Odyssey

by Stan Lee

  At last the call had come from Robert, giving Thomas the code words for immediate retreat. With the thought of imminent sky-fire over his head, Thomas had negotiated the use of three big tractor-trailers, now en route. That left only a few loose ends to dispense with.

  Thomas found Dr. Cedric Thonneger in the boathouse/infirmary, where the turncoat Gideon still lay comatose. Lying beside him was the brain-blasted Andrew. Thomas sneered as the white-coated Lesser labored to get another sperm sample from Andrew, but, per Robert’s orders, he didn’t interfere.

  Waiting for the Lesser to finish his antics, Thomas mentally called to one of his companions, Frederick. He’d been chosen specially for his well-exercised abilities in binding.

  When Thonneger finished putting the samples away, he froze, his mind seized. Stumbling slightly, he went to the charting area, picked up a blank sheet of paper, and began to write. Robert had dictated the suicide note. It mentioned actual past misdeeds the doctor had committed, ending with the phrase “I can’t go on.”

  Frederick then lifted his control. Thonneger read the note before him and went pale. Thomas did it quickly—there was no fun to be derived from breaking this one’s neck. Frederick had already prepared a noose. He took the body and carried it through the darkness to a tree outside the manor, leaving the note tucked in a pocket of the doctor’s lab coat.

  Squatting on his haunches, Thomas lightly slapped Andrew on the face. The recumbent giant stared up at him with eerily unfocused eyes.

  Using his limited mental powers, Thomas broadcast to Andrew: You know who I am. I am one who gives you orders.

  Andrew’s malleable face tightened slightly as he nodded. Here then are your orders. Go to the large city. He sent the image of Andrew traveling on one of the trucks. Find these people. One by one, Thomas flashed the images of the five Lessers who could possibly upset Robert’s plan—Harry Sturdley, John Cameron, Peg Faber, Emsisdin, and Matavi, along with suggestions of where they could be found.

  His eyes bored into Andrew’s vacant blue orbs. Find each of them, he ordered, and kill them.

  A shaky sigh came from Andrew’s slack lips. “Yessssss,” he said. “Killllll.”

  Shuddering slightly, Thomas led Andrew to the front gate, where the trucks were expected. He shouldn’t mind leaving Andrew behind, any more than abandoning Gideon to his fate. The would-be rebel was now a walking dead man, to be destroyed by the fires that would consume the Lessers.

  Although, Thomas had to admit, he’d have enjoyed a personal opportunity to settle scores with some of those on the death list.

  Peg Faber wished she could wear her armor to operate the ancient manual typewriter she was using. The blasted thing’s alleged touch control apparently ran from “very stiff to ”use a hammer.“ The armor might have made the job clumsier, but the exoskeletal muscle would make a welcome backup for her aching hands.

  “Finished,” she muttered, flexing her fingers. The phone rang, and Peg had yet another wish for armor between herself and a potential bomb. Picking up the handset, she held it well away from her ear, saying, “Harry Sturdley’s office” in a loud voice.

  “Peg Faber?” An equally loud voice, attenuated by distance from the phone and a lousy connection, whispered from the phone.

  “Yes,” Peg shouted.

  “This is Quentin Farley. I’m calling from West Virginia.”

  She nearly dropped the phone. “Can you tell me something about—” Peg abruptly realized she was shouting very personal business at a phone. “What can you tell me?” she amended.

  “It took a long enough time, with computers out and all this—” Farley’s voice disappeared in a rush of static-—“civil disturbance. But I’ve personally gone out and checked, not only here, but in the sixteen nearest states. The, ah, gentleman in the picture you gave me is not listed as a missing person by any state authority. Wherever he disappeared from, it’s nowhere near here.”

  “I love it when a good plan comes together,” Senator Benjamin Fussock said aloud, but mainly to himself as he surveyed the Senate Chamber. The Vice president was in place, his noted confreres were taking their seats, and in a moment, he would enjoy the culmination of weeks’ worth of cajolery, log-rolling, and plain old-fashioned blackmail.

  His bill was never in doubt, because he knew he didn’t need to recruit the votes with the special interests that would line up behind him. Big oil. Detroit. Wall Street. Aerospace. The banks. Any manufacturer who could afford a lobbyist inside the Beltway. Anyone who built, sold, or used anything electronic was getting killed by Mother Nature’s novel interpretations of her supposedly immutable laws.

  Fussock had chaired the panel that had listened to the big-domes explain what was going on. Few of the scientists had agreed, and none had a viable fix.

  The best line of action for the near future was to adopt a more old-fashioned mode of existence. It made for a good political philosophy. Al Demagogua had been ecstatic at the idea of trumpeting the sturdy values of Early America. Of course, there were a few problems. America had a lot more inhabitants than it had in the early days. Amenities would have to be rationed.

  The American Craft and Antique Regulation Act would set up the necessary system. For the public good, low-tech items created by modern craftsmen or saved from bygone days would be placed under national control for fair sharing. That sharing-out would be run by responsible figures from the corporate world. Figures who would owe Benjamin Fussock big-time.

  Resistance from the craftspeople and antique-mongers had been negligible. They had no lobbyists worthy of the name. A couple of shrewdies sucking on other big-business teats had tried to horn in with bills of their own, but they had been either subsumed or beaten down. That left the few windbags who wanted to talk about public good.

  I tell the public what’s good for them. And with the way things are going in the city right now, we’ll have to tell them with bayonets. He considered the army outposts ringing Capitol Hill. They couldn’t trust their tanks to drive around, but thank goodness gunpowder seemed fairly low down on the electromagnetic scale.

  Ah—they were calling the bill now. Fussock glanced around the room, keeping his face bland and confident. They had a majority and more. His contacts in the House were already crafting a similar bill. And if that idiot in the White House tried to horn in—well, Fussock thought, we can afford to give him a few low-tech goodies.

  Time to vote. He stabbed the “aye” button on his desk with a brisk finger—and, quite literally, got the shock of his life.

  Benjamin Fussock and more than half the Senate were simultaneously joined in a high-voltage electrical circuit. Most of the Distinguished Members were flung back a moment later, gasping and pale, when the nine-dimensional reality bubble which had fostered that particular electromagnetic anomaly dissolved.

  But for nine of the older Senators, the more debauched, the ones like Fussock who were severely out of shape, the Crafts bill was the last they ever voted on.

  * * *

  CHAPTER 36

  Robert paced the lawns of the suburban Virginia estate he used as a base of operations for his Washington visits. He was not an indecisive person by nature—he couldn’t be and rise as high as he had in Masterly society.

  How far did Thomas and his people have to be from New York to be safe from a nuclear strike? What of his people, scattered across this domain, making their way to the Idaho haven? Barely a double handful were actually safe in the stronghold.

  And if he waited too long, the Lessers’ technology might become useless. He had to activate the warmaking machinery while it would still work.

  Robert pulled out his portable phone and began dialing those leaders he’d psychically bound. He’d just have to hope that his people would reach some sanctuary before the fire fell.

  For that matter, he’d have to get out of this city before its doom arrived.

  Harry Sturdley sat in his office at the Fantasy Factory, his window the only one lit in the whole buildi
ng. And that, he had to admit, was because Myra had provided him with candles and a hurricane lamp. The lamp came from the fireplace mantel at home, a handsome antique they’d bought many years ago.

  The dim glow of the candles provided the only bright spot in Harry’s life, both literally and figuratively. The court case against Dynasty Comics had ground to a halt due to technical difficulties and legal sand in the gears. As for the business end of things, he scowled as he tried to read the reports in front of him. Some pages were laser-printed, right out of the computers. Some were typed, developed from paper files. Most of the recent ones were handwritten and represented educated guesses.

  A new blow had landed this afternoon. The printing plant they depended on to produce Fantasy Factory books for the eastern half of the country had gone up. Bad enough that the printer had begun pushing his press time back to produce broadsides for press-starved newspapers, but now there were no presses at all—the damned things had blown up in the middle of the run on the first Stalwart issue.

  “If we can survive this,” Sturdley muttered, “it will turn out to be a valuable collector’s edition.”

  The news of the plant’s explosive demise had arrived on half a fax—the phone lines had gone out somewhere—and verifying the story had taken most of his day. All he had in the way of consolation was the report that Marty Burke’s first issue of Deviants had been printed, but there was no way to ship it.

  Sturdley’s real reason for staying late was that he was trying to come to a decision. Should he keep dragging the staff into the ever-scarier place that was New York? Should he close down the offices and let the people on the West Coast try to run things regionally? They were located in a suburban office park, after all. And they still had a printer. They didn’t seem to be getting much shipped, but that was endemic. Nobody was shipping broccoli, either.

  Could he furlough the staff on half salary? The bank’s computers were down, and he didn’t even know the extent of the company’s liquid assets.

  If Burke were still around, I’d hand him these headaches with my compliments, Harry thought.

  No, he wouldn’t. Lord knows what sort of a mess Burke would make. No, he had to keep plugging, keep trying. Screw the idea of shutting down. They’d find a new printer somewhere, maybe Bob Gunnar could scare up some trucks...

  That just left finding paper to print on—and figuring out how to sell comics in an economy where a quart of not-too-fresh milk could go for six bucks on the gray market.

  Sturdley’s stomach rumbled, and he realized he’d had nothing to eat since breakfast. Had Myra gotten any food in? He’d mentioned to Peg the idea of suiting up and flying out to the boondocks to buy direct from farmers. Throughout all the unpredictability in the machinery of life, the steady improvement in their Argonian technology had been a welcome plus.

  Sturdley turned to the closet behind him, digging a large, complicated key out of his pocket. The electric keypad he’d installed had burned out a week ago.

  He unlocked the door, sliding it open to see if Peg’s armor was there. An instant later, it was as if he were trapped in the recurring nightmare that had been killing sleep since he came back to Earth.

  The office windows exploded inward, and arms longer than his body came groping in, trying to seize him. Sturdley cowered back for a second, and a huge hand plucked at his coat to drag him outside.

  His coat! Harry’s hand darted to the inside pocket and came out with the pen-sized blast projector he’d brought home from Argon.

  He kept the beam short and tight, slashing at the fingers that pulled at him. They blistered as Sturdley’s beam penetrated the psychokinetic force-fields.

  Those hands fumbled back, as if in animal reaction to the heat. When they returned, they were balled into fists, seeking something to punch.

  Sturdley slashed and burned again, but as he drove off one fist, the other would launch a blow. He retreated to the office door, getting out of reach. His giant assailant broke out the rest of the glass in the windows, trying to lean in and get at him.

  It was an awkward fit, one arm stretched to the shoulder, the head hunched down, trying to squash in and extend at the same time.

  Harry now recognized his attacker. It was Andrew, a giant he’d once thought of as having the looks and personality to get his own book someday. Both were gone now. Andrew’s face was pale, slack, and ditty. His eyes were like a vacuum, glaring at Sturdley with no apparent thought but to crush him. Luckily, Andrew wasn’t going about the job very intelligently. He stayed jammed in the window, fumbling and groping, as if he had no other idea of how to get at Harry.

  Andrew could have pinned Sturdley with the desk, or hurled half a dozen pieces of furniture. But he kept up that stupid pawing. It would almost be funny, Harry thought... if it weren’t so horrible. The sour smell of unwashed giant flesh struck him along with gusts of foul-smelling breath.

  Stupid or not, Andrew was blocking the path to Sturdley’s only safe egress from the building—the suit of Argon-ian armor. Harry couldn’t see any way out other than flying.

  Harry withdrew further, into the hallway. An appalling, strangled growl came from Andrew, combined with an awful noise that Sturdley finally identified as the grinding of giant teeth.

  The windowframe broke, and masonry began to crumble as Andrew forced himself further in. Sturdley waited until the giant was wedged in tight, his extended arm almost reaching the office door. Then Harry barreled in, using the blaster like a sword to scorch the questing fingers out of the way, charging straight at that staring face.

  Now Sturdley launched a mental attack. There was no resistance. None at all, because there wasn’t really a mind to direct opposition. All Harry’s questing spears of psionic force discovered were the lowest life-maintaining processes in the lizard-brain, a self-awareness roughly comparable to an infant’s, and a few simple, violent commands impressed in the cerebral cortex. This wasn’t Andrew. It was a giant, mindless flesh robot sent out to kill people, with Harry Sturdley at the top of the list. The rest of the brain seemed—dormant.

  Andrew was trying to crook his arm back to get at Harry. He was also trying to get his other hand in the other window. Sturdley reached out with tendrils of psionic force and sealed off the murderous programming. Andrew slumped, almost vegetative. If he hadn’t been wedged in so tight, he’d have spilled right out the window.

  Sturdley used his circuit-tracing abilities to try and see how much of the brain pathways were working. It was a frightening glimpse at a savage mental chop-job. Harry blundered into a less-dormant section of brain, where the tiny pseudopersonality had stored some fuzzy memories. Flames danced in an almost impressionistic vision of a campfire. Giant figures sat around, sometimes in the light, often in shadow. They were talking, though there was no emotional content from the caretaker mind. But every word was recorded, and Sturdley blanched in horror as he perceived the giants discussing Robert’s doomsday plan, and their expected move to safety in the mountains of Idaho.

  Harry pulled out of the Andrew-zombie’s brain and sent out an urgent psionic call for John and Peg. No response came from John. For all Sturdley could tell, he was asleep, dead, or in the Rift. Peg’s mind, a little fuzzy as if she’d been dozing, responded almost instantly.

  Get in your armor— Sturdley peered in the closet. Yes, his suit stood ready. And burn gizmo getting down to the office. You’ll find one of the giants—Andrew—or what’s left of him.

  Dead? she asked.

  Alive, but a vegetable, Sturdley responded. Somebody—Robert, I think, gouged out most of the guy’s personality and turned him into a mindless assassin. I’d be careful waking him up—you’re on his hit list.

  Where is he?

  Hard to miss. He’s dangling out my office window. I guess we should be glad there are so many riots underway. The police haven’t come to check out this little frolic.

  Peg didn’t respond, but Sturdley knew what she was expecting. I want you to check his memories. Di
g deep. I want anything he might have heard or imagined about Robert’s plans. When you ‘ve got it, contact me on my suit radio. I’m flying to Washington, and I’ll need every scrap you can find when I get there.

  A combination of dread and concentrated interest escaped Peg’s shields. You’ve managed to get a line on what Robert’s up to?

  More like a taste, Sturdley responded grimly. And the flavor of the day seems to be the end of the world.

  The missile silos were dug deep into the Nevada bedrock. So was the control room, only not as far down. For Lieutenant (j.g.) Ernest Manville, the air-conditioned silence contrasted most favorably with the noise, heat, and dust of the miles-long jeep ride from the airbase. Ernie always found the first hour underground to be the best. After that, he got into the Zen of desk duty, leaving the last hour to dread the return to the surface.

  He was well into Zen state, sitting in companionable silence with Major Dalking, when the alarms started whooping.

  “Damn! Nobody told me about a test,” Manville complained, snapping to alert over his console. He was a little annoyed, considering himself well-plugged into the base grapevine.

  “It’s supposed to be a surprise,” Dalking responded. The Major was a laconic, by-the-book type, known among the junior officers as “Dorking,” although Manville found him a decent enough sort for a guy straight out of Washington.

  They went through the standard procedures, removing their separate keys to activate the launch controls, receiving new coordinates to input for the navigation systems.

  “Jeeze, this simulation must have us taking on the whole world,” Manville said. “Look at these target centers.”

  Dalking said nothing, his fingers moving even faster than the lieutenant’s as he input on his keyboard. Target coordinates went in, were rechecked, and the countdown began.