Code Of The Lifemaker

by Hogan, James

  up at twenty-eight point-three megahertz. Then reprogram the descent profile and

  follow the beam down to where it takes us, okay?"

  30

  PRIVATE SALLAKAR OF THE KROAXIAN INFANTRY INHALED deeply from the effort of

  climbing the rise and coughed as his coolant system switched over to

  reverse-flow to eject the intake of dust raised by the foot soldiers ahead of

  him. Mumbling profanities and curses at the dust, the desert, the army, and the

  seemingly endless distance to Carthogia, he moved to one side and stopped to

  look back at the long column of infantry and cavalry regiments, fireball

  throwers, war chariots, and supply wagons snaking its way back and out of sight

  among the rounded dunes and low scarps of the Meracasine. It was going to be the

  real thing this time, he reflected glumly. He had tangled before with the

  Carthogians in border skirmishes, and the experience hadn't left him restless

  with impatience and wild with enthusiasm to meet them again. Oh yes, the

  officers had sounded very confident, as usual, and been full of assurances that

  the new weapons would make short work of the Carthogians; but Sallakar had heard

  too much of that kind of talk before. It was easy to tell everyone not to worry

  when you knew you'd have a fast mount underneath you to get you out of trouble

  if it all went wrong. Oh, yes indeed, it was fine for them to talk.

  But—according to the barracks gossip, anyway—the cavalry captain, Horazzorgio,

  hadn't been doing so much talking since he'd chased after a Carthogian

  undercover unit and come back minus his whole company, and an arm and an eye to

  boot. Oh no! Now that didn't sound like opposition likely to allow itself be

  made short work of.

  He moved a hand to feel the cold, hard lines of the newly introduced projectile

  hurler that was slung across his back—the product, so he and the others had been

  told, of many twelve-brights of labor carried out in secret by some of the best

  artisans and craftsmen in Kroaxia. Oh yes, it was a nice-looking piece of

  workmanship, and yes, it had seemed effective enough in the hurriedly improvised

  training sessions that they had been rushed through, with everything left until

  the last minute as usual —probably for security reasons—but what did that prove?

  Only that somebody had discovered how to make better weapons. The Carthogians

  had good artisans too. If the Kroaxians could do it, why couldn't the

  Carthogians? No reason at all. In fact, from what Sallakar had seen in the past,

  the Carthogians were more than likely to have done it first. And that would be

  something the officers wouldn't tell us about, he thought to himself. Oh no,

  they'd never tell the troops about something like that.

  "Sallakar, what the 'ell d'yer think yer a-doin' of? 'Avin' a nice nap there,

  are yer?" the voice of Sergeant Bergolod bellowed from farther back down the

  line. "Get fell back in."

  "Go fornicate with yourself," Sallakar muttered as he hitched his pack into a

  more comfortable position and rejoined the column at a gap next to Moxeff.

  "You must find your delight in serving extra watch-duty, Sallakar," Moxeff

  murmured. "Is it the tranquillity of contemplating the desert in solitude at

  early bright that attracts you so? And to think, I had no idea you were of such

  poetic disposition."

  "A plague of rusts and poxes upon this desert!" Sallakar spat. "Thrice have I

  crossed it now, and each time its breadth doubles."

  "More likely the quality of thy temper halves."

  "Your constitution is unaffected by this heat, no doubt," Sallakar said.

  "Pleasantly dry and refreshing after Kroaxia's debilitatingly humid air," Moxeff

  agreed.

  "Zounds! Your own admission disqualifies the sole excuse left you for your

  insufferable temperament."

  "You should save such peevishness to vent upon the Carthogians," Moxeff advised.

  "In truth I do believe you welcome combat as you relish the desert heat. And do

  you thrive also on breathing this carborundum powder, and conserving one bucket

  of methane per bright to top up your solutions and wash off the grime extruded

  from your joints?"

  "Ah, as always you bitch too much, Sallakar."

  "And the likes of you bitch not enough. Would any bondslave tolerate abuse such

  as this? Oh no! But it is I who bitch too much. Oh yes! Do you have no desire to

  assert your freeman's rights?"

  "Must I remind you that the army is our law, Sallakar? Who ever heard of foot

  soldiers demanding rights?"

  "And why not?" Sallakar asked. "In Carthogia, so 'tis said, authority is

  conferred by majority agreement among the citizens, and owes naught to any force

  of arms nor nobility of birth—a most commendable precedent. Why not, then, I

  say, in the army also?"

  "You're kidding!"

  "Not so. This matter has occupied my thoughts now for many brights. We will form

  ourselves a union, Moxeff, to match rank with collective strength, and bargain

  our services and loyalty only in return for fair and reasonable conditions that

  shall be contractually underwritten. To fight, we would require favorable

  numerical odds of two-to-one or better, at least moderately clement weather, and

  a minimum-compensation guarantee against worthless plunder. Rest periods would

  be fixed at mid- and quarter-bright, one bright in every six declared

  combat-free, and a peace-tax levied from the populace to maintain our

  remuneration in times of unemployment."

  "Oh, that the foot soldier's life should bring such bliss! And have you the

  intention of reading this, thy proclamation, to our King, Eskenderom, and his

  Court personally? Well, may good luck go with you, Sallakar. Doubtless we shall

  all speak of you with fondest sentiments and remembrances."

  "Shame on you who can speak thus contemptibly without embarrassment. Would you

  partake your share of the betterments we might secure? Oh yes—unquestionably!

  But to pledge in return your share of allegiance to our cause? Oh

  no—unthinkable! Is it not . . ." Sallakar stopped speaking and turned his head

  away to look as a commotion broke out somewhere up ahead. A moment later the

  column halted. "What the fom—"

  "The desert heaves!" Moxeff exclaimed.

  "Is't a storm?" someone ahead shouted.

  "No storm appears thus," another cried.

  "Is this some Carthogian trickery?"

  "The ground ahead boils! It is on fire!"

  "And around us also—we are trapped!"

  A wall of smoke and flame had erupted across the line of march and was climbing

  higher by the second to blot out the sky ahead, while above, on the overlooking

  slopes to left and right, curtains of shimmering violet light had appeared,

  hemming in the front of the column. "I AM THE ENLIGHTENER, WHOM THE LIFEMAKER

  HAS SENT AMONG YOU," a voice boomed, seemingly from everywhere at once, and

  echoing among the surrounding hills. "SOLDIERS OF KROAXIA, LAY DOWN YOUR ARMS,

  FOR HE HATH COMMANDED, 'THOU SHALT NOT KILL.'"

  "Deploy for ambush! Scatter the column!" a mounted officer shouted as he

  galloped back down the line. "Infantry under cover. Cavalry to the flanks. Close

  up the wagons."

  "A Company to thos
e rocks. B Company, string out along the gully. C Company,

  follow me," Sergeant Bergolod called out. Officers in front and in the rear

  began to shout orders, and in moments the column had disintegrated into bodies

  running in all directions. Sallakar found himself crouched with Moxeff and a

  couple of others behind some rocks. He peered up over the rock and saw that

  figures dressed in white had appeared amid the wall of swirling radiance higher

  up—elusive, dancing, etheric figures, apparently devoid of physical substance.

  They seemed to be approaching, down the slope.

  A soldier nearby raised his hurler loosely to his shoulder and fired, knocking

  himself over backward with the recoil. A ragged volley came from another group

  behind, and in seconds firing had broken out all along the column. Gripped by

  the fear that had seized everyone, Sallakar sighted at a pair of white-robed

  figures, held the hurler hard and firm against his shoulder as he had been

  taught, and squeezed the finger-lever. The hurler juddered . . . but had no

  effect, even though Sallakar was aiming straight at the advancing figures. He

  swept the weapon desperately from side to side and up and down to cover every

  inch of them, but they kept on coming.

  Inside the flyer hovering just at the edge of the smoke clouds boiling upward

  from the napalm tanks and explosives planted ahead of the Taloids, Zambendorf

  was watching the scene in close-up. It was as well that they had allowed for the

  possibility of the Paduans' panicking, he reflected, and decided not to expose

  any of the Taloids on their own side prematurely. Stretching away from the lurid

  glow immediately below the flyer, two streaks of whiteness flickered eerily

  where recorded Taloid images were being projected onto internally illuminated

  smokescreens from lanterns concealed several hours earlier on the rock-strewn

  slopes overlooking the obvious route through the valley. "Let's see if we can

  put a stop to that shooting," he said to Clarissa.

  "Plan C?" she said.

  "Yes—a low-level bomb run at those ice crags, accompanied by some pyrotechnics."

  In the copilot's seat, Abaquaan prepared to repeat another recording of a

  pretransmogrified message from Moses over the flyer's bullhorns, suitably

  modified for high frequency, and from the ultrasonic amplifiers positioned to

  command the area.

  "Ayee!" One of the soldiers dropped his weapon and stood up, pointing in terror

  at the sky above the wall of fire. "A dragon descends! We have brought the

  Lifemaker's wrath down upon us!" A sleek, slender-limbed creature, unlike any

  that Sallakar had ever seen before, was swooping down at them. Instinctively he

  turned and aimed his hurler upward in its direction, then realized the futility

  of that and lowered it again.

  "We are doomed," MoxefF moaned next to him. Several nearby infantry robeings

  dropped their weapons and began running blindly back the way they had come. Then

  a series of brilliant lights and clouds of violet radiance blossomed overhead,

  and simultaneously more lights streaked down from the dragon and destroyed a

  formation of rock outcrops and large boulders in a fury of deafening

  concussions. Sallakar cringed and covered his ears . . . but he was still alive.

  "DESIST, SOLDIERS," the voice that had called itself Enlightener thundered again

  from above. "THE COMMANDMENT IS, 'THOU SHALT NOT KILL'!"

  And then a much larger dragon emerged from the fiery wall before them, flying

  slowly and majestically right above their heads with fire blasting from beneath

  it. "Angels!" Moxeff gasped, straightening up and pointing. "Angels are

  descending from the skies!"

  "See how they shine!" another soldier shouted. "Truly this is a time of

  miracles." On every side, soldiers were running from cover and standing with

  their faces raised to watch. Some had thrown away their weapons already and were

  clasping their hands together, and some had fallen to their knees. Even the

  officers were sitting motionless, awed and cowed by what was happening. Above,

  more heavenly figures, each borne on white, frilly wings, were floating serenely

  downward behind the dragon.

  "PREPARE TO MEET THE ENLIGHTENER," the Voice boomed. "I COME TO THEE IN PEACE,

  BRINGING GOODWILL TO ALL ROBEINGS."

  Inside the cargo bay of the NASO surface lander making a low pass at just above

  stalling speed, Joe Fellburg checked Moses' harness one last time, gave a

  satisfied nod, and motioned the Taloid to the edge of the deck by the open

  loading-doors. Moses leaned forward a fraction and peered down apprehensively.

  "Tell him he'll be okay if he makes sure to jump hard and clear, and counts five

  before he pulls the ring," Fellburg shouted to West, who was standing by them,

  holding the transmogrifier. "And look at the others who've just jumped—they're

  doing fine." West spoke into the microphone, verified the interpretation that

  appeared on the screen, and the machine passed the message on to Moses. Moses

  nodded trustingly,

  "Great stuff, guy," Fellburg said. He stooped to ignite the fireworks lying on

  the floor and attached to Moses' pack by wires long enough to ensure they would

  hang a safe distance below him, then stood up again, stepped back a pace, and

  patted the top of the robot's head. "Geronimo!" he yelled as the assemblage of

  sputtering flares and white-robed robot launched itself out into space. A

  searchlight from the flyer, which was circling nearby, picked out the figure as

  its parachute opened and it began to descend slowly through Titan's dense

  atmosphere.

  A gasp of wonder went up from the soldiers as at last the Master appeared,

  descending in a luminous halo and bathed in a beam of heavenly brilliance.

  Sallakar didn't know what to believe, but in his own mind he had already come to

  a profound realization of immense theological significance: Rejecting the

  Enlightener's creed would mean having to fight the Carthogians; conversion to

  it, however, would not. "Hallelujah!" he shouted, throwing his weapon aside and

  climbing up on the rock to stand with both arms extended. "I am saved! This

  sinner has seen the light! Hail to thee, Enlightener!"

  Most of the Kroaxian army, it seemed, was only just behind him in reaching the

  same conclusion. All along the column, figures were standing up, coming out from

  cover, and throwing their weapons to the ground. The air rang with hundreds of

  voices rejoicing:

  "I see the light! I see the light!"

  "The Enlightener cometh!"

  "Praise the Enlightener!"

  "We are saved! We are saved!"

  "No more killing! No more war!"

  "All are my brothers. I shall not kill!"

  For many hours the Enlightener preached great words of love and wisdom from a

  hilltop to the soldiers assembled on the slopes below. When he had finished,

  they abandoned their weapons in the desert and turned back to return to Kroaxia.

  The Enlightener was lifted again into the sky to be borne ahead by the angels.

  He promised he would await his converts at the city of Pergassos, where they

  would join him to begin together the founding of the new world.

  "It's amazing! I simply don't believe this," Massey s
aid to Zambendorf over the

  link from the Orion as the departing flyer climbed higher and transmitted a view

  of the shambles that had been the Paduan army.

  "Just the last phase left now, Gerry," Zambendorf told him confidently. "Next

  stop—Padua. We've rehearsed the cast, tested all the props, perfected our

  technique, and everything works just fine. What could possibly go wrong?"

  An hour later, a military reconnaissance aircraft flew over the deserts between

  Padua and Genoa, and sent a series of views up to the Orion showing the entire

  Paduan army streaming back the way it had come. Caspar Lang was given the report

  shortly after receiving confirmation that a surface lander had disappeared on a

  routine descent to Padua. No signal had been received from any of the ship's

  automatic fault-monitoring devices, and the crew had been highly rated for

  reliability and stability; the NASO experts who investigated were unanimous in

  concluding that the vessel had been hijacked.

  Lang arranged with the military commander at Padua base for James Bond, the spy

  employed by the Paduan king, Henry, to be airlifted ahead of the retreating army

  in order to intercept it and learn what had happened. Afterward, Bond rode off

  into the hills to a rendezvous with the Terrans and was flown back to Padua Base

  to make his report.

  The news was that the planned Paduan invasion of Genoa was off. The entire

  Paduan army was out of its officers' control and was returning home to build a

  new society after encountering a messiah in the desert who had converted all of

  them to a new religion of tolerance and nonviolence. The messiah had descended

  from the sky accompanied by flying dragons, winged angels, heavenly voices, and

  all kinds of miracle-workings.

  Lang's suspicions were immediately aroused. "Check Zambendorf out," he

  instructed his chief administrative assistant. "He's been too quiet for too

  long. I want to know where he is, and every move he's made in the last

  forty-eight hours."

  Neither Zambendorf nor practically anyone on his team were anywhere to be found.

  "You were supposed to have been keeping him busy and under observation at all

  times!" Lang screamed at a white-faced Osmond Periera in the Globe I executive

  offices fifteen minutes after Lang received the news. "Well, he isn't anywhere