Crown of the Serpent

by Allen Wold

  Nelross grabbed Homower and Dyson, put them in front of Rikard, and yelled to Grayshard, "Open up, cover the whole area."

  Grayshard started to pull his disguise aside, then hesitated. Charney and Yansen joined Petorska and Glaine to help protect him. The group continued its retreat, but by the time the next wave of Tschagan came, repeating their earlier flanking maneu­ver, Grayshard was almost completely exposed, though barely able to move in his support clothes, and projected as hard as he could.

  All the Tschagan within about thirty meters immediately succumbed to the effects of his psychic weapon, and the goons, though they too were affected, took a terrible toll.

  At last their backs were against the front of the two-meter-high stage. The goons, with their powered armor, could easily jump up, even backward, and when they did the attack suddenly stopped. Rikard felt hands on him, then Hornower and Van Leet helped him up onto the stage while Charney and Pe-torska lifted Grayshard. The other goons blasted any Tschagan still slowed or paralyzed while the others raced away.

  They waited on the stage for another attack, but after a full minute nothing was forthcoming. Falyn cracked her helmet, and with taps and hand signals, had the other goons do likewise. "Now that they've got us where they want us," she said, "why don't they finish us off?"

  "Maybe they didn't expect us to get on the stage," Nelross suggested.

  "You get the feeling they're not really very bright," Denny said. "What else would they expect us to do?"

  Grayshard was having difficulty moving because so much of his supporting disguise had been removed. He wabbled several long tendrils at Rikard. "Take part of my clothing," he sug­gested, speaking through the vocalizer, which was now at the center of his mass. "Make a hood and cloak to protect your brain and spine from my projection. I may have to use it again."

  "But how will you move?" Rikard asked. "You can't keep up with us without those clothes, especially if the goons use their powered armor."

  "If someone will carry me," Grayshard said.

  "I'll do that," Private Ming offered.

  Grayshard removed the rest of his supporting apparel, part of which Rikard took to fashion a shield for himself as Grayshard had suggested. Ming did the same with the rest, discarding the rigid portions of its frame. Then Grayshard, moving in a kind of slithery crawl, naked and terribly fragile, slithered up onto the private's back, and wrapped himself around her shielded torso and head, careful to leave her face-plate and arms free. It was a grotesque sight. Rikard watched Ming's face, saw her trepida­tion and anxiety—and determination.

  "So what do we do now?" Sukiro asked. She turned to Rae-buck. "Do you know of any other way out of here?"

  "None of the tapes I saw showed any," she said as the group moved toward the center of the stage. "There may be exits at either end."

  Denny started to send pairs of goons to either side when one of the irises in the bank of arches at the back of the auditorium snapped. The goons all spun to face the sound, prepared for the next attack, but no Tschagan entered the place.

  "They're afraid of us now," Glaine said.

  "At least they're being cautious," Petersin answered.

  "Do we just wait here?" Falyn asked.

  "Maybe we can attack them," Nelross suggested, "if we've got Gray shard to slow them down."

  "You mean," Falyn said, "just go out there?" She waved at the now silent arches.

  "Not a good idea," Sukiro said. "They'd crush us by sheer force of numbers. Let's take advantage of the time we have and try to figure out a plan."

  "How do we know," Denny asked, "that we aren't doing just what the Tschagan want us to do? After all, this is where they drove us, we're in a cul-de-sac, they could be calling in their regular troops, even as we wait."

  "And if they've brought armed reinforcements," Rikard said, "then we're all sitting ducks."

  Part Five

  1

  Rikard wished he'd kept his mouth shut. He could almost feel the gloom of despair descending over the battered police force. Even Sukiro seemed to be at a loss. What could be done to get these people moving again? Why did Rikard feel that it was his responsibility? It was Raebuck who had led them into this trap. He turned to her, saw her staring at the back wall of the stage area. "We've got to do something," he said. He tried to keep his anger from showing.

  "This isn't the way I remember it," Raebuck said, half to herself. "There should be a series of alcoves back there."

  "Maybe this is a different auditorium," Denny suggested.

  Raebuck walked slowly up to the back wall, but Sukiro said, "We've got to find a way out of here. We don't know when the next attack will be."

  "The Tschagan all left when we got onstage," Dyson said, "maybe there won't be an attack."

  "We're right where they want us," Sukiro said. She looked up at the camera module. "How can you tell that thing is on? Maybe they're filming us right now."

  Rikard followed Raebuck toward the back wall. As he neared he saw that the panels there, separated from each other by nar­row pilasters, were noj the same as all the other walls they had seen. "No blue stripes," he said, "everywhere else there's blue stripes."

  Sukiro turned to watch them. "Do you know what kind of weapons they had?" she asked Raebuck.

  "I'm not sure," she answered distractedly, "projectile weapons and lasers, I think."

  "How about blasters?"

  "No, not that I know of." She turned to stare back at the major. "That's a much more recent development."

  "That's the way I understood it, but the Tschagan were very advanced for their time. Are you sure they had no energy weapons?"

  "Except for lasers. Why, is it important?"

  "They have not yet used any weapons against us. And they don't behave like soldiers."

  "So what's the point?" Denny demanded.

  "I see one of two things happening," Sukiro said. "Either the Tschagan won't attack again at all, now that they've seen how we can defend ourselves—or they've gone for soldiers who can hit us from a distance."

  "That makes sense, but so what?"

  "In either case, I think we may have some time. Soldiers could hardly be battle-ready. So instead of standing here glooming, or rushing around in a panic, let's take the time to figure things out, so we won't be taken by surprise."

  Somehow these considered words had a calming effect on the police. Falyn sent several of her goons out to investigate the nearest of the Tschagan corpses. Nelross had his goons line up along the edge of the stage, seated, arms braced on knees, ready to fire. Denny sent pairs of goons to the far ends of the stage, to see if there were exits there.

  "We may as well go out clean," Sukiro said.

  Falyn's goons came back to report that they'd found no evi­dence of weapons of any kind among the Tschagan bodies they'd investigated, not even clubs. "They don't wear clothes either," Yansen said.

  "That's right," Raebuck said, "not even jewelry. It makes sense, clothes and things would be subject to inertia, and make it hard for them to move as fast as they do."

  "So what!" Denny shouted. "Save it until we get out of here."

  "Easy," Sukiro told her, "get a hold of yourself. But I agree, we can get as academic as we like after we get home."

  "Sukiro's right," Rikard said. "And since you're the one," he said to Raebuck, "who has studied this place, however vicar­iously, I think you should turn your attention to finding us a way out."

  "All right," she said as she looked at the back of the stage. "But there's something I'm trying to remember about these panels." She turned and, in spite of protests from Denny and Sukiro, went to the nearest of them and ran her hands over it. Then she went to the pilaster separating it from the one to its right.

  But before Sukiro and Denny, who had run out of patience, could get to her, Raebuck touched something on the pilaster and the panel in front of her started to rise up into the overhead. Behind it was an alcove, dark in spite of the light from the auditorium ceiling. S
ukiro and Denny stopped just behind her and on either side, and stared into the revealed space.

  Raebuck reached around inside the edge of the alcove for a light switch. "This is it," she said excitedly. "This is where they kept the trophies they used to brag about and show off on their propaganda broadcasts." She found the switch and the lights in the alcove came on.

  It was a showcase. In the middle of the floor was a platform that looked as though it could be moved out onto the stage. In the middle of this was a knee-high table, on which stood a model of a building, at about one-hundredth scale. The original had been made of white plastic, with rounded edges, and with a short square tower at each corner. On either side of the table, on shoulder-high stands, were tiny jeweled statuettes, of centauroid beings with pyramidal bodies, four dog-legs, and four arms. The stand on the right held a full-sized spacesuit suitable for such a being. On the left was a brass-colored thing like a giant loving cup, unadorned except for a fancy lip and two graceful handles. Behind all this was a tapestry woven in brilliant, shimmering colors, an elaborate and subtly asymmetrical geometric pattern.

  "Good God," Rikard whispered as he stared at the trophies. He had seen the originals of those statuettes. He and Raebuck went toward the table and Sukiro and Denny, as fascinated as they, followed behind them.

  "That's Atreef," Raebuck said, "from before they dropped out of the Federation." ,

  It was all Rikard could do to hold himself in check. "You're right," he said, "but we've got to move."

  Raebuck wasn't listening. She went back to the pilaster and touched again the place that had caused the panel concealing the alcove to rise. This time the panel on the next alcove to the right went up. She reached in and found the light at once.

  Another showcase was revealed, this one with an arc of seven stands, each bearing a crystalline object: a perfect sphere half a meter in diameter, shimmering prismatically; a spindle two meters tall on which were impaled five disks, the middle one half a meter across, those next above and below some hundred centimeters less, the top and bottom two only two hundred centimeters in diameter; three crystal squares set at right angles to each other and intersecting to form an octahedral shape; a three-hundred-centimeter lens that stood at forty-five degrees from one edge; something like an armillary globe, with another one nested inside, and a third inside that; a stellated polyhedron more than a meter across, of maybe forty or fifty points; and another spike, with tapered ends and a black greasy sphere in the middle.

  "Aren't those Anchika scepters?" Raebuck exclaimed.

  "I don't know," Rikard said.

  "Sure they are." Raebuck went to the lens, pointed at the edge where it stood on the stand. "See, it really balances here."

  To Rikard's surprise, Sukiro said, "By damn, I believe you're right."

  The other goons, though fascinated, were nonplussed. Gray-shard, riding on Ming's shoulders, said softly, "If Vaashka war­riors come looking for us, I won't be able to defend us."

  "We've got to get moving," Rikard said. But though his anxi­ety was increasing moment by moment, he couldn't find it within himself to protest as Raebuck and Sukiro went to the next alcove to the right.

  In the showcase revealed here they found two humanoid beings, sitting in chairs on either side of a miniature starship of unfamiliar design. The figures were short, stocky, dark, ugly, with a vaguely reptilian cast to their faces. Their hair was black, shading to gray on one and to blue on the other. They had four eyes, one pair above the other. Each hand had four mutually opposable thumbs. Both were naked, one male, the other fe­male.

  This time several of the other goons reacted. "Those are Te-leref," Hornower said.

  "Or statues of them," Raebuck said. But on closer inspection the figures proved to be not statues, but mummies, carefully preserved.

  "I'd forgotten about that," Raebuck went on. "The Tschagan liked to mummify the leaders of anybody who resisted them, and put them on display along with their other trophies."

  But while Hornower and Sukiro and even Falyn were wondering about this and about the miniature starship, Raebuck backed away from the display, halfway out to the center of the stage again, and looked at the opened panels and those on either side.

  "We've got to go now," Rikard said. "We can come back later."

  But Raebuck was too excited to listen. "Just one more," she said, and went across the open alcoves to the panel to the left of the first one she had opened and triggered the switch that raised it. The panel slid up, she turned on the light. "Ahaa!" she gasped.

  Rikard was slow to follow her, and before he could come near enough to see inside, the irises at the top end of the audito­rium started snapping. A horde of Tschagan poured in and raced down the sloping floor toward them. At the same time, Rikard saw the camera module at the top of the auditorium ceiling start to descend.

  Whatever fascination the others had found in the treasures Raebuck had revealed, it was forgotten in the need of the mo­ment. Everybody had heard the snapping of the irises, and they all turned toward the wall of arches, caught by surprise yet again, but they sealed their helmets against Grayshard's psychic sending and were ready to fight.

  Ming stepped out toward the center of the stage and Gray-shard started to project his mind-numbing attack. Rikard had to wrap his piece of Grayshard's clothing closer around his head to shield himself from the assault, and saw Ming stagger as the power of Grayshard's sending penetrated her helmet, wrapped as he was around the private's head.

  The goons opened fire as the nearest of the Tschagan began to slow, and their aim was deadly. But they were not completely protected from Grayshard's effect, and there were too many of the enemy, those at the back pushing the nearer ones forward.

  Then, from the top of the auditorium, came shots. Bullets struck the apron of the stage and the closed panels behind them, but none of the goons who were in front of open alcoves seemed to be targets.

  Rikard drew his .75 and took aim at the Tschagan at the back, those who were firing, who had to pause momentarily to take aim themselves. He missed with his first two shots, but his third was good, and the Tschagan soldier's head splattered.

  The goons quickly realized where safety lay, and those who were in front of closed panels moved so that they had the open alcoves behind them. They all blasted away at their attackers, with deadly effect.

  Rikard missed his fourth shot, but hit another Tschagan soldier with the fifth. Then the attack broke, and the surviving Tschagan raced back out through the arches. The goons stopped firing at once. Blasters were good for a long fight, but they would run out of energy eventually.

  Rikard popped the clip out of his .75, even though it had one shell left, stuck it in his belt, and put a new clip in. His ammu­nition was far more limited than that of the police. He turned around to see how everyone was faring. Majorbank, Van Leet, and Tamura had fallen.

  "Let's get out of here!" he yelled.

  "Not yet!" Raebuck yelled back defiantly.

  He turned toward her, and saw her striding into the last al­cove she'd opened. In the middle of the showcase display was a huge figure, like a giant serpent with a humanoid torso, but with four arms. It's head was wolflike and snakelike at the same time, with domed eyes, small bat ears, and fangs projecting below its lower jaw. It was sitting on a massive and strangely shaped throne thing.

  Raebuck looked over her shoulder at Rikard. There was an ecstatic expression on her face. "It's the crown," she said. Her voice was a shouted whisper.

  Rikard couldn't help but stare at the figure on the throne. He walked into the alcove behind Raebuck, who was now standing at the very edge of the platform on which the throne sat. Behind him Sukiro was almost yelling. "Let's get out of here, dammit! where's Braeth?"

  "I'm in here," Rikard called back, and went to stand beside Raebuck.

  The serpent sat coiled on its throne, bronze and green and deep blue, its "waist" higher than Rikard's head, its arms folded across its deep chest. And now Rikard s
aw the thing to which Raebuck had referred, very much indeed like a crown, a circlet of black metal on the serpent's head, with a curved spike on either side just in front of its tall, pointed ears.

  "What are you doing?" Sukiro demanded angrily as she came up behind Rikard. "We've got no time for—" Then she saw the figure on the throne. Rikard didn't pay any attention. His gaze was riveted on the serpent-being's face.

  "That's quite some statue," Sukiro said at last. Rikard glanced at her. Ming, with Gray shard riding on her head and shoulders, was right behind her. Gray shard was waving dozens of tendrils at the four-armed serpent.

  "It's not the statue," Raebuck said, "it's the crown."

  "We've got three dead," Denny said. "If you don't know a way out of here, then we'll have to find one for ourselves, or go out there and fight our way through."

  "It's the Ahmear," Grayshard said.

  "It is indeed," Raebuck murmured.

  "Or at least," Grayshard went on, "a representation of one."

  "What the hell is an Ahmear?" Ming asked. She tilted her head back for a moment, as if by doing so she could get a better view of the Vaashka wrapped around her helmet.

  "The Ahmear," Raebuck said, "were among the first of the starfaring peoples. They left our limb of the galaxy very long ago. All they left behind were stories among the younger races, some of whom were advanced enough at the time to have made recordings. That crown on its head is the only known Ahmear artifact; they took everything else with them. Why or how that thing was left behind, nobody knows for sure. The earliest record of it is for over fifty thousand years ago, when a people called the Reneth showed it in a film about pre-Reneth ruins on one of their outer planets. The ruins had nothing to do with the Ahmear, the crown was just found there. It was kept in various places by various peoples until it was lost when the Tschagan sacked Tromarn, early in their career. It's the oldest artificial object in the known universe."