sarnoff’s blood froze in fear. A second later he relaxed again and even Ankar Moor involuntarily stepped back a pace as the engine caught and, screamed into life.
Sarnoff screwed up his face at the noise, then reached across and pushed the left extension in a short way, reducing the roar of the motor which was echoing and re-echoing round the enclosed space with an almost unbearable noise, making even Ankar Moor fight to stop putting his hands to his ears. He knew that he must fight against the impulse as he saw that the Lord Zirpola was sitting calmly in the middle of the whirlwind of sound.
As for Zirpola himself, he could hardly hear the noise, but was revelling in the throb of sheer physical power as it coursed up through him from the engine of the machine.
Another few moments passed as the cycle revved again and Sarnoff leaned over once more to push the choke in a little further, thus taking pressure off the engine of the machine, which was screeching at almost full power. Zirpola waved him contemptuously aside, then shouted:
“Now show me how it fires.”
Sarnoff hesitated for only a fraction of a second, but the look in his master’s eye told him that the hesitation had not gone unnoticed and would be long remembered. It had been a mistake, the wrong thing to do. Reluctantly he pointed to two buttons that were also set in the right handle of the machine, just forward from the grip. Each had an arrow on, one pointing forward, the other to the rear.
“Those are the buttons. Just there by the grip—My Lord!”
But the warning stuck in his throat, too late. Zirpola was laughing as he pressed the button that activated the forward pod firing mechanism.
At once the assembly room was filled with an almighty and unexpected roar, followed by a flash of brilliant green light, like those that came from the anti-matter blasters that all the Enforcers carried, but a hundred times more intense. This flash resolved itself into a pair of twin beams that seemed to come out of the machine itself.
The hapless Peterson, the larger and older of Sarnoff’s two assistants, was the man standing directly in front of the machine. He was caught in the beams, thrown back against the wall of the shop and, almost in the instant that his body smacked against the wall, his blood-curdling scream was cut off in mid-flow as he abruptly disintegrated in the air, leaving no trace of his presence, his atoms scattered through time and space for all eternity. At the same time, the end wall showed a blackened scorch mark where the beam had hit it after dissolving the ill-fated man.
Zirpola took his finger off the button and the green beam disappeared.
For a moment, none of the other occupants of the assembly shop moved, so stunned were they by the
power, as well as the cruel waste, of what they had just witnessed. In the end, the effete Sarnoff was the first to come to his senses and make a move. He sprang forward and abruptly switched off the machine. The roaring noise was replaced by a deathly silence as he glared at the Lord Zirpola, who ignored the hatred in his stare. Remorse was for lesser mortals, not for the Lord of Helix. He merely threw back his head and laughed with a joyous laughter such as no man present could remember hearing from him for many years. Recovering himself at last, he dismounted, clearly still overjoyed by the demonstration he had activated and drunk with the feeling of power that the wanton destruction of another human being had given him. The power of life and death is a heady wine to a man of ambition and ruthless cast of mind.
Now, the hand that had so recently dealt out this destruction to another human being rose to smite Sarnoff on the back, a hearty blow of congratulation that made the scientist cough in pain.
“Well done indeed. That is a wonderful and incredible machine, the Death Machine is well named.”
He strode over and stood in front of Ankar Moor, whose dark eyes blazed through the slits in the mask that gave away no trace of the reactions of the man beneath it.
“You were right, Ankar Moor. You serve me well and faithfully.”
The Enforcer leader bowed low.
“Is it not as it was told to you, My Lord?”
“It is, it is indeed.”
“And if this is the power of one machine, think what will be the power of one hundred.”
Zirpola rubbed his hands together.
“What indeed? We will be truly invincible. Our plans will work, Triton will surely fall to us.”
Behind them Sarnoff almost gasped out loud in surprise. Up until that moment he had no inkling of the reason why he had been asked to put the machine together, along with an inventory as to how many more could be built and sustained. He had merely assumed it to be a plan for making the annual Death Sport even more complicated than usual this year. He cried out, unable to do anything but protest.
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