The Goda War

by Deborah Chester

  “Sic,” said Rho, his voice growing hoarse with awe. “The godas. The arkist and all his men were questioned a long time about them. I took off my weapons and pretended to be a medical orderly. The others think I am coward, but I waited for you. I did not go to death camps. Do you still intend to activate?”

  The question was loud against the silence of the park. Brock hesitated, feeling once again the conflict of inner loyalties. Felca was my home once, he thought wearily. All the things Ellisne has said have their own bits of truth. The universe can go on with new masters. He sensed her stiffen behind him as though she sensed his trouble, and with a flash of anger he realized she had been using Influence upon his thoughts.

  Fool! he shot furiously at her. His mind, clearing again, burned away the doubts. I would rather destroy Felca myself than let the Colonids do so.

  She did not answer. Her shields were drawn up tightly. He felt his thoughts bounce off, and he turned away with a frown.

  “Yes,” he said firmly to Rho. “We activate. But first the transmitter.”

  “Not to be reached,” said Rho after a moment, cocking his narrow head to one side. “Ch’tk ta ’a sis. Most guarded of all. As you have said, they fear such an attempt.”

  “What about underground access?”

  “No!” said Rho sharply, clicking a negative. “No, no! Dangerous. They have filled the tunnels with nust gas. All levels.”

  “Don’t expect me to flick you there,” said Ellisne.

  This time Brock did not even bother to glance at her. “You couldn’t do it,” he said and did not trouble to explain that Heldfleet Central was armored even against Sedkethran infiltration. There were a few substances which his species could not pass through, and ungstan carbonix was one of them. He wondered if she even knew of the organic metal’s existence. Probably not.

  “I could steal a stri-jet and fly in,” offered Rho, but without much enthusiasm.

  “No, you’d be shot down. A ship then. We can use its transmitter once we’re off Darjahl Imperial.” Brock twisted the goda band on his wrist, thinking of the star charts he would have to match the codes against. He knew the identity of one goda. He needed to know the other two as well. “Have you any weapons?”

  Rho sorrowfully tapped the tag on his chest. “No chance yet. No armor for you either. They confiscated all and destroyed it.”

  “Damn.” Brock sank down on one knee as a patrol sled rumbled over the river, and the others joined him in the shadows. The breeze coming off the water was cold on his bare shoulders. His bandages, imperfectly bonded with his flesh, were soaked from the rain, and absently he began to strip them off. Ellisne reached out as though to stop him, then remained silent.

  “I go on duty soon,” said Rho. “I will be missed. Our time is shortened.”

  “What is your routine? Do you live where you work? Or are you kept in barracks?”

  “Barracks. Security loose. We are all supposed to be non-military, therefore low-threat.” Rho grinned broadly. “Each shift goes on ground shuttle to work assignment.”

  “Are you counted?”

  “In barracks, yes. On shuttle, no.”

  Brock lifted both brows. “Very loose security. How many guards on each shuttle?”

  “Two. One guards the workers. The other drives.” Rho cocked his head to one side, his eyes bright upon Brock’s face. “I understand. Merc! The driver calls in shuttle ID and destination. You could probe for a new destination code—”

  “No,” said Brock. “They all wear protective implants to prevent that.”

  Rho hissed, then brightened. “But a less complicated plan comes to me. Why not gain port entry through one of the supply lines?”

  “Too dangerous. Those transender points are constantly offloading—”

  “No, no! All lines down. Colonids fear them. Ground transports haul everything to a central shuttle pad.”

  “What about power?” asked Brock, considering the suggestion with increasing satisfaction.

  “Most power returned to city. I can channel power access to transender lines if needed,” said Rho. “T’k cha, it requires only a computer link. And we will be in before they notice any power drain.”

  “You realize, of course,” said Ellisne, “that they will be expecting you to make such an attempt at the spaceport. You—”

  “We’re going,” said Brock curtly. “Are you?”

  “Why do you insult me with such childish games?” she asked, rising to her feet. “You will not dare use the transender. You intend to hijack one of their ground transports and then steal a shuttle. They will shoot you out of the sky, and you will have a glorious end according to the Chaimu view. But you will still be dead.”

  “Ellisne—”

  “No.” And with a repudiating gesture of her hand, she flicked from sight and was gone.

  Brock let out his breath in a heavy sigh of relief as Rho glanced from where she had been to Brock’s face.

  “She will warn the Colonids?”

  “Yes, I think so.”

  “Merc! And I thought she was fooled.”

  Brock rubbed a thumb thoughtfully over his scar. “But I am serious about trying the transenders.”

  “Dire-lord, you know it is impossible. Not for me, but for you—”

  “Why?” asked Brock, pushing away his own doubts. “I can no longer flick. My molecular structure should be cohesive enough for transender scrambling.”

  “I don’t think you should try—”

  “But I’m going to anyway,” said Brock grimly. “It’s our only chance to get out of here. We’d better hurry. They might just try covering both plans.”

  Despite their best efforts, it was nearly an hour later before Rho picked the fission-lock on a transender station and they darted inside. Breathless, Brock crouched down and gratefully accepted the ration cube Rho pulled from a pocket. His chest had finally stopped aching yesterday, but being on the interrogation machine had sapped a lot of the strength he’d managed to regain. He flexed his burned arm and winced. The new skin already growing was tender and not very elastic.

  “See?” whispered Rho, tapping his shoulder for attention. He pointed overhead at cusp-shaped disks fixed in a sporadic pattern to the ceiling. “Everything has been reprogrammed through City Maintenance. Without this tag, you will set off the sensors.”

  Brock looked past Rho’s shoulder down the narrow, almost tube-shaped room stretching past the counter near the door where shipments were customarily dropped off. It was a small station. There were only about six or so transender points. Containers were stacked haphazardly upon the floor where they had been abandoned when the city was attacked. There were even flimsies still scattered across the counter, and a com-link blipped a forlorn green light through the shadows to tell the departed operators that they had forgotten to disconnect the last call.

  Brock frowned. It was not easy to reshape his thinking to these new problems of mobility. He had always simply desired to be in a certain place and flicked there. Sensors did not pick up his passage; his molecular patterns were unlike those of any other life form in the Held. Now, however, he dared not count on that. He had only to take a chance with one sensor, and if he set it off, all their chances would be over.

  “Put me in a crate,” he said. “The whole way. Otherwise, I won’t even be able to get out of the cargo room up in the spaceport.”

  Rho whistled softly in agreement with the idea and bounded off toward the rear of the station. Several minutes later, Brock heard a faint thud and a muffled exclamation. Then a bulky hexagonal carton loomed out of the shadows, suspended on an anti-grav dolly. Rho’s narrow ugly face appeared, grinning, to one side as he pushed it toward Brock.

  “What took you so long?”

  “I had to pick the pressure locks,” said Rho, still grinning as he snapped up three locks along the side and lifted the lid. “Campesians and their binary numbers. The first carton I opened was unsuitable. This one I think will pass Colonid scanners
, sic?”

  “Campesians…” Already suspecting what it might contain, Brock peered unwillingly inside. The stench hit him like a blow. He drew back. “Rho—”

  “Fluid pacs,” said Rho triumphantly. “Organic enough to mix with your own readings on the scanner.”

  “What was in the other carton?”

  “Pod fittings. Unsuitable.”

  “But more comfortable,” said Brock, swallowing hard. “All right,” he said as Rho looked at him in puzzlement. “Help me in.”

  As he climbed into the carton and curled up among the squishy, gurgling contents that released a pungent odor each time they were touched, he tried not to think about the possible effects of the transender upon him. Helping to guide the lid back into place, he settled back, closing off his olfactory nerves, and shut his eyes against the complete darkness. Each snap of the three locks marked the finality of his decision. If I still wanted to, could I go back? he wondered, thinking of the brutally cold spring day on Felca when he had left the barracks without permission. At that time, there had been no conscious decision of disobedience. He had simply looked at the wall and flicked out. It had taken the monitors hours to discover he was not in his assigned place and to come looking for him. He remembered being surprised at how long it had taken them to find him when he was not even actively trying to elude capture. But that day had marked him as a troublemaker, and from then on his every action was regarded with suspicion. What, he asked himself now as Rho grunted with the effort of maneuvering the bulky carton around, would I go back to?

  The training of the round magstrusi chamber? What would he learn now? What questions would he ask? The first merging would reveal the multiple timestreams, a potential always there, now released. Would they share Ellisne’s horror and kill him, disposing of him with a silent crushing blow of mental power united against his? It was a technique called merciful extinction, used primarily against patients beyond help. Or would they have compassion upon him and fuse him back to a single time continuum? Were the diverging splits inside him marking the end of his quest to become something real? Had he followed a false path all these years? Had he made himself an exile for nothing? How long was it going to take Rho to link up systems?

  As though in answer the crate suddenly bumped and shifted. Rho thumped on the lid in reassurance or perhaps goodbye. Brock burrowed deeper among the repulsive fluid pacs as he heard a hum of machinery building rapidly to a low-pitched whine.

  It is wrong. It is wrong. The godas are wrong.

  Brock listened to his instincts. He listened to the deep-seated morals at the root of his psyche, ignored for so long.

  I have killed, he told himself, resurrecting an argument he thought he had succeeded in banishing long ago. There is blood on my hands. Why stop now? It must be done. I must be the one to do it.

  Why? Why him, of all the individuals making up the broad spectrum of the Held?

  But he knew the answer. Of all the possible futures fanning out from each step of each road he took, there were long stretches of inevitability where, having once started along that path, there were a certain number of consequences to go through before he came to the next point of intersection. There, and only there, could he choose another road, another future, another range of possibilities. But in the meantime, he had to follow what he had started. Right now, he was still in the middle of the road he had taken when he first became a dire-lord. It had been the second intersection of his life. He could have chosen a solitary existence as a hermit mystic on a barren world far away from other life. He could have concentrated upon evolving into pure thought. He could have sat for years within himself, tracing out each tendril of consciousness to its source. Instead he had turned sharply aside into a way of life foreign to everything he knew. He had taken punishing physical training. He had thrown himself into the patterns of a life where sensation was valued above mental purity. He had learned to kill. He had forced himself to experience emotions as fully as possible without guilt. He, more than any other creature alive, wanted to rule the Held.

  When he could no longer hear the whine, that would mean the transender had activated. It was still building. The sound was becoming a part of him as he tensed, waiting for it to happen. One was supposed to relax, he knew, but all the same, his hands clenched hard on two fluid pacs, releasing such strong odors he choked with nausea.

  I have learned to feel fear, he thought in surprise. I have finally learned what it means to be a coward.

  Because he knew he couldn’t live in the transender beam. That to even try it inside a container would only increase his chances of coming out on the other end scrambled hopelessly with inert matter. That relying on his damaged atrox was illogical because an injured organ did not cause one’s molecular properties to change. The container was his coffin. If he didn’t get out now he was dead.

  Brock lifted his fist to pound on the lid. “Rho—”

  The whine of the transender lifted to a subliminal pitch, and just as he realized he couldn’t hear it any more he knew it was too late to get out.

  9

  “You realize,” snapped Falmah-Al with a restless glance over her shoulder, “that if you are wrong this time we are going to be finished with you.”

  “Threats serve little purpose,” said Ellisne, maintaining an outward composure she could not feel inside.

  She and the colonel stood on a glastel observation deck overlooking the shuttle landing pods of the spaceport slowly orbiting Darjahl Imperial at its standard operational path of 35,000 kilomyls. Beyond the wide, slightly cupped field hung the black backdrop of space. If she turned about and looked in the opposite direction, Darjahl Imperial filled her vision with variegated patterns of brown land mass and green ocean. Colonid troops stood alertly at their posts, waiting for the stolen shuttle to come in. So far, nothing had happened. Ellisne closed her eyes, unaccustomed to feeling such nervousness. She hoped the promadi and his friend Rho had had enough time to reach the spaceport via transender. Falmah-Al was already pacing the observation deck in visible impatience with an ambush that was not taking place. She would not wait much longer.

  Hurry, thought Ellisne, opening her eyes out of fear that Falmah-Al would guess the truth from her slightest action. I have given you all the time I dare by this trick. Hurry and steal your ship.

  She did not permit herself to consider the terrible risk the promadi was taking with a transender. Brock was so reckless with his life. She knew, from the few times she had merged with him, that he had damaged his atrox seriously from his wild attempt to save the suprin’s life. It was astonishing that he had survived flicking such a tremendous distance, much less carrying someone with him. Even the magstrusi could not flick that far. But Brock threw himself at every challenge with a force and determination that was foreign to her. It was not the Sedkethran way to conquer. Achievements came through calm, rational planning. Why was he so determined to be different?

  She shied away from the question, unwilling to return to thoughts of their discussions. He blasphemed against the Writings, violated the Forbidden Codes, twisted the Disciplines to suit his own purposes. He was promadi, outcast. Why, then, was she helping him? Why did she stand here gripped with concern for his survival?

  The Elder Council would want an answer to those questions. She was not sure she could provide any, not even to herself. Brock horrified and offended her, yet his arguments appealed to sentiments deep within her. She could not help but wonder if she had a latent rebelliousness which had been sealed off from her conscious mind. Was Brock breaking open that seal for her? Was that why her thoughts kept returning to his words and her curiosity struggled against prudence? She had long ago mastered the techniques of serenity, yet Brock had managed to quickly overthrow her self-mastery. She had experienced fury, fear, and distrust as never before. She had even shouted at him, wanting to strike him. And the thinness of her civilized veneer shocked her. Was he using Influence upon her? She had saved him from the Imish once, and now
she was jeopardizing her own safety a second time in order to divert them from his method of arrival at the spaceport. Why? If the Imish eliminated him, then the magstrusi would not be forced to act directly to stop him. They had trained her, and they were depending upon her now to control the promadi. Why, then, was she so confused and acting contrary to her decisions?

  “Aha!” said Falmah-Al, throwing herself at the glastel wall as a warning alarm signalled the opening of the hangar forcefield. One of the landing pods glowed, indicating that its magnetic coils had been activated to pull the shuttle down.

  Ellisne moved slowly to the colonel’s side, her eyes fastened upon the incoming craft. Disappointment mingled with sharp relief welled up within her. So he had not dared try the transender after all. And she had not betrayed her own duty, but him instead as she was supposed to.

  “Good,” said Falmah-Al. “This could be it.” She unhooked a communicator from her belt, and shot orders at her men waiting out of sight below. Her eyes, dark and gleaming with a hunter’s excitement, stabbed at Ellisne. “Now we’ll see. Millen is ready to move—”

  Her communicator beeped. “Colonel, looks like a false alarm. Their ID codes check out in proper sequence.”

  The shuttle whine was muffled but not quite silenced by the insulation of the glastel. It was descending slowly, carefully, positioning itself directly over the glowing coil of the landing pod. Ellisne realized she was holding her breath. She forced herself to release it. She even dared a quick mental scan. The patterns were not his.

  “Damn!” Falmah-Al glared at Ellisne and gestured at her men. “Millen, check it out! Move!”

  The squad ran out to surround the shuttle with heavy disruptors aimed and ready. Ellisne watched the major enter the hatch first, half-crouched and competent. The violence in Falmah-Al rolled like a wave over Ellisne, who winced and stepped back from the windows. She did not want to watch. How had Brock adjusted to the lust to strike and kill?