The armored finger pointed at Lando. The warden and the cop leaned on each other to stay erect.
“I have no authorization! He's mine! Can't this wait?”
“The governor wants him immediately!” There was sudden menace in the big policeman's voice. “Something about a load of cops he tried to maroon on Rafa XI four months ago.”
“Then by all means take him!” That was all the fat man had to say. He swayed and fell. The cop ducked back, came for Lando.
“Let's go!”
Grabbing Lando by the pajamaed scruff, the cop bore him along toward a waiting cruiser that had been left aground beside the cell block. “Get in!”
They roared away through the gate, which hung open on one hinge. It wouldn't have mattered: the force-fence was down, even its auxiliary power system apparently destroyed in the quake. The car rocked and swayed, turned right, and sped down the road.
“Say, old flatfoot, this isn't the way to Teguta Lusat!” Lando shouted. He cringed as they rounded a corner and dashed toward the country.
“What's it to you? Shut up and mind your own business!”
“Would this make it my business?”
The cop looked down to see what was pressing at his side. It was his own blaster. He raised a visored head to the young gambler.
“Very good. I guess you didn't need rescuing that badly, after all. Want to go back and have all the glory to yourself?”
“What are you talking about?” Lando demanded. “Stop this car and take that helmet off. I want to see who I'm talking to!”
The cruiser slowed as per specification. They halted in the middle of the road and waited out an aftershock. Lando leveled the blaster at the policeman's face. “Okay, take it off.”
The gloved hands rose, took the helmet and lifted. In place of a head sticking up through the collar, there was - a snake!
A chromium-plated snake.
“Can I get out of this uniform, Master? It's very uncomfortable.”
“Vuffi Raa! You little - but what's going on here? Why are you rescuing me?”
Shucking the rest of the guardsman's uniform - he'd been walking on two tentacles, using two for arms, and the fifth as an ersatz head - Vuffi Raa assumed a more normal position behind the driver tiller.
“Master, I was programmed to betray you from the beginning, and not to tell you about it. But you're my Master, Lando, and, as soon as that program had run out, so did I. And here I am. We've got to get off this planet, out of the system, and fast.”
“I know.”
“You know? How?”
“The dreams, the chanting I heard last night. It's Old High Trammic - the language of the Toka. I was on Tramffiis III a couple of years ago. I still can't understand the language very well, but my subconscious apparently made something of it. I woke up this morning knowing the truth about the Mindharp, and I know we've got to get out of this place now.”
“Why is that, Master?”
“Don't call me Master. Because, once somebody starts the music up, this system's never going to be the same again.”
“Then we must go now, Master. Duttes Mer is using the Harp. That's what the earthquake's all about.”
XXI
UNLIKE A FICTIONAL villain, Duttes Mer hadn't gloated or divulged his plans to the beaten Lando Calrissian. He'd simply had him disposed of, as quickly and neatly as possible.
Where he'd made his mistake - his first one, anyway - was in his attitude toward menials. Toka servants were virtually invisible to him, drinks and cigars simply appeared near his elbow, and that, he thought, was as it should be. He was the governor, after all. Droids were even more invisible.
So Vuffi Raa had stood in plain sight in the governor's office as he made a transspace call to Rokur Gepta.
“Ahhh, it is you, my esteemed sorcerer. I have some news.”
“What is it, Mer? It had better be good!”
“Are you enjoying your stay in orbit around a dried-up desert planet?”
“My ship is far more comfortable than that heap of bricks you call a city. Get on with it, Governor, you're beginning to anger me!”
The governor reached for the pickup on his communicator, pulled it out on a retracting cable, and pointed it at the top of his desk. “See anything you recognize, Gepta?”
In the screen, the sorcerer's eyes were filled, by turn, with wonder, greed, and rage. “The Mindharp! How did you-”
The governor chuckled. “It only matters that I did, Gepta, and that you're millions of kilometers from here. You see, that story you told Calrissian - that the Harp is the 'Ultimate Instrument of Music' - may have been good enough for him, but the story you told me about its being a master control over all the Toka never washed. Such a thing would be commercially useful, but this,” he indicated the Harp, “is much, much more than that.”
“What do you mean, Mer?”
“I am capable of hiring investigators, too, my dear former partner, and I took the wisest course: hiring yours. Recall that I have the power to commute sentences, order pardons. I know the truth: that the Mindharp of Sharu is an instrument capable of controlling every mind within the system - possibly beyond it. And the instrument is mine!”
“Don't try it, Mer, you don't know what you're doing!” Panic was evident in the sorcerer's voice.
“On the contrary, my dear-”
“NO! You don't understand! The Mindharp will-”
The governor smiled benignly. “It will give me absolute power, even over you. I suggest that, if you don't want to feel that power, you turn your ship out of orbit and leave my system. That may buy you a few years, at least.”
“Mer - I'll warn you once more: you don't have the knowledge to safely-”
Click.
When the opportunity arose - which wasn't until the middle of the night - Vuffi Raa crept from the governor's offices, stole a uniform from the guard laundries, jump-wired a police cruiser in the maintenance yard, and went off to rescue Lando.
“Well, I appreciate it, Vuffi Raa, old criminal, but I trust you'll understand the residue of skepticism that remains within me.”
They were whisking back into town at a moderate, legal, and inconspicuous velocity. They had felt several more tremors, but nothing like that first quake.
“I understand,” Vuffi Raa acknowledged, “and I suppose telling you I was programmed to betray you is much the same as a human being's saying he couldn't help himself. Well, I came to rescue you by way of restitution.”
Lando thought about that. “Very well, and just to show you my good faith, you might as well know that Rokur Gepta and Duttes Mer are both wrong about the Mindharp.”
Vuffi Raa brought the car to a screeching halt as they neared the outskirts of Teguta Lusat. “What?”
“That's correct. And we've got to get out to the port, steal something that will get us out of the system, but fast.”
“Master, I agree about getting out. You don't want your mind controlled, especially by a being like the governor! Believe me, I know. But if they're wrong-”
“It will be worse, Vuffi Raa. My only regret is leaving the Falcon on Rafa V.”
“Master, four months have passed. Mer had the Falcon brought back. It's cargo of lifecrystals hasn't even been unloaded, because until we reappeared in Teguta Lusat, Gupta and Mer didn't know if they might have to bargain more with you.”
“What? Why didn't you tell me?” He didn't think to have her drives repaired, did he?
After a long pause, the droid replied, “No, Master, I did that, the first thing on the way to Rafa V.”
Lando didn't say anything. If he'd realized the extent of the droid's housekeeping back then, they might have taken off and skipped the last four months inside the Sharu ruins. “Well,” he said irritably, “let's get out to the port!”
“Yes, Master.”
Aboard the decommissioned cruiser Wennis, leaving orbit from Rafa V, a decision had been made. Rokur Gepta lay in a special acceleration couch, being strapped up for t
he voyage ahead of him. The vessel in the lifeboat bay was not a lifeboat, but an elderly Imperial fighter, refitted as a scout. It could make the trip to Rafa IV in a third the time of its parent vessel. If the occupant could stand the G-forces involved.
The safety precautions were primarily for the benefit of the crew, Gepta reflected. He didn't need them, but it was dangerous for them to know that. As the last strap and bit of tape was in place and the port clamped down, he relaxed, waited for the tick, and didn't stir a hair when that which might have seriously injured a mere human being passed harmlessly through his body.
He'd be in Teguta Lusat within an hour.
Duttes Mer looked down at the Mindharp on his desk, afraid to try again, but desperate to master the weird thing be ore Gepta could return and take it from him. He had no illusions. If he couldn't control that mind, along with millions of others, he was doomed. He placed his short, square hand on the central shaft of the Harp again, suppressed a wave of fear, and tried to concentrate.
“Master!”
Vuffi Raa clung to the steering tiller as the road tried to shake them off its back like a wet dog. Lando grabbed the ends of a seat belt, tried to fasten them together as the police car pitched and swayed.
“This is no good!” he shouted, finally giving up the effort.
“Look, let's make a run for it!”
The spaceport gates were only a few hundred meters away, and they were traveling twice that distance weaving back and forth across the road. Lando slammed the door open, rolled out, got to his feet, and ran toward the gate. Vuffi Raa, right behind him, took no time at all to catch up.
A guard, well away from his swaying guardpost was standing in the gateway. He aimed a blaster at Lando.
“Halt! Looters will be shot!”
“I'm not a looter,” Lando hollered as he approached the guard.
Both were pretty busily occupied just staying on their feet. “I'm the captain of that ship over there, the Millennium Falcon, and I've got to get her off before she breaks up with everything else on this planet!”
The blaster came up to Lando's eye level. “That ship's under the governor's seal. You can't-”
Lando stepped closer. The guard fired, but, swaying as he was, succeeded only in burning a strip across the road. By that time, Lando was close enough to seize the weapon, push it upward, punch the other man in the solar plexus with his fist. Flexible armor is for bullets and energy beams. It's no protection at all against an unarmed man. The guard folded. Lando took his gun away, added it to the weapon he'd taken at the labor camp.
“Let's go!”
They ran toward the Falcon, and, as they approached it, the boarding ramp swung downward slowly, as if in welcome. Cautiously, Lando and Vuffi Raa walked up the inclined plane. At the top, still aged and wrinkled, but sporting a stylish haircut and expensive business suit, stood Mohs, High Singer of the Toka. Where his ruined eyes had been now glittered a pair of faceted multicolored optics like those of a giant psychedelic spider.
Duttes Mer glared resentfully at the alien object on his desk.
Twice, now, following the mental procedure conveyed to him by Gepta's captive sociologists, he had tried to gain control of the Mindharp, and thus- He slammed his hand down on the desk, making the object jump. He didn't want to try again; all it seemed to do was cause quakes that threatened to tear his administration building apart. Why that should be, he didn't know, but he knew one thing: Rokur Gepta was coming.
The spaceport radar people had confirmed it, just before the communications lines had gone dead. A small, extremely fast craft was no more than twenty minutes from landfall. Mer suspected that Gepta didn't need the port facilities; there was a wide flat space atop the administration building. It would do nicely for a landing. He hit the annunciator button. “Give me the Captain of the Guard!”
At first there was no answer. Then a terrified secretary told him, “Sir, the guard contingent has left the building because of the tremors. I was about to go, myself. I-”
“If you leave, I'll have you shot. Summon those four men who went to Rafa XI. They're under house arrest here in the building. Tell them to get up on the roof and - never mind, I'll tell them myself!”
Once more, he looked upon the Mindharp. It had better work this time.
Rokur Gepta was coming.
“You will pardon my dramatic appearance, Captain Calrissian,” Mohs said as he ushered them around the curving corridor toward the Falcon's cockpit, “but things are beginning to happen, and I am too busy to be anything but dramatic.”
“I know,” Lando said, throwing himself into the left-hand seat. He flipped a couple of switches and helped Vuffi Raa through the preflight checklist. It was a long list, much too long for comfort. “I know everything - but I'm in something of a hurry myself right now.”
Mohs looked puzzled, then relaxed and grinned. “Ah, yes. You put the pieces together. All my life I was the instrument of my ancestors, given orders - the Voices of the Gods - whisked thither and yon at Their bidding. It was terrifying to the savage that I was, for example, to brush near an ancient wall, as I did that night in Teguta Lusat, and appear an instant later, leagues away, amidst a gathering of my people. I apologize also for vanishing from the tunnel; its purpose was elementary education, you see, and I matriculated and went on to higher things.” He absently ran a fingertip over his bizarre eyes.
“The decision was made for me, and I-”
“Had no choice about it?” Lando asked. He looked at Vuffi Raa. “There's a lot of that going around. What in heaven's name is that red light on the life-support panel! Here, let's override-”
“You are in no danger,” Mohs smiled. “The two of you helped me, and now I shall help you. We mean you no harm.”
“Swell. Can you fend off the governor and his friend the sorcerer?”
“I can tell you that the governor is alone, trying to use the Mindharp, while Gepta is on his way from Rafa V. He ought to be down any minutes but he won't be coming to the spaceport. Lando turned to look at the old man, no longer bent and wizened. He was still old, but it lent him dignity and authority now.
The tattoo of the Key - the Mindharp, Lando realized - was darker now, stood out more sharply on the old man's forehead. It practically glowed.
“Are there any more like you?” Lando asked.
“No, Captain, I am the only one. I am all there ever was, of my generation. The burden was to be passed on next year, but here I am.”
“Master, what are you talking about?”
“Quiet, Vuffi Raa. Watch the temperature in that reactor!”
“I assure you, Captain, everything is under control. You'd realize that, if you truly know our secrets.”
“I know your secrets, Mohs, believe me. There never were any pre-Republican colonists here, right?”
“That is correct, Captain.”
“But what are you saying, Master? If-”
“Nor were there really any Toka. Or would that be telling?”
“Master-”
“Quiet! You people are the Sharu. It's written all over your walls inside the pyramid. You're humanoid and very, very advanced. I don't know what scared you into this masquerade, and I'm willing to bet you don't either!”
“Master, will you please explain-”
“All right, all right. Mohs will correct me over the rough spots. I hardly understand contemporary Trammic, let alone an ancient - and thoroughly synthetic - version. But this is the gist: something pretty scary threatened the Sharu. Something that liked to eat hyperadvanced cultures but that wouldn't bother with savages.
“So, a vast computer system was created. That’s all the so-called ruins in the system. The Sharu, before the threat, lived in cities not terribly different from our own, and they're probably concealed beneath the monumental architecture too - along with the intelligence of the Sharu. Hand me that checklist a moment.”
“Very good, Captain, very good.”
“You bet it's go
od. The life-orchards weren't created to increase intelligence or longevity. They were created to suck it away from the population. I'll bet three-quarters of everybody's mind on the planet is stored inside that pyramid and other buildings like it. That's so succeeding generations would be disguised as savages, too. But, when the crystals were separated from the trees by the colonists, the things absorbed small amounts of intelligence and life-force from the ambient environment, then fed them back to whoever wore the crystal - an accidental and unlooked-for effect.”
The old man nodded. “The colonists' harvesting did no harm. What was of real value was stored in the buildings.”
“The buildings,” Lando continued, “may be the biggest computer system ever created. When this colony was founded, the computer searched our records, came up with a missing pre-Republican colony ship, and decided to use that as a cover story. The Sharu - reduced to mere Tokahood - were poor savage brutes, 'broken' by their experience with the mighty Sharu.
“I just couldn't swallow it. What were the Sharu afraid of? How could they be so mighty, and yet-”
“I still don't know the answer to that, Captain. It was expunged from the records, out of sheer terror, I think. It worries me.”
“It ought to. Ready, Vuffi Raa?”
“I think so, Master. Yes, we're ready.”
Another tremor rocked the ship.
“Mer's trying to use the Harp again. Boy, will he be disappointed. It's a trap, isn't it, Mohs?”
“I'm afraid so,” the old man admitted gravely. “The legends were spread among my people in order to entice members of another intelligence species into finding and using the Harp. That way, we'd know that it was safe to come out of hiding.”
“Your giant computer system will regurgitate all those smarts it's been storing for thousands of years, the covers will be stripped off your cities - there's going to be a good deal of earth-moving around here, isn't there?”
“All over the system.”
“And when the dust clears, the Sharu will be back in control. Well, considering the governor and the nature of the colony here, it can't happen too soon for me. We're leaving. Better jump off, Mohs. I'd say it's been nice to know you, but I hate being used, by governors, sorcerers, or representatives of semi-lost civilizations.”
Star Wars - The Adventures of Lando Calrissian Trilogy Page 16