by Lake, Jay
“You wanted to see the Baron alone. That suited me, too. If word got out—” He broke off, cleared his throat. “Let’s stop wrangling, Jackson. We can’t move until the Bolo guarding the site has been neutralized. There’s only one way to do that: knock it out! And the only thing that can knock out a Bolo is another Bolo.”
“So?”
“I’ve got another Bolo, Jackson. It’s been covered, maintained. It can go up against the Troll—” he broke off, laughed shortly. “That’s what the mob called it.”
“You could have done that years ago. Where do I come in?”
“You’re checked out on a Bolo, Jackson. You know something about this kind of equipment.”
“Sure. So do you.”
“I never learned,” he said shortly.
“Who’s kidding who, Mallon? We all took the same orientation course less than a month ago—”
“For me it’s been a long month. Let’s just say I’ve forgotten.”
“You parked that Bolo at your front gate and then forgot how you did it, eh?”
“Nonsense. It’s always been there.”
I shook my head. “I know different.”
Mallon looked wary. “Where’d you get that idea?”
“Somebody told me.”
Mallon ground his cigar out savagely on the damask cloth. “You’ll point the scum out to me!”
“I don’t give a damn whether you moved it or not. Anybody with your training can figure out the controls of a Bolo in half an hour—”
“Not well enough to take on the Tr—another Bolo.”
I took a cigar from the silver box, picked up the lighter from the table, turned the cigar in the flame. Suddenly it was very quiet in the room.
I looked across at Mallon. He held out his hand.
“I’ll take that,” he said shortly.
I blew out smoke, squinted through it at Mallon. He sat with his hand out, waiting. I looked down at the lighter.
It was a heavy windproof model, with embossed Aerospace wings. I turned it over. Engraved letters read: Lieut. Commander Don G. Banner, USAF. I looked up. Renada sat quietly, holding my pistol trained dead on my belt buckle.
* * * *
“I’m sorry you saw that,” Mallon said. “It could cause misunderstandings.”
“Where’s Banner?”
“He ... died. I told you—”
“You told me a lot of things, Toby. Some of them might even be true. Did you make him the same offer you’ve made me?”
Mallon darted a look at Renada. She sat holding the pistol, looking at me distantly, without expression.
“You’ve got the wrong idea, Jackson—” Mallon started.
“You and he came out about the same time,” I said. “Or maybe you got the jump on him by a few days. It must have been close; otherwise you’d never have taken him. Don was a sharp boy.”
“You’re out of your mind!” Mallon snapped. “Why, Banner was my friend!”
“Then why do you get nervous when I find his lighter on your table? There could be ten perfectly harmless explanations.”
“I don’t make explanations,” Mallon said flatly.
“That attitude is hardly the basis for a lasting partnership, Toby. I have an unhappy feeling there’s something you’re not telling me.”
Mallon pulled himself up in the chair. “Look here, Jackson. We’ve no reason to fall out. There’s plenty for both of us—and one day I’ll be needing a successor. It was too bad about Banner, but that’s ancient history now. Forget it. I want you with me, Jackson! Together we can rule the Atlantic seaboard—or even more!”
I drew on my cigar, looking at the gun in Renada’s hand. “You hold the aces, Toby. Shooting me would be no trick at all.”
“There’s no trick involved, Jackson!” Mallon snapped. “After all,” he went on, almost wheedling now, “we’re old friends. I want to give you a break, share with you—”
“I don’t think I’d trust him if I were you, Mr. Jackson,” Renada’s quiet voice cut in. I looked at her. She looked back calmly. “You’re more important to him than you think.”
“That’s enough, Renada,” Mallon barked. “Go to your room at once.”
“Not just yet, Toby,” she said. “I’m also curious about how Commander Banner died.” I looked at the gun in her hand.
It wasn’t pointed at me now. It was aimed at Mallon’s chest.
* * * *
Mallon sat sunk deep in his chair, looking at me with eyes like a python with a bellyache. “You’re fools, both of you,” he grated. “I gave you everything, Renada. I raised you like my own daughter. And you, Jackson. You could have shared with me—all of it.”
“I don’t need a share of your delusions, Toby. I’ve got a set of my own. But before we go any farther, let’s clear up a few points. Why haven’t you been getting any mileage out of your tame Bolo? And what makes me important in the picture?”
“He’s afraid of the Bolo machine,” Renada said. “There’s a spell on it which prevents men from approaching—even the Baron.”
“Shut your mouth, you fool!” Mallon choked on his fury. I tossed the lighter in my hand and felt a smile twitching at my mouth.
“So Don was too smart for you after all. He must have been the one who had control of the Bolo. I suppose you called for a truce, and then shot him out from under the white flag. But he fooled you. He plugged a command into the Bolo’s circuits to fire on anyone who came close—unless he was Banner.”
“You’re crazy!”
“It’s close enough. You can’t get near the Bolo. Right? And after twenty years, the bluff you’ve been running on the other Barons with your private troll must be getting a little thin. Any day now, one of them may decide to try you.”
Mallon twisted his face in what may have been an attempt at a placating smile. “I won’t argue with you, Jackson. You’re right about the command circuit. Banner set it up to fire an anti-personnel blast at anyone coming within fifty yards. He did it to keep the mob from tampering with the machine. But there’s a loophole. It wasn’t only Banner who could get close. He set it up to accept any of the Prometheus crew—except me. He hated me. It was a trick to try to get me killed.”
“So you’re figuring I’ll step in and de-fuse her for you, eh, Toby? Well, I’m sorry as hell to disappoint you, but somehow in the confusion I left my electro pass behind.”
Mallon leaned toward me. “I told you we need each other, Jackson: I’ve got your pass. Yours and all the others. Renada, hand me my black box.” She rose and moved across to the desk, holding the gun on Mallon—and on me, too, for that matter.
“Where’d you get my pass, Mallon?”
“Where do you think? They’re the duplicates from the vault in the old command block. I knew one day one of you would come out. I’ll tell you, Jackson, it’s been hell, waiting all these years—and hoping. I gave orders that any time the Great Troll bellowed, the mob was to form up and stop anybody who came out. I don’t know how you got through them....”
“I was too slippery for them. Besides,” I added, “I met a friend.”
“A friend? Who’s that?”
“An old man who thought I was Prince Charming, come to wake everybody up. He was nuts. But he got me through.”
Renada came back, handed me a square steel box. “Let’s have the key, Mallon,” I said. He handed it over. I opened the box, sorted through half a dozen silver-dollar-sized ovals of clear plastic, lifted one out.
“Is it a magical charm?” Renada asked, sounding awed. She didn’t seem so sophisticated now—but I liked her better human.
“Just a synthetic crystalline plastic, designed to resonate to a pattern peculiar to my E.E.G.” I said. “It amplifies the signal and gives of
f a characteristic emission that the Psychotronic circuit in the Bolo picks up.”
“That’s what I thought. Magic.”
“Call it magic, then, kid.” I dropped the electropass in my pocket, stood and looked at Renada. “I don’t doubt that you know how to use that gun, honey, but I’m leaving now. Try not to shoot me.”
* * * *
“You’re a fool if you try it,” Mallon barked. “If Renada doesn’t shoot you, my guards will. And even if you made it, you’d still need me!”
“I’m touched by your concern, Toby. Just why do I need you?”
“You wouldn’t get past the first sentry post without help, Jackson. These people know me as the Trollmaster. They’re in awe of me—of my Mana. But together—we can get to the controls of the Bolo, then use it to knock out the sentry machine at the Site—”
“Then what? With an operating Bolo I don’t need anything else. Better improve the picture, Toby. I’m not impressed.”
He wet his lips.
“It’s Prometheus, do you understand? She’s stocked with everything from Browning needlers to Norge stunners. Tools, weapons, instruments. And the power plants alone.”
“I don’t need needlers if I own a Bolo, Toby.”
Mallon used some profanity. “You’ll leave your liver and lights on the palace altar, Jackson. I promise you that!”
“Tell him what he wants to know, Toby.” Renada said. Mallon narrowed his eyes at her. “You’ll live to regret this, Renada.”
“Maybe I will, Toby. But you taught me how to handle a gun—and to play cards for keeps.”
The flush faded out of his face and left it pale. “All right, Jackson,” he said, almost in a whisper. “It’s not only the equipment. It’s ... the men.”
I heard a clock ticking somewhere.
“What men, Toby?” I said softly.
“The crew. Day, Macy, the others. They’re still in there, Jackson—aboard the ship, in stasis. We were trying to get the ship off when the attack came. There was forty minutes’ warning. Everything was ready to go. You were on a test run; there wasn’t time to cycle you out....”
“Keep talking,” I rapped.
“You know how the system was set up; it was to be a ten-year run out, with an automatic turn-around at the end of that time if Alpha Centauri wasn’t within a milli-parsec.” He snorted. “It wasn’t. After twenty years, the instruments checked. They were satisfied. There was a planetary mass within the acceptable range. So they brought me out.” He snorted again. “The longest dry run in history. I unstrapped and came out to see what was going on. It took me a little while to realize what had happened. I went back in and cycled Banner and Mackenzie out. We went into the town; you know what we found. I saw what we had to do, but Banner and Mac argued. The fools wanted to reseal Prometheus and proceed with the launch. For what? So we could spend the rest of our lives squatting in the ruins, when by stripping the ship we could make ourselves kings?”
“So there was an argument?” I prompted.
“I had a gun. I hit Mackenzie in the leg, I think—but they got clear, found a car and beat me to the Site. There were two Bolos. What chance did I have against them?” Mallon grinned craftily. “But Banner was a fool. He died for it.” The grin dropped like a stripper’s bra. “But when I went to claim my spoils, I discovered how the jackals had set the trap for me.”
“That was downright unfriendly of them, Mallon. Oddly enough, it doesn’t make me want to stay and hold your hand.”
“Don’t you understand yet!” Mallon’s voice was a dry screech. “Even if you got clear of the Palace, used the Bolo to set yourself up as Baron—you’d never be safe! Not as long as one man was still alive aboard the ship. You’d never have a night’s rest, wondering when one of them would walk out to challenge your rule....”
“Uneasy lies the head, eh, Toby? You remind me of a queen bee. The first one out of the chrysalis dismembers all her rivals.”
“I don’t mean to kill them. That would be a waste. I mean to give them useful work to do.”
“I don’t think they’d like being your slaves, Toby. And neither would I.” I looked at Renada. “I’ll be leaving you now,” I said. “Whichever way you decide, good luck.”
“Wait.” She stood. “I’m going with you.”
I looked at her. “I’ll be traveling fast, honey. And that gun in my back may throw off my timing.”
She stepped to me, reversed the pistol and laid it in my hand.
“Don’t kill him, Mr. Jackson. He was always kind to me.”
“Why change sides now? According to Toby, my chances look not too good.”
“I never knew before how Commander Banner died,” she said. “He was my great-grandfather.”
VII
Renada came back bundled in a gray fur as I finished buckling on my holster.
“So long, Toby,” I said. “I ought to shoot you in the belly just for Don—but—”
I saw Renada’s eyes widen at the same instant that I heard the click.
I dropped flat and rolled behind Mallon’s chair—and a gout of blue flame yammered into the spot where I’d been standing. I whipped the gun up and around into the peach-colored upholstery an inch from Toby’s ear.
“The next one nails you to the chair,” I yelled. “Call ‘em off!” There was a moment of dead silence. Toby sat frozen. I couldn’t see who’d been doing the shooting. Then I heard a moan. Renada.
“Let the girl alone or I’ll kill him,” I called.
Toby sat rigid, his eyes rolled toward me.
“You can’t kill me, Jackson! I’m all that’s keeping you alive.”
“You can’t kill me either, Toby. You need my magic touch, remember? Maybe you’d better give us a safe-conduct out of here. I’ll take the freeze off your Bolo—after I’ve seen to my business.”
Toby licked his lips. I heard Renada again. She was trying not to moan—but moaning anyway.
“You tried, Jackson. It didn’t work out,” Toby said through gritted teeth. “Throw out your gun and stand up. I won’t kill you—you know that. You do as you’re told and you may still live to a ripe old age—and the girl, too.”
She screamed then—a mindless ululation of pure agony.
“Hurry up, you fool, before they tear her arm off,” Mallon grated. “Or shoot. You’ll get to watch her for twenty-four hours under the knife. Then you’ll have your turn.”
I fired again—closer this time. Mallon jerked his head and cursed.
“If they touch her again, you get it, Toby,” I said. “Send her over here. Move!”
“Let her go!” Mallon snarled. Renada stumbled into sight, moved around the chair, then crumpled suddenly to the rug beside me.
“Stand up, Toby,” I ordered. He rose slowly. Sweat glistened on his face now. “Stand over here.” He moved like a sleepwalker. I got to my feet. There were two men standing across the room beside a small open door. A sliding panel. Both of them held power rifles leveled—but aimed offside, away from the Baron.
“Drop ‘em!” I said. They looked at me, then lowered the guns, tossed them aside.
I opened my mouth to tell Mallon to move ahead, but my tongue felt thick and heavy. The room was suddenly full of smoke. In front of me, Mallon was wavering like a mirage. I started to tell him to stand still, but with my thick tongue, it was too much trouble. I raised the gun, but somehow it was falling to the floor,—slowly, like a leaf—and then I was floating, too, on waves that broke on a dark sea....
* * * *
“Do you think you’re the first idiot who thought he could kill me?” Mallon raised a contemptuous lip. “This room’s rigged ten different ways.”
I shook my head, trying to ignore the film before my eyes and the nausea in my body. “No, I imagine
lots of people would like a crack at you, Toby. One day one of them’s going to make it.”
“Get him on his feet,” Mallon snapped. Hard hands clamped on my arms, hauled me off the cot. I worked my legs, but they were like yesterday’s celery; I sagged against somebody who smelled like uncured hides.
“You seem drowsy,” Mallon said. “We’ll see if we can’t wake you up.”
A thumb dug into my neck. I jerked away, and a jab under the ribs doubled me over.
“I have to keep you alive—for the moment,” Mallon said. “But you won’t get a lot of pleasure out of it.”
I blinked hard. It was dark in the room. One of my handlers had a ring of beard around his mouth—I could see that much. Mallon was standing before me, hands on hips. I aimed a kick at him, just for fun. It didn’t work out; my foot seemed to be wearing a lead boat. The unshaven man hit me in the mouth and Toby chuckled.
“Have your fun, Dunger,” he said, “but I’ll want him alive and on his feet for the night’s work. Take him out and walk him in the fresh air. Report to me at the Pavillion of the Troll in an hour.” He turned to something and gave orders about lights and gun emplacements, and I heard Renada’s name mentioned.
Then he was gone and I was being dragged through the door and along the corridor.
The exercise helped. By the time the hour had passed, I was feeling weak but normal—except for an aching head and a feeling that there was a strand of spiderweb interfering with my vision. Toby had given me a good meal. Maybe before the night was over he’d regret that mistake....
Across the dark grounds, an engine started up, spluttered, then settled down to a steady hum.
“It’s time,” the one with the whiskers said. He had a voice like soft cheese to match his smell. He took another half-twist in the arm he was holding.
“Don’t break it,” I grunted. “It belongs to the Baron, remember?”
Whiskers stopped dead. “You talk too much—and too smart.” He let my arm go and stepped back. “Hold him, Pig Eye.” The other man whipped a forearm across my throat and levered my head back; then Whiskers unlimbered the two-foot club from his belt and hit me hard in the side, just under the ribs. Pig Eye let go and I folded over and waited while the pain swelled up and burst inside me.