The Worshippers and the Way coaaod-9

by Hugh Cook

  Hatch knew that if his timing was off, he must still stay with it. His every trooper would be hot by now, hot and sweating, geared up with fear and fury. To change the timing now would throw them all into confusion.

  "Five," said San Kaladan, strengthening as the ritual of the countdown secured him in his identity as a warrior. "And. Four.

  Hatch remembered his father on the sands. The sands of the Season. After his father had killed himself, he had wanted to die.

  But he could not die. He would not.

  "And. Three."

  There was a rising excitement in San Kaladan's voice. He was working himself up. He was entering battle-mode.

  "Two. And. One. And. Fire."

  All through Hatch's battleforce, rockets flared. Hatch felt the gentle tugstrings of his own retro-rockets slowing him. Out in the night, the wink-lights which mapped out the spread-pattern of his battle-armored troops began to slow, performing the slowmotion ballet of deepspace manoeuvering. Hatch and his thousand Startroopers were slowing, like a thousand fireflies caught in an invisible net. Their dead ship, cruising forward through space at a constant velocity, seemed to accelerate away from them. Hatch knew: yes. Yes! He was in error! He had let San Kaladan give the order to fire rockets too soon!

  Hatch's abandoned MegaCommand Cruiser drove onward. Ahead lay Lon Oliver's ship. They were closing. Closing, fast. Three. And.

  Two. And. One. And – The ships collided. The ships impacted in the silence of vacuum. The ships crumpled as they smashed against each other. Gas ruptured outward from Lon Oliver's ship, venting in vast sheets, in pluming spasms.

  The fist caught the big sheet of paper. The confetti was carried past in the wind. The confetti was still braking, was still slowing, was still shedding velocity – but too slowly! Hatch and his men were being carried past the wreckage. Hatch realized he had been badly wrong in his guestimates. Retro-rockets had been fired too late rather than too early. Hatch had been betrayed by his lack of deepspace experience.

  "Ha!" said a voice, in pleased surprise. "It works! It works!"

  It was San Kaladan. Hatch was surprised at San Kaladan's surprise. But of course Hatch's inexperience merely reflected the inexperience of the Nexus Stormforce as a whole.

  He watched.

  The collision had left the two MegaCommand Cruisers locked together in a deathgrip. Air was still boiling out of the wreckage of the enemy MegaCommand, spewing out into deep space. Inside that ship, men would be dying in the sudden vacuum.

  Rockets flared in the dark as Hatch's men began to move toward the ships.

  "Come in slowly," said Hatch, manoeuvering himself toward the hull of the enemy ship. "Brake in good time."

  And he braked, and let the hugeness of the whalebulk hull drift up toward him. He landed on the skin of leviathan. His knees anticipated the shock, soaked it up. Already strobe lights were blinking on the hull. They marked places where Hatch's men had found access to the interior through rents and ruptures.

  Hatch used the rockets of his battle-armor to manoeuver himself to the nearest rent. He entered the ship, moving warily lest he tear his anger on the sharp-fang edges of the hole in the hull. His armor was tough, but, unlike his skin, it had no pain receptors to warn him of damage. If he tore a hole in his armor, he would not know about it until he was dead.

  Once inside the ship, Hatch let himself float. The interior was airless, but still lit by emergency electricals. He realized that Lon Oliver's ship was still maintaining a faint degree of artificial gravity, enough for Hatch to be featherweighted down toward the ship's deck. Abruptly that gravity strengthened to full force. Hatch gasped in surprise. Was he all right? So far, so good. He gave a command, and the built-in headlamp of his battlearmor came to life. He wanted to be sure that he would still have lighting if the emergency electricals suddenly failed.

  Now where was he?

  Every fire alarm inside a MegaCommand was location-coded, so if he could just find a fire alarm, then he would know where he was. Hatch sought such an alarm, found one, checked it, and orientated himself. As he did so, the open broadband channel began to fill with warnings and alarms. His men were running into armed resistance. Some of Lon Oliver's men had managed to get into their battle-armor and were putting up a strong fight.

  Where now?

  Hatch's mission was very simple. He had no need to kill out the ship. All he needed was Lupus's head. Hatch made his way to the nearest maintenance panel. The panel would be linked to the simple-minded electronic computers which would be running the ship's emergency systems.

  Hatch used a chin-switch to put his electromagnetic communicator into the receive-only mode.

  "Jack to this panel," said Hatch, talking to his battlearmor, and simultaneously jamming his battle-armor's right fist against the maintenance panel. "Then get access to the emergency computer."

  His battle-armor extruded a jack, thrust it deep into a data-access socket, and began to ream the maintenance panel, raping it thoroughly, stripping its defenses and winning the deepest secrets of its privacy.

  "We have access to the emergency computer," said the automated voice of Hatch's battle-armor.

  "What is the status of the bridge?" said Hatch.

  There was a minuscule pause as his battle-armor interrogated the MegaCommand Cruiser's emergency computer. Then:

  "The bridge is undamaged," said his battle-armor. "There is full atmosphere and full gravity on the bridge."

  "Good," said Hatch. "Is the captain on the bridge?"

  Again the pause. Then:

  "The captain is on the bridge."

  "Good," said Hatch. Then: "Is there pressure in the Central Robotic Maintenance Tube?"

  "There is full atmospheric pressure in the Central Robotic Maintenance Tube."

  "Are its interior airlocks functional and undamaged?"

  "They are functional and undamaged."

  "Good," said Hatch. "Disengage."

  His battle-armor freed itself from the maintenance panel, and Hatch, ignoring the strident battle-commands, made his way to the Central Robotic Maintenance Tube and entered the outer chamber by way of an airlock.

  Hatch looked around the outer chamber. It was empty, as he had expected. This facility was never used except when maintenance robots entered the ship when it was in drydock.

  "Right," said Hatch.

  Then he began to strip off his armor.

  Hatch stripped down to his Standard Gray. He grabbed his sheathed sword, his short and brutal battle-sword, which he had earlier fixed to the back of his deepspace battlearmor, using for that purpose some heavy-duty glue. Hatch wrenched with all his strength and tore the sword free from the armor.

  Then Hatch began to make his way along the Central Robotic Maintenance Tube. If this lost pressure, he would die. But he had no option. This was the fastest way to the bridge, and the tube was so small that there was barely room for him to crawl along it.

  It would be impossible for a man in vacuum armor to enter that tube.

  Hatch crawled the length of the tube, and exited by way of an airlock in chamber devoted to the storage and maintenance of the ship's robotic cleaning machines. This gave him access to the kitchens, and from the kitchens he gained access to the officers' mess. Hatch entered the mess, which was bare and functional, devoid of personality. Hatch unsheathed his sword, discarded the scabbard, and ventured down the short corridor which led to the bridge.

  Hatch went striding down the corridor, and entered the bridge. All those on the bridge were focused on display screens.

  Asodo Hatch closed the distance to the seat where Lupus Lon Oliver sat.

  "Lupus," said Hatch, speaking softly, quietly.

  Lupus Lon Oliver looked up.

  "Hi," said Hatch.

  Then brought his sword slamming down.

  Lupus dodged from the blade, almost but not quite evading it.

  The blade slammed against skullbone and sliced away a crescent of blood, cutting away an ear in the co
urse of its butchering.

  Lupus scrambled to his feet, and as he scrambled he tried to pull his sidearm from his belt. Hatch whacked him on the side of the head with the flat of his blade. Lupus staggered. Hatch kicked his legs from under him. Lupus crashed down, deadweight falling.

  Hatch, panting, steadied himself, steadied his breath, then said:

  "Lupus."

  Lupus looked up. And Hatch chopped down. Lupus tried to pull away. Blade chopped into bone. Stunned but not dead, the wounded Lupus groped on the deck. All around the bridge, men were leaping from their consoles. The fastest-witted starwarriors were already sprinting toward Hatch.

  But there was time, there was plenty of time for Hatch to swing into an executioner's stance, and this he did, and he brought his sword down hard and fast. Hatch chopped two-handed.

  His blade impacted with flesh. With bone. But Lon Oliver's head was still attached to the neck by a hinge of skin and flesh. A mighty man was Asodo Hatch, but it had been a long time since he had chopped off anyone's head, and he had quite lost the knack of it.

  "Well, the hell with it," said Hatch. "It's a killing, not a sacrifice."

  Then he threw back his head and laughed, and was still laughing as the first attacker slammed into him, taking him down in a tackle. Down went Hatch, the world wavering as if he had taken a deep-sea dive, and when the world ceased to waver -

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Dalar ken Halvar: a political briefing. In the absence of the Silver Emperor, a revolution by the Yara – the Unreal underclass – has prompted the Free Corps and the Imperial Guard to seize control in a coup. The coup-makers, who have yet to secure proper control of the city, have been unable to prevent the Yara from setting much of the city alight in widespread rioting.

  Asodo Hatch, who has enemies amongst the Free Corps, and who is opposed to the coup, is sheltering in the Combat College in company with his wife Talanta, his daughter Onica, his sister Penelope, and his lover, the Lady Iro Murasaki. All these – and a certain moneylender by the name of Polk – are likely to meet a swift yet unpleasant death if forced out of the Combat College.

  Hatch has been competing in battle with Lupus Lon Oliver, son of Manfred Gan Oliver, the prize being a permanent position in the Combat College as instructor. Hatch has succeeded in killing Lupus in the world of the illusion tanks, but has yet to encompass his enemy's death in the world of the fact and the flesh.

  Who has dared amongst the gods yet still Though golden in the living flesh Finds clay disputes him, He Endures intractables, and knows – While we, Though blind to face the gods, Still see the butterfly, and, Blinded by its transcendence, presume – Asodo Hatch entered Forum Three with a sack in his hand. The sack was of synth, and waterproof, which was just as well, for there was liquid within as well as something weighty.

  "Ho!" said Shona, bellowing her approval. "Ho, Hatch!"

  Hatch raised the sack in salute.

  Others roared applause. Above all, they loved the way the victory had been won. This was not a cheating stunt like the fractional win Hatch had earlier achieved by ejecting from his singlefighter, with the machine destroying itself and his enemy moments later. Instead, he had closed for an honest kill, a meatcleaving sword-kill, a work of bloody butchery. He had won with a bright-daring stratagem worthy of a hero – and there were few in that room who did not wish themselves heroes.

  But no Frangoni Combat Cadet or Startrooper in Forum Three would look Hatch in the eye. For Hatch had disowned the Frangoni nation, had disowned the Frangoni god.

  Hatch glanced at Talanta. That glance was sufficient to tell him that his wife had not understood his shipboard dialog with Sen Kaladan, couched as it had been in the Nexus Commonspeech, of which she was entirely ignorant.

  But soon, doubtless, someone would tell her.

  Soon, doubtless, he would know.

  Asodo Hatch had renounced his god.

  Asodo Hatch had renounced the Great God Mokaragash, and he had declared himself for Nu-chala-nuth.

  A thing said is a thing said wherever it is said. Written by handscript or written in water, that which is said cannot be unsaid. Too many Frangoni had witnessed the saying for the thing to be kept secret. Hatch would be unwelcome hereafter on the Frangoni rock. His name would be given to a dog, and then that dog would be burnt alive in token of the community's displeasure.

  He had lost his people, he had lost his nation, and there was no recovering them. He was an exile now, or would be soon, an outcast stranger in his own city, a man without tribe, a man without family, a man without a people.

  But Hatch was a warrior, and though he acknowledged what he had done he nevertheless went on regardless, just as – in battle – he would have stepped over the fresh-dead body of his best friend to lead an attack which would win him victory.

  "Lupus!" shouted Hatch.

  Challenging.

  Looking around for his rival, for Lupus Lon Oliver.

  Where was he? Where was he?

  As Hatch was searching for him, Lupus came stumbling into Forum Three, gray with shock. Lupus had just lived through the trauma of having his head hacked off, and Hatch – Hatch was not about to let him forget it.

  "Lupus," said Hatch.

  Lupus Lon Oliver turned to face his enemy, the man who had outwitted him, who had outfeinted and outfought him, and had then dealt him a grievous punishment.

  "Lupus," said Hatch, grinning. "A present for you."

  Then Hatch upended his sack, and out bounced Lupus Lon Oliver's head, and rolled across the floor in a spew of blood, and blood still splurged from the sack, pumping out in gouting orgasms. Hatch grinned like a lunatic, grinned – then laughed ferociously. As Hatch laughed, Lupus doubled up and vomited.

  "The Season!" said Hatch. "I live for the Season!"

  "Enough," said Paraban Senk, speaking from Forum Three's display screen. "Hatch, you've won. Lon Oliver, you've lost. To the victor, the spoils."

  Forum Three erupted. The audience howled, cheered, jeered, stamped, and threw things.

  As Hatch stood firm to receive this mixed derision and applause, a free-floating machine entered Forum Three, drifted toward the simulcrum-head of Lon Oliver, swallowed it, vacuumed up the artificial blood and was gone, satisfied with the competence of its performance – though some stains of pseudoblood remained as token of the outrage Hatch had just perpetrated.

  Hatch was startled by the advent of the machine. He had seen such devices before, of course – many times. But he had presumed, on the basis of the evidence of the steadily mounting litter which had lately degraded the Combat College's environment, that all such cleaning machines were permanently disabled.

  "The meeting will settle," said Paraban Senk.

  It took more than saying it to make it happen, but eventually Forum Three came to order in obedience to Senk's commands. Hatch took a seat next to Talanta, who took his arm.

  "You were brave," she said. "You were very brave."

  She was still trying to give to him.

  All through their marriage she had done her best, giving him her body, giving him her services, and now, in extremis, in pain and dying slowly, giving him her praise when she had nothing else to give. Hatch experienced a crushing guilt, knowing himself to be an adulterer, a blaspheming apostate. His name would soon be scandal on the lips of every Frangoni in Dalar ken Halvar, and how would Talanta cope with that?

  Hatch had already done the unforgivable, and was sure that he would do far worse before the year was out. He believed, now, that he could only survive the enmity of the Free Corps by linking himself with the revolutionaries who thought of themselves as practitioners of Nu-chala-nuth. And what then would be Talanta's fate? Surely as the wife of an apostate she would find herself ostracized by the Frangoni community, would find herself an exile on the very Frangoni rock itself.

  Thinking of this, Hatch felt an enormous pity for the woman and her sufferings. But he knew that two cannot be made one by pity: and that, in a way,
his pity was a measure of his estrangement from his wife.

  Then Hatch thought of his wife no more, for Paraban Senk was addressing Forum Three.

  "The graduating class has come to the end of its combat studies," said Paraban Senk. "I am pleased to say that we have a one hundred per cent pass rate. Those who have been unable to take their final examinations have been passed on the basis of an assessment of their work through the year and their performance in past examinations. We have of course one promotion to formally announce: Asodo Hatch is promoted to the post of resident instructor."

  Again there were mingled shouts of acclamation and derision, but the shouts were not as forceful as before. This drama had played itself out, and those in Forum Three were now starting to worry about the greater drama: the battle taking place for the control of Dalar ken Halvar.

  "Members of the graduating class," said Paraban Senk, "should clear their rooms and exit from Cap Foz Para Lash."

  "And if we don't?" yelled someone.

  "That needs no answer," said Paraban Senk. Then, urgently:

  "Scorpio Fax! What are you doing? Put down that knife!"

  That gave Gan Oliver the moment's warning he needed. He turned as Fax struck. Gan Oliver knocked the knife aside, elbowed Fax to the floor, then brought his bodyweight slamming down on top of Fax. Gan Oliver grabbed Fax by the hair and started slamming his head against the plax of the floor.

  With that, Forum Three abrupted into violence, as Free Corps supporters and Frangoni began to fight each other. A clutch of Free Corps loyalists slammed into Asodo Hatch.

  Taken by Dog Java, by Lupus Lon Oliver and by Jeltisketh Echo, Hatch went down hard. Lupus got hands to his throat and started to strangle him.

  "I," said Lupus, tightening his grip, "am going to kill you."

  This was for real, death for real, no lyrical illusion tank dream, no simulated fakery staged on the Eye of Delusions, but the terminus, the breath-fight, the lynch-note panic of flesh against flesh.

  And Hatch was losing, was going under, sliding under the blackness as the ceiling – The ceiling of kaleidoscope abruptly came crashing down, breaking in huge gobs of slob as it collapsed. The slob was COLD!