Mosby’s eyebrows shot upwards. She was surprised. Not so much by the technology involved, since that had been around for a long time, and been outlawed by the rest of the human race, but by her lover’s foresight, and ruthless attention to what he believed to be his duty. It was a quality they shared and she had thought about. To what extent does the means justify the end? The question was as old as her profession and nearly impossible to answer. She focused on other more immediate concerns. “Your spy is an aide to Poseen-Ka? War Commander Poseen-Ka? The same one we just watched?”
Marcus had been unaware that the Hudathan he’d seen put a bullet between General Norwood’s eyes, and the officer to whom his spy had been assigned were one and the same. The knowledge came as a shock and served to reinforce the appropriateness of his decision.
Mosby started to pace back and forth between the coffee table and the gas fireplace. “So Poseen-Ka is still in a position of power . . . and we have a spy on his staff. This changes everything.”
Marcus noted the “we,” started to correct her, and thought better of it. Right or wrong, the decision was made.
Convinced that ornamental office buildings did little but instill distrust in the general population, the Founder had specified that all such buildings would be plain and drab, and there was little doubt that her architects had taken the good doctor at her word. Booly could not remember seeing a less interesting building in his entire life. It was large, gray, and with the exception of its cylindrical shape and unblinking windows, completely without ornamentation of any kind. A park, which fronted the building, and was of the same diameter, served to complete one of the figure eights that Hosokawa seemed to favor, and could be seen on any aerial map of the city.
Color, such as it was, came from the bunting that had been draped over the reviewing stand, the dress uniforms that swarmed over the area, and the standards that snapped atop the long, slender flagpoles.
The gaiety, or appearance of it, was a nearly meaningless gesture, since the citizens who had been commanded to line the U-shaped drive were a somber bunch, and clearly wanted to be somewhere else. Still, matters of protocol had to observed, so Marcus had ordered a sufficient number of bystanders to give the occasion some weight.
Although the president’s civilian bodyguards retained responsibility for overall security, Booly had been given secondary control of the area immediately surrounding the review stand, and took the assignment seriously. During the hours since he and his platoon had arrived, they had swept the area for bombs, set up lanes of fire that could be used to repulse a full-scale military attack, and stepped through a variety of maneuvers that had been devised and rehearsed via interactive virtual-reality training scenarios. As a result, Booly’s troops could handle anything from an unexpected plane crash to an outbreak of food poisoning.
Still, there’s no such thing as being too ready, and the president was due to arrive in fifteen minutes, so Booly took one last tour of his platoon and their positions. While the bio bods could be useful in a single assassin scenario, the president’s bodyguards were the primary line of defense, and the legionnaires were there to handle crowd control, or in the unlikely event of a massed assault, to add their firepower to that of the security detail.
The cyborgs were more critical, however, since they were the president’s only defense against an armored attack, or aircraft that somehow managed to elude the fighters that prowled the sky overhead.
With that in mind, Booly paid close attention to the way the Trooper IIs were situated and wished he’d been allowed to bring some quads. Their heavy weaponry would have been welcome at either end of the drive, but they were bulky, and thought to be too imposing, especially on the evening news, where it might appear as if the already-subdued crowd were there at gunpoint. So the Trooper IIs would have to do, and Booly approached each one looking for weak points.
Fisk-Three watched the legionnaire’s slow, methodical approach with butterflies in his stomach. Each and every moment since joining the column had been fraught with danger. Would someone notice a difference between the way his exoskeleton looked and the real thing? Would they ask a question he didn’t know the answer to? Would he unintentionally draw attention to himself? These questions and more had haunted him ever since the charade had begun. Now an officer was approaching, speaking with each borg in turn, and making small adjustments to the way they were positioned. Beads of sweat broke out on Three’s forehead. He wanted to wipe them away but couldn’t.
“This is Big Dog Four. We are mean, green, and clean. Five from the door.”
The voice boomed through Booly’s ear plug and belonged to the huge black man who headed Anguar’s mostly human security detail. His name was Slozo, Jack Slozo, and Booly feared him more than potential assassins. The message meant that the trip from the spaceport had gone smoothly, there were no signs of opposition, and the motorcade would arrive in less than five minutes.
Booly debated whether to inspect Starke at all, decided to give the cyborg a quick once-over, and beat feet back to his command position. He analyzed the cyborg’s field of fire as he approached.
Fisk-Three had excellent optics at his disposal and used them to switch back and forth between the quickly approaching officer and the review stand. It was thick with minor functionaries. They swirled suddenly as two additional figures appeared, one of whom was clad in a toga, the other in full military uniform. This was the part that Fisk Eight didn’t know about, the fact that he had been given orders to waste the traitorous Marcus, and his free-breeding military whore, before she corrupted the entire planet with her perverted ways. Because when Marcus died, killed by a berserk Trooper II, any chance of an alliance with the Confederacy would die with him. Anguar amounted to a desirable but almost secondary target.
“Starke?”
Three jerked his attention back to the officer who stood in front of him. There was something about the legionnaire’s tone of voice, and the expression on his face, that signaled danger. The anarchist felt a tremendous need to go to the bathroom and fought to keep it in. “Sir?”
“Your voice synthesizer sounds different.”
“Yes, sir. I’m having some trouble with my radio. That could account for it.”
Booly nodded thoughtfully. “Yes, I suppose it could. But what happened to the unit decal on your right shoulder? The dent over your right knee joint? And the death’s head that Private Leiber painted on your left forearm? Where are they?”
Fisk-Three began to fire before his arm was pointed at the review stand. Dirt geysered next to Booly’s left boot as the armor-piercing bullets hit the ground, dug a trench to the curb, and sparked their way towards the bunting-draped platform. Booly reacted without thinking and was hanging from the Trooper II’s gun arm by the time the words came out of his mouth.
“Green Two to Big Dog Four . . . condition red! I repeat, condition red!”
Slozo was far too professional to question or ignore the report. The machine-gun bullets were still ricocheting off the cement and screaming through the park when the presidential motorcade pulled a U-turn and headed for the airport. Assault craft, each loaded with a platoon of legionnaires, took off from checkpoints located throughout the city, and converged over the convoy. A thousand fingers rested on a thousand triggers. One threat, one hostile move, and everything within a half-mile of the main boulevard would be destroyed.
Mosby’s combat-trained reflexes were quicker and more appropriate than the Alpha clone’s. She pushed him down and crouched over his body with side arm drawn. The functionaries, all members of three basic administrative genotypes, acted in concert. Two groups dived for cover, many screaming in fear, while the third stood as a bulwark between their leader and the crazed Trooper II.
Servos whined in protest as Booly pulled down on the exoskeleton’s gun arm. But the exoskeleton’s laser arm was unencumbered and there was no way to stop it. He yelled into his helmet-mounted boom mike. “Platoon! I am your target! Fire!”
&n
bsp; Fisk-Three felt something warm flood down his right leg as he shook the officer free and aligned both weapons on the review stand. Splinters flew, bunting sagged, and bodies were tossed into the air under the impact of his bullets. Had he hit the targets? The anarchist was trying to see when two shoulder-launched missiles, hundreds of rounds of armor-piercing ammunition, and six laser beams all converged on his position. The resulting explosion left nothing larger than an I.D. card for the investigators to find and piece together. Booly, momentarily deafened, but otherwise unhurt, lay on his back and watched contrails stretch themselves across the sky. It felt good to be alive.
Many miles away, in a café full of stunned and amazed people, all watching the ceiling-mounted monitors, a man named Fisk-Eight shook his head sadly, wiped his mouth with a cloth napkin, and got to his feet. It had been a good plan, a fine plan, but Three had fired too early. What could he have been thinking of anyway? Ah well, such is the lot of the revolutionary. Here today and gone tomorrow. Eight smiled, left a tip, and walked out the door. Sirens screamed in the distance.
Explosions are funny things, and unless carefully planned, produce unpredictable results. So, in spite of the fact that Booly was spared when the exoskeleton blew up, a woman standing a hundred yards away had been killed by a piece of flying shrapnel. He had been very, very lucky, as had Alpha Clone Marcus, General Mosby, and President Anguar, all of whom had emerged from the assassination attempt not only alive, but in some ways better off, unlikely though that might have seemed.
Which explained why Booly was dressed in his number one uniform, and waiting nervously in one of Friendship’s well-appointed corridors, while his superiors finished a meeting in Anguar’s office. The waiting was even worse than combat, and the young officer had sweated through the inner layers of his uniform by the time one of the president’s many assistants, a chubby young man named Halworthy Burton, appeared and led him inside.
The artifacts, paintings, and sculptures were little more than a blur as the legionnaire followed Burton through a scanning frame, past some heavily armed bodyguards, and into the president’s inner sanctum. Anguar, Marcus, Mosby, and some other sentients that Booly had never seen before stood as he entered, and looked at him with open curiosity. But it was the president himself who stepped forward to greet Booly. The smile had a forced quality but was reassuring nonetheless. “Lieutenant Booly . . . welcome aboard. My staff treated you well, I trust?”
What Booly had hoped would emerge as a confident baritone came out as a broken croak. “Yes, sir. Everyone has been most kind.”
“Excellent,” Anguar replied jovially. “Please allow me to introduce Alpha Clone Marcus, General Mosby, who tells me that in addition to being both resourceful and brave, you are an excellent dinner companion. Ambassador Undula represents the Sovereign Worlds of Tull . . .”
The names and titles started to blend together after a while, and Booly found himself nodding and mumbling “glad to meet you, gentle being,” over and over again. Finally, when the introductions were over, the young officer was invited to sit, which he did, with his back ramrod straight and his hands folded in his lap. The compartment was warm and he felt a little light-headed.
“So,” Anguar began, “I imagine that you’re impatient to get this over and return to your unit. That being the case, we will be as efficient as possible. We brought you here to let you know how much we appreciate your attention to duty, quick thinking, and personal bravery. Thanks to you and your platoon, we are not only alive, but better off than before. In spite of the fact that the people of Alpha-001 have no great love for the Confederacy, they do have feelings for our friend Marcus, and were quite disturbed about the attempt to assassinate him. And while we have reason to believe that his brothers may still open a second front, their efforts will be substantially weakened. On behalf of the entire Confederacy I would like to thank you. General Mosby?”
Mosby nodded, stood, and walked over to where Booly sat. He stood without being asked. The general smiled and undid his shoulder boards. “Lieutenant to captain in less than a year . . . Not bad for someone who got drunk, lost a knife fight, and received one last chance.”
Booly was still blushing from the general’s blunt, rather negative appraisal of his career, when he was ushered out and into the hall. Still, he should have been happy, the legionnaire knew that, but Starke’s death, combined with those of twelve bystanders, made that impossible.
He fingered the hard copy Burton had handed him on the way out, removed the protective tab, and pressed his right index finger against the print-sensitive dot. Words appeared out of nowhere. Algeron! He had orders for Algeron! Booly was going home.
18
Just as we are one with the ocean, and the ocean is one with the planet, the planet is one with the cosmos. In unity lies perfection.
The Say’lynt Group Mind known as “Raft One”
As dictated to Dr. Valerie Reeman
Standard year 2836
Planet Earth, the Confederacy of Sentient Beings
Dr. Cynthia Harmon was angry, an emotion that showed in the way she slammed the auto cab’s door, and stepped into traffic. She was a small woman, with a pinched face, and the body of a natural gymnast. Her clothes were casual and nearly identical to the ones back at the hotel. She squinted at a building on the far side of the street. It looked more like the warehouse it had been than headquarters for the Department of Interspecies Cooperation. Whatever that might be.
Ground cars screeched to a halt and drivers swore as Harmon stepped out into the middle of the street, pulled a much-folded piece of official-looking stationery out of her purse, and checked the address in the upper right-hand corner. This was the place, all right, the place to which she had been ordered to come, or risk losing her grant, which was the only thing that kept the undersea research facility going. All because of some bureaucratic whim. How dare they interfere with her work! Someone would pay.
Oblivious to the horns and insults that sounded all around her, Harmon crossed the street, took the stairs two at a time, and was surprised when a uniformed guard smiled, opened the armor-plated door, and said, “Good morning, Dr. Harmon. The director is expecting you.”
Harmon nodded brusquely, resolved to keep her attitude firmly in place, and realized that she didn’t have the foggiest idea of where to go next. The hallway was large enough to accommodate an auto-loader. Sun streamed down through highly placed windows and threw rectangles of light across the concrete floor. A hand touched her elbow. “Dr. Harmon? This way, please. The director is expecting you.”
The director’s assistant, if that’s what the machine was, had been painted olive drab and had a military-style bar code stenciled on its chest. Did that imply a connection with the military? The whole thing seemed stranger all the time.
Harmon followed the android down the hall and was struck by the feeling of quiet efficiency that permeated the building. It reminded her of an ancient library, or a monastery, except there were no books, and damned few humans. In fact, judging from those she saw in the hall, and in the offices to either side, most of the staff consisted of androids, cyborgs, and aliens. Some of whom wore elaborate life-support systems or sat, hung, or wallowed in specially designed environments. Just another way to waste taxpayer money, Harmon thought bitterly, while the suits strangled her research and jerked her around. Her black high-tops, standard wear on Marianna Three, squeaked against the highly polished floor.
The hall ended in front of massive double doors. They opened on their own and Harmon followed the android into a spacious waiting area. The machine indicated some mismatched but comfortable-looking chairs. “Please take a seat—”
Harmon held up a hand in protest. “I know . . . the director is expecting me.” The android nodded expressionlessly and withdrew.
The doctor considered her alternatives, chose the chair with the least padding, and planned her strategy. She would husband her anger at first, allowing it to build while the no-doubt-idioti
c director prattled on, and then, just when he or she was least expecting it, Harmon would jump in, rip the worthless bureaucrat to shreds, reduce the shreds to a quivering mass of jelly, and return to her habitat, grant intact. It had worked before and would work again. “Dr. Harmon? The director will see you now.”
Harmon stood and followed the robot into a small antechamber, and from there into a large, rather spartan office, dominated by the same wooden desk that had served the warehouse manager eons before. Her host was younger than she had expected, good looking if you liked that sort of thing, and somewhat wooden. He rose to greet her. “Dr. Harmon! How good of you to come! You had a pleasant journey, I trust?”
Harmon shook the man’s hand. It was firm and dry. “The plane didn’t crash, if that’s what you mean.”
The man laughed. “You’re everything they said you’d be. Please have a seat.”
Harmon eyed the director suspiciously. “And you are?”
The man shook his head as if disappointed in himself.
“I’m sorry . . . where are my manners? My name is Sergi Chien-Chu. I’m the director of the Department of Interspecies Cooperation.”
Harmon felt her mouth drop open. “The Sergi Chien-Chu? The one everyone thought was dead?”
“One and the same,” Chien-Chu agreed cheerfully. “And I’d still be dead if wasn’t for the blasted Hudathans.” His plastiskin face turned grim. “We must stop them. And soon.”
Legion Of The Damned - 02 - The Final Battle Page 21
