The Final Nightmare

by Jack McKinney

  As they watched, more of the buds burst open, spewing forth the

  golden smoke. But sporangial structures in the Flowers also cast forth seeds like miniature parasols, which drifted toward the ceiling, defying gravity and air currents. It was like a gentle rain of glowing dandelion seeds in reverse.

  Bowie tried to remember his botany classes and make some sense of it. The Flowers looked like some kind of angiosperm, producing the golden pollen, and yet they cast forth spores, like gametophytes. He couldn't guess what their alien life cycle might be like, or how it fit in with this Protoculture business.

  She pointed to the tiny, drifting parasols, which looked like seeds to Bowie, but which she insisted on calling spores. "The Invid will sense this, no matter where they are. They're probably on their way here even now."

  "The Invid? Who're they?"

  "The enemies of your people and mine!" That was true enough, though it didn't tell the truth, but it was all that she had been taught.

  There was a rustling and a series of shallow little sounds, as if something alive was moving around somewhere in the mass of Flowers. Bowie strained to see what it was, or hear it again, but could detect nothing.

  Musica went down closer to the vast growing place, sandal heels slapping. He followed, calling for her to be careful.

  He had never been sure of exactly which part of the SDF-1 this open space corresponded to-hangar deck, or Macross City compartment?-but he was beginning to suspect he knew.

  The plants were growing so thickly that their stems were compressed into a mass that seemed to move and twist of its own volition. He looked up and saw that, while the quickened spores drifted up seeking release through a chimneylike opening at the top of the mound, something seemed to be confining them to the cavern. Perhaps there was still hope.

  He looked again to the shining, chiming energy rings, listening to their song. There was something, something he seemed to remember...

  He tried to get his bearings again, having been told since the time he was a kid just how the SDF-1s last battle had been fought, how it had

  crashed, and in what mechamorphosis configuration. And then it hit him. "I, I know where we are, Musica. This is the power section, where the

  sealed Robotech engines were, the engines that not even Doctor Lang dared to open."

  He gripped her excitedly, pointed to the shining orbits. "This is the Protoculture Matrix! The one that the Zentraedi came and attacked Earth to get in the first place!"

  The one that Lang and Exedore and Gloval and the others thought had disappeared along with the spacefold equipment, after the catastrophic jump to Pluto's orbit; the last Protoculture Matrix created by Zor. The only one in existence.

  He knew the history of that war better than almost anyone, because he had seen copies of excerpts from his aunt's diary that were still circulated in the family, even though the originals were classified. He knew that once, a truce had been declared between SDF-1 inhabitants and Zentraedi, the ship had been scoured for any sign of the Matrix, and none was found.

  But he had already learned from Musica that the Protoculture had its own Shapings, its own destinies to weave. Surely, hiding in the enormous sealed engines and turning aside sensor emissions or fooling passive sensor equipment would be a small marvel compared to the other things it had done. And there, hanging above Bowie, singing to itself, was the collection of interlocked rings that was the manifestation, on this plane of existence, of the Protoculture Matrix.

  And though he didn't realize it, he and Musica were being watched. The triumvirate of wraiths that guarded the mounds was attentive to what was transpiring, though the trooper and the Muse had no idea they were there. The hour of the wraiths' long-awaited liberation was close at hand.

  Bowie gripped Musica's shoulders. "This is the Protoculture Matrix! We've found what they've been looking for, what they've been fighting over for twenty years!"

  She moved to put her arms around him, to lay her head against his shoulder. "Yes, but we found it too late."

  "It can't be! We've got to think of something!"

  "Oh, Bowie...if you had any idea what the Invid are like, how horrid they are-"

  Pebbles knocked loose from a ledge higher up in the cavern. Bowie looked up to find that the 15th had followed him and, after getting lost, somehow ended up there. "Dana, I'm warning you. We're not going back."

  "We're not here to bring you back, numb-nub!" she grinned.

  When his squadmates made their way down to him and he explained what he had found out, Bowie had the dubious fun of watching them all fish-mouth in shock. He was more than passingly interested in Dana's response, though; this wasn't just some new kink in the war, to her-it was a part of her heritage, a part of herself.

  She breathed the golden clouds, looking out on the coral triads of the Flowers of Life. She felt a strangeness-not a dizziness or faintness, but something closer to the opposite: as if she were being galvanized on some subcellular level.

  Nova stole forward through the gloom, on the path the ATACs had taken. She had her sidearm out and was alert to every sound; something behind her made her turn.

  Zor pushed the pistol barrel aside gently but firmly, as if he were dealing with a child and a child's toy. His eyes glowed in the darkness. "You won't be needing that. Come."

  He set off for the light of the cavern. "You, you followed me?" she said. "Yes. Now it is you who must follow me."

  Musica and the 15th heard a groan and looked up to see Zor, muscles tensed in agony, hands clenched in the long lavender hair, gazing madly at the drifting spores. Next to him stood Nova Satori.

  Nova managed to pull herself together a bit. "I'm here to take Musica back to headquarters," she managed shakily, then cast another frightened look at Zor.

  "No, you're not," Dana answered.

  Nova plunged down the steps that connected her level with the one below. But when she was halfway there, Zor, remaining where he was, let out a tormented howl.

  "This plant is responsible for my becoming the monster I am!" He gasped for breath, staggered for balance there at the brink of the ledge.

  He was only dimly aware of them all staring up at him. The scent of the spores and the presence of the Matrix forced his memories to merge and open themselves to him with the same compulsion that made the Flower of Life blossom. He stared out into the resplendent rings of the Matrix, his creation.

  "I stole the secret of Protoculture from the Invid, and betrayed them. I was betrayed in turn, and my contemporaries became the Robotech Masters." He went down on all fours at the very lip of the drop.

  "But I broke free of their will at last! I thwarted them! And they've brought me back as a clone, again and again, hoping I would gibe them my great secret. But they won't have it!"

  "I don't know about that," Bowie yelled back in the echoing chamber, "but this is all something the Invid want"-sweeping his hand at the Flowers of Life-"and they're on their way!"

  That seemed to jolt Zor back to a measure of reality. Nova continued her descent of the steps. She couldn't understand how she had ever felt drawn to Zor, felt such attraction to him; some alien trick perhaps? The thought made her all the angrier.

  "We can sort all of that out later. Musica is still my prisoner, and I'm taking her back with me." Nova came to the bottom step.

  Dana stepped to block her way. "Sorry, Nova. No."

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  And the mountains in reply Echoing their joyous strain

  Prewar Earth hymn

  The Robotech Masters had deployed their assault ships and command ships and lesser warcraft. Blue and red Bioroids were set to fight, mindlessly, in a Götterdämerung.

  Emerson's fleet was coming at flank speed, to hurl itself on the invaders' rear. In an order that had his staff gulping, Emerson directed that his Tristar flagship lead the attack. The equipment that had let him work his singularity ploy was fused and useless; this battle would be toe-to-toe.

  As Emerso
n's battle-weary elements threw themselves into a last, almost spasmodic attack, the Masters' advance faltered. Virtually everything in the Southern Cross capable of getting off the ground rose from Fokker and a dozen other bases, braced for the Twilight of the Robotech Gods.

  Marie Crystal and Dennis Brown led their A-JACs forth, and the Triumviroids thronged to meet them. The Earth mecha did their best to use the tactics that were successful against the invaders for the 15th. Dreadnoughts lit the eternal night with cannon salvoes. Missiles left their ribbontrails.

  Nova ignored Zor's attempted intercession. "I'll expect you all to remember your oaths of service," she said, sweeping her eyes across the 15th. She gave Bowie Grant a particularly fixing stare; he was the key to it all. If she could get him to see past his deluded attraction to the clone woman, the whole affair would be resolved peacefully. If not...

  "I'm not part of the military anymore," Bowie said stubbornly, squeezing Musica's hand.

  "General Emerson is," Nova invoked the name. "And he's fighting with

  everything he's got to save this planet."

  "I don't care!" Bowie burst out. "Musica's my friend-not my prisoner or my enemy, and not yours either, do you hear me? Why can't you leave us alone?"

  Nova saw that all the ATACs quietly agreed-even the normally duty-bound Dante.

  "Is love so difficult for you to understand, Nova?" Dana asked angrily. "Why d'you always have to be so coldblooded?"

  The question rocked Nova a little, almost as if Dana had struck her. She had felt like an outsider all her life, the more so when she had joined GMP. The bewildering attraction she had felt for Zor, and then the sudden absence of it; the slow warming to Dennis Brown; the pity she held for Captain Komodo, because she knew how it felt to be rebuffed-those were things she didn't dare inspect too closely.

  She drew her sidearm, holding it close to her hip and leveling it at them.

  "It's my duty, that's why," she told Dana. "And for me, Earth comes first. And the Human race. I'm taking Musica back, whether some of you get hurt or not."

  It was all too melodramatic, Dana thought, even as she got set to play out her role. Bowie had stepped into the line of fire, shielding Musica, and Musica was already making timid but determined insistence that he move aside, to avoid bloodshed.

  The rest of the 15th reacted to the appearance of the pistol with predators' reflexes, shifting weight, edging this way and that slightly, barely seeming to move their feet. They turned their bodies side-on to Nova to minimize their target silhouettes, bracing to take her.

  "What happened to all that talk back at GMP headquarters, Nova?" Bowie challenged, holding Musica back. "Honor. Freedom. Defending Human ideals and our way of life. You said you could be a friend to anyone who valued those things."

  "Well, this is my life." He put his arm around Musica's waist. "D'you

  really have it in you to be a friend?"

  "I-" Nova had forgotten those talks, an attempt to win over a friend in the enemy camp of the 15th. It had started out as a turning operation, at Colonel Fredericks's direction. But it ended up with her actually feeling something for the maverick trooper private, if only an unspoken sympathy for his confusion, his alienation. And then he was also Claudia Grant's nephew.

  Nova had the flash of memory again, not clear but strong.

  It was Christmas in rebuilt Macross City, the Christmas that would see Khyron's sneak attack. Little Nova Satori was out with her older sister and her sister's friends, caroling, as the snow drifted down. They happened upon a tall, regal black lady, beautiful as a Snow Queen, who looked very sad.

  But when she spoke to them, Nova's sister recognized the lady's voice, as all the older girls did. Back on the SDF-1, hers had been the PA voice that so often restored hope in the midst of war; told the people where to go and what to do; gave the world calm; transmitted courage.

  She was Commander Claudia Grant. The chorus of little girls gathered close in a ring around her and sang, the best they ever sang. There was no question about what carol it would be.

  "An-gels we have heard on high! Sweetly singing o'er the plain!"

  They all wanted to be Commander Grant; Commander Grant wanted them to be more. She'd hugged them all to her and wept.

  "-I'm a friend...." Nova managed, not sure what she was saying. Her training and the pistol gave her command of the situation. She knew what moves to make and procedures to follow, even what tone of voice she ought to be using at this point to ensure that Phillips and the others didn't try any of their absurd heroics.

  She had singlehandedly managed situations against even greater odds, against truly ruthless and evil people, and that last part was the glaring

  incongruity. She was disarmed of her greatest weapon: the conviction that she was totally in the right. And all her other resources, powerful though they were, began to fail her.

  When Zor's big hand closed over the weapon and took it from her, Nova barely registered it through the sudden numbness she felt. "You won't need this," he said in an almost conversational tone. She could have had the pistol back at once, by using an infighting trick; she didn't.

  Nova shook herself loose of the paralysis, the realization that she couldn't fire at these people, that her oath conflicted with the ideals it was supposed to uphold.

  She looked to Zor. "But-isn't she one of the clones? Zor, they did such terrible things to you-"

  Zor was shaking his head, the lavender curls swaying. "She is a Muse, the very soul of harmony. She is vital to the Robotech Masters, however. Look!"

  Nova and the others followed Zor's pointing finger. They were watching the great mass of the Flowers of Life, hearing the tonalities from the Matrix that were so like the Muse's songs. "From the Protoculture all life flows. Once the clones have been quickened, it is the playing of Musica and her sisters that keeps them docile and obedient. That tells them, in effect, who they are."

  "And now, she's learning to play the songs of Humankind," Louie Nichols said quietly, the words forming a core of argument there at the very center of Nova's decision. There was too much happening for her to consider the fact that it was an amazingly profound thing for such a mechie-as she had always thought of him and his ilk-to put forth.

  And if Fredericks and Leonard and the UEG got their hands on Musica? They would pull her every which way like a wishbone-cruelty was one of their first resorts. Musica embodied the hope of peace, but Nova dreaded to think what her songs would sound like once she had been put into the United Earth Government's mill.

  "We have to move quickly," Nova said. "I commo'ed for a flying squad

  of GMP officers; it'll be here any time now."

  "We've gotta get out of here!" Dana snapped. Emerson was in battle, and there were few others she could trust. But the world was wide, much of it unpopulated, and a Hovertank squad mounted plenty of firepower. They would have to lay low, try to get to someone sane. Perhaps they would have to contact the Robotech Masters as well, and force some kind of ceasefire. Then a truce; then peace.

  She threw aside her oath in that moment; the other party-the UEG and, by extension, the Army of the Southern Cross-hadn't kept its end of the bargain. She sensed that her ATACs stood with her, as did Nova and Musica.

  Peace renegades! It sounds so weird, she thought.

  "Your officers won't make any moves without instructions from you," Zor, who knew from experience, reminded Nova. "We must move calculatedly, but very quickly now."

  He showed no emotion as Dana clapped her hands and began organizing the escape, somehow drawing Nova into her little band as if the GMP lieutenant had always been an ally. That instinctive talent for commanding loyalty and cooperation must be something Dana had inherited from both her warrior-woman Zentraedi mother and her ace-of-aces Human father, Zor reflected in passing.

  Suddenly there was that sound again, the one Bowie had heard before, as if something was moving among the mass of Flowers. They all heard it, as they heard a sudden, high, playfu
l sound, like a cross between a small dog's yip and the tones that came from the Matrix.

  "Polly!"

  Dana was on one knee, beckoning to him, and Bowie groaned. "I should've known." Nova and the others stood trying to fathom their latest marvel.

  The little creature looked a low-slung white dog or mophead, some kind of crypto-Lhasa apso with a sheepdog forelock, until one noticed the knob-ended horns and feet something like untoasted muffins. He showed a

  miniature red swatch of tongue and yipped again, running to her. "You know this thing?" Angelo demanded, scratching his head.

  Bowie answered for Dana. "All her life. Her godfathers introduced her to him. Only I never believed in Polly till now, never saw him. I, uh, always thought he was imaginary."

  Dana was nuzzling and laughing, hugging the little beast. A Pollinator, her three unlikely, self-appointed godfathers, the former Zentraedi spies Konda, Bron, and Rico had called him. Three-year-old Dana had given him his shortened name right then and there.

  She had quickly learned that Polly was a magical beast who came and went as he willed; no walls or locks could hold him. He showed up very rarely and went his way when he wished, simply vanishing while she was looking the other way. In her whole life, she had seen him perhaps seven or eight times. He never changed, or seemed to grow older.

  "A Pollinator, yes," Zor said, looking down. "And now you know what he pollinates." She's been tied to all this since she was a child-perhaps before her birth. Dana, Dana: who are you?

  Dana couldn't picture Polly buzzing around like a bee there in the Flower mass, but obviously something had been at work. She let the little creature lick her cheek again, then stood up with him in her arms, petting him.