Bayley, Barrington J - Novel 10

by The Zen Gun (v1. 1)

  "Of course," the mouse said in a measured, only slightly squeaky voice. "What else?"

  "For the first time since its foundation," Oblescu put in, "the Empire faces an external rather than an internal threat. You'd think that would be enough to pull it together. Instead ..." He trailed off.

  "There's been an odd happening here too," Archier said. He explained about Earth's moon. "Do you think there's any connection?" he finished.

  Crane nodded gravely. "There has to be. There isn't any other explanation. Still, I'm surprised. This is so much further away than any of the other phenomena we've heard about."

  "The influence is spreading," Oblescu said.

  "You call it an invasion," Archier commented, "but is it really that? What is taking place, exactly?"

  "Information is vague. We don't think what's coming through is even matter in the way we understand it. It's not even composed of atoms. That would make sense, wouldn't it? Other facets wouldn't necessarily have the same composition as our own."

  Archier brooded. "I'm at something of a loss. My previous orders also had some urgency. The Oracle says there's a weapon here in Escoria capable of destroying the Empire. Perhaps that's more important."

  "Oh yes, we're supposed to tell you the Oracle has made two more pronouncements concerning the supposed 'weapon.' It has been there a long time, and It has been disregarded, because it is small. Make of it what you will. The Council wants you to give priority to the space rent thing. But as I said, since you're in Condition Autonomy—:"

  "I'll do as the Council says, of course," Archier said curtly. "Just as long as they are aware of what my previous orders were."

  "Yes. Look, do you mind if we rest up on the flagship for a few hours? Then we'll make off on the Barge again, and find some little retreat for ourselves."

  Archier was puzzled. "You're not going back to Diadem? Don't you want to do what you can to help the Empire?"

  "I've already told you, we're not trusted! We've been dismissed! They wouldn't even have given us this little job if it had had any political overtones."

  "I see. Well, my adjutant will take you to some staterooms."

  Crane rose. He and Oblescu sauntered to the door, followed by the mouse. Before he left, Crane turned casually.

  "If you make a good job of this, young feller, I dare say you'll receive promotion when a new High Command is put together. How do you fancy being an Admiral Overlord, eh?"

  He laughed. But Archier could not raise a smile.

  When he informed his command staff of developments, Archier was met mainly with stunned silence. Gruwert, however became excited.

  " 'It has been disregarded, because it is small,' " he repeated. "Now there's something to think on! You know what this means? The 'weapon' isn't a weapon at all! If it were a small weapon, it couldn't destroy an empire, that's obvious. And 'It has been there a long time'. What are the most dangerous things, politically, sometimes lying dormant for centuries? Ideas, of course! What we are faced with is a political idea that's about to burst forth and give us trouble. Pre-emptive annihilation is the best way to deal with a threat like that!"

  "Do you mean of all Escoria?" The image of a giraffe, relayed from The Peaceful Star, turned to him in Archier's conference room.

  "Certainly, if we can't track it down and stamp it out any other way."

  "Actually, the rumoured weapon has become a secondary consideration," Archier said, surprised by the Fire Command Officer's reaction. "Don't you think we should address ourselves first to the invasion from the Simplex?"

  The pig snuffled in what sounded like annoyance. "We should take no notice of it," he said finally. "It's a natural phenomenon, like an earthquake or a star blowing. What can we do about that?"

  Gruwert wasn't able to grasp the significance of it, Archier realised. Like all animals, he lacked the imagination. Only the humans present seemed really frightened.

  "Perhaps, but we're going to have to forget about our task here in Escoria for the time being," he said. "The Imperial Council takes the space rent even more seriously, and therefore so shall we."

  "Wait a minute!" Gruwert objected furiously. "What about apprehending rebels? There's one on Earth just waiting to be nabbed! We can't just move off and let him go free! It isn't competent!"

  Archier reflected. "You're probably right. In any case, not all the fleet has reported in yet. We shan't be ready to move for several hours." He turned to Brigadier Carson of the Drop Commando. "You may make a drop. But be back in ten hours or less."

  The last he heard, as he switched off the conference room, was Gruwert lustily pleading with Carson to let him accompany the mission.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  To Pout, the moving city had been a disappointment. Mo, the city mind, had insisted on bombarding him with boring lectures on subjects he had no interest in. He had found the Mohists themselves irritatingly difficult to have fun with (and, mindful of the ever-watchful Mo, he had refrained from enslaving any of them with his zen gun). Also, he could feel his grip on his own little group weakening. So, calling them together (this had entailed a few electric prods-at-a-distance) he had decided to leave. Sadly he had been unable to find the girl Hesper, and if he had it would not have been much use—she was not yet under his spell.

  The best thing, he told himself, was to get off this planet altogether. He toiled along now on the hills above the plain, wondering how to find a spaceport. The brothers said there was one to the south somewhere. The kosho would probably know—but Pout had learned already that he couldn't look to him for information. The warrior ignored all his attempts to converse.

  The sun was hot, and Pout, when he glanced up and saw the glint in the sky, took it for a bird or a passing aircraft. Then, as it grew like a stone falling with terrible swiftness, he stopped while the others bunched up behind him.

  The big metal shape didn't seem to slow down at all as it fell. It hit the landscape with an audible thump less than half a mile away, sending up a cloud of dust, then squatted undamaged, banging open wedge-like doors out of which poured a yelping pack of about twenty variegated figures— dogs, hyenas and cheetahs in dazzling harness and all shouting in human voices, one or two humans in bulging armour that made them look like shining robots; and, waddling to one side, encased in some sort of cloth of gold, a fat pig that sniffed and looked about him.

  The carnivores all raced to and fro in intense excitement, waiting for orders. "Oh no,",quavered the eldest brother behind Pout. "Empire Commando!"

  "What?" Pout knew of these much-feared shock troops, and terror struck him. But he pulled himself together. "Don't worry! You're safe with me!"

  He drew the zen gun. Kill, kill, he thought. Kill, kill, kill. He was sure the gun could deal with all of them. He pressed the stud that he had learned intensified the electric stitch beam, whether to hurt, maim or kill. He pointed the muzzle and pressed the firing stud.

  The wavery stitching was much weaker than he had expected. It probed towards the noisy pack, raked across the body of a dog which howled and squirmed on the ground, firing its weapons at random.

  Then it went out!

  Pout gaped. He pressed the intensifier stud again, squeezed the firing stud, thought of killing as hard as he could.

  Nothing happened. The zen gun was not working!

  Had its power pack run out? He had never even considered that it might have an exhaustible power pack. It had seemed so marvellous, so personally his, that he had presumed it would keep functioning as long as he kept functioning.

  But now one of the armoured humans, seeing one of the dogs fall, and seeing from where the attack had come, raised an arm and pointed, bellowing a command. The whole commando unit swept forward, fanning out to form a crescent that began to sweep round Pout and his group.

  He began to tremble, and his voice rose to a warbling, panicky contralto. "Kosho! Defend me, kosho! I need you!"

  Ikematsu had been walking well to the rear, several paces even behind the lag
gard Sinbiane. When the party came to a halt he had seated himself upon the ground and entered into his customary suspended consciousness, apparently disinterested in the nearby commando landing.

  At Pout's summons he rose, turning slowly to survey the scene. A few strides took him in advance of Pout's frightened following and there he stood, still in seeming trance, his eyes half closed, his face expressionless.

  An astonishing transformation came over his accoutrements. He did not move his hands or raise his arms from his sides. But the rifles he carried in his rack rose of their own volition, hovering around his head and shoulders. Partly they were under his mental control, partly extensions of his nervous system and knowing themselves what they should do. Selectively, they let loose a barrage of fire. At his waist, his mortar tube began to lob grenades, picking out patches of ground in flashes of green fire.

  The commandos opened fire too. The hovering rifles darted this way and that. Every beam and missile, despatched from a variety of weapons, aimed at Pout's party was intercepted by the defensive umbrella the kosho projected.

  Suddenly there was silence. Ikematsu had killed cheetahs; he had killed dogs; he had killed hyenas. He had not killed either of the two humans or the pig; these were high-ranking personages, and they gave the order now for the surviving commandos to withdraw. They were amazed; they had never before seen a rifle that could cancel out the energy beam from another rifle.

  Gruwert had scuttled back into the drop pod. He peered round the edge of the door. "Who's that?" he demanded angrily. "We're fighting a single man?"

  "It looks like a kosho," Brigadier Carson told him. He still stood on the ground, but had retreated to where it was only a step to safety. "An ancient mystical warrior order. They're only found on Earth. I'd heard they were pretty remarkable, but this ..."

  "What? Why didn't anyone tell me? They might be the weapon!"

  "I don't think so. They are forbidden to take sides in power politics."

  Ruefully Carson surveyed the scene before the pod. He had lost about half his animals. The survivors, having withdrawn to the shadow of the pod, stood tense, noses pointed to the kosho. A word from him or Major Kastrillo, the only other human in the party, and they would bound into action again totally disregardful of their own lives.

  He had no intention, however, of expending them needlessly. He was about to order them back into the pod with a view to bombing the Earthites from the air when the kosho came striding towards him. The commando animals growled; he could see them focusing their skullguns. Unperturbed, the kosho stopped a few yards away.

  "My principal would request a cessation of hostilities," he said calmly. "We have no interest in each other."

  "You killed my animals," Carson retorted hotly.

  "You attacked us."

  "You attacked first."

  "True," the kosho replied equably. "My principal was perturbed at your behaviour, which he believed presaged an assault upon us. That, too, is my impression."

  "What is all this talk?" Gruwert squealed quietly to Carson. "Scan him to dust—No, wait!"

  A new thought had struck the pig. Cautiously he descended to the ground. "How would you like to have such fighters in your commando, Brigadier?" he murmured. "These fellows could prove mighty useful."

  "But the cooperation of a kosho is almost impossible to acquire," Carson reminded him.

  "Oh really? But he isn't a free agent as it is. You just heard him say he's acting under orders." Gruwert spoke up and addressed the warrior. "Who is this principal of yours? Point him out to me."

  "He is the manlike chimera who first fired on you."

  "Bring him here," Gruwert said, peering in Pout's direction. "We want to talk to him."

  "Under safe conduct?"

  Major Carson nodded.

  Ikematsu walked back to Pout. "Listen carefully," he said. "I have defended your life and my obligation to you is over. But I will perform you one more service, for a price.

  "These are fighters from Diadem, the centre of the Empire. You would like to leave Earth and go to Diadem, would you not? Yes, I know you would. Above our heads is a huge fleet with thousands of men and animals on board. Eventually it will go to Diadem. I will talk to the officers from the fleet. I will persuade them that they should take you with them.

  "All 1 want in return is that gun you have."

  "This gun?" Hopefully Pout tendered the scangun he had taken from Hesper Positana.

  "No, the other gun."

  Pout's ears twitched and his eyes widened pitifully. The kosho had approached the strangers without a word to him, leaving him bewildered and frightened. He gazed down at the dead gun in his other hand, then clutched it to his chest.

  "No!" he mewled. "My beautiful gun! I won't give up my gun!"

  "It does not even work any more."

  "It will work!" Pout spat desperately. "One day it will work!"

  "Had I a mind I could kill you here, for the harm and the hatred in you, and take the gun."

  These words frightened Pout and he dodged aside from Ikematsu to run towards the armoured men and the animals standing by the big metal thing. He was less afraid of them, at this moment, than he was of his onetime protector.

  Balefully the predators glared at him, but he ignored them and fell to his knees before the two humans. "I am a nice animal!" he gasped. "I love the Empire! Save me from those people!"

  A cheery voice came suddenly from inside the pod. "Now, now, what's all this panic?"

  The men moved apart. Pout found himself staring into a fat-jowled pig face with twinkling little eyes. "Things are getting confusing," Gruwert remarked. "Tell me, is it not you who is supposed to be the, er, master of that kosho over there?"

  "Yes, yes, I am," babbled Pout.

  "Now there's an odd thing in itself. He looks pure human to me, and you . . . well, what are you exactly?"

  A hint of pride came into Pout's voice. "I am a chimera of every primate species, sir." He spoke respectfully, realizing he was in the presence of authority. Indeed, something about the pig's manner reminded him of the role of Torth Nascimento in the museum . . .

  Gruwert waddled from the pod once more. He raised his snout and sniffed the air with a loud snuffling sound. "Really? Now that is interesting. They say this is the planet we all came from. The old Earth herself, cradle of our biota. Just the place, one might think, to find something unusual, shall we say? Well, citizen—you are a citizen, aren't you? Of course you are: a citizen of the second class, like myself. Now citizen, we didn't mean you any harm. We spotted your group from up in space and decided to talk to you, that's basically it. It seems we gave you a fright—our commandos are a bit rough, I admit! But you see, there has been much wickedness in this sector and it's our business to deal with it. You wouldn't believe it, but there are criminals in Escoria who are against the Empire and want to plunge us all back into barbarism. We are looking for one who landed in this region a few days ago. It's very bare country hereabouts, so maybe you can help us?" Gruwert's tone hardened. "Where is he?"

  "It isn't a he, it's a girl!" Pout offered eagerly. "She wore a black and silver suit and came down in an egg! Look, she gave me this scangun."

  Gruwert watched while Major Kastrillo took the weapon from Pout's grasp, glanced at it, then tossed it through the door of the drop pod. "Yes, that's the one," he said slowly. The rebels tracked to Mars had worn the same uniform. "Let's have her, then." "Oh, she's not here, she's—"

  Pout stopped. He wondered how much bargaining power his knowledge of the girl's whereabouts gave him—and did he dare try to use it?

  He glanced back. The kosho and his young nephew were walking slowly towards him!

  His skin prickled. "I am glad to be of service to the Empire," he said obsequiously. Then, in a voice of panic: "Take me with you and I'll tell you where she is!"

  "You are coming with us anyway," Gruwert said commandingly. "Now quickly, end this deviousness."

  While Ikematsu and Sinbiane sto
od silently by, Pout said: "There are some moving cities that roam flat ground over that way." He waved an arm. "She's in the nearest of them. It's called Mo."

  "Yes, we saw them. Where in this city?" Pout shrugged. "They're not as large as all that." "I suppose that will do," Gruwert said, satisfied. "AH right, get inside the pod."

  "Are you really taking the chimera?" Brigadier Carson asked in surprise.

  "Yes, I am." Gruwert had dark thoughts about the creature. Though he had spoken to him as though to a child, he suspected there might be considerably more to him than that. Why was the kosho, a proud and highly trained human being—he recalled something about koshos now—apparently his servant? A pan-primate chimera, too ... it was reminiscent of the pan-mammalian chimera the Whole-Earth-Biotists wanted to install as Emperor Protector.

  "We'll take the kosho too," he decided. "Don't they have special mental training? Heightened psychic flexibility?" He pondered. It was, he supposed, exactly the faculty—heightened imagination—which animals were supposed to be incapable of. "That's the sort of quality we might need if we're to investigate that rent in space."

  "Yes, you're absolutely right," muttered Carson. Yet looking at the imperturbable warrior, and his array of weapons, he wondered exactly how he was to be 'taken'.

  Pout was stopped from entering the pod by a dog who came up to him and began sniffing him all over. The beast stood nearly as tall as Pout himself; the chimera cringed but the commando persisted, and eventually its muzzle lunged and came out gripping the zen gun he had put back in his bib.

  "He had another gun," the dog growled between clenched teeth.

  "It doesn't work. It's my lucky charm." Pout watched with pleading eyes as Carson took the gun and turned it over. The man grunted in amusement, then pointed it at the horizon and squeezed the trigger. Nothing happened.

  "It's made of wood," he remarked lightly. "Only an old curio." Pout timorously extended a paw; he casually handed the gun back to him.

  On seeing Pout skulk his way into the pod, tucking the gun in his bib, Ikematsu stepped forward. "If I am to come with you I must keep my weapons," he said to the Brigadier. "A kosho does not discard his armoury."