Devil's Hand

by Jack McKinney

  Lisa sat on the edge of the bed. “I think it’s something you should hear,”

  Rick put the disc aside and stared at her a moment. “You’re still angry.”

  “I want to know what you intend to do, Rick.”

  He looked away, down at his bandaged arm. “I’m going to meet with the Council tomorrow.”

  Lisa couldn’t believe what she was hearing, but managed to keep her voice even and controlled. “You’re making a big mistake, Rick. Can I talk you out of it?”

  He reached for her hand and met her gaze. “No, babe. I know where I belong. I just want you to respect my decision.”

  She let go of his hand and stood up. “It’s not a matter of respect, Rick. Can’t you understand that you’ve picked the worst possible moment to resign? Who else has your experience? This ship is as much yours as anyone’s, and Lang is going to need you to supervise the recon-”

  “I don’t want to hear it.”

  Lisa huffed at him. “Edwards will be taking over. Doesn’t that mean anything to you?” Lisa paced away from the bed and whirled around. “You haven’t heard the latest, have you?”

  “And I don’t want to. I’m a pilot.”

  “You’re a disappointment,” she said as she left the room.

  On another level of the fortress, Jean Grant was crying in her husband’s arms; Vince, in his usual fashion, was trying to be strong about it, but there were tears in his eyes. They had just shuttled up from the GMU, their first time offworld in days, and fatigue and intensity finally had had a chance to catch up with them. Perhaps in a last-ditch effort to escape this moment, Jean had tried to run off to sick bay to assist the med teams, but Vince had restrained her. Max and Miriya were present in the couple’s spacious cabin.

  Max handed them both a drink. “Medicine for melancholy,” he said, forcing a smile.

  Max, too, wore his share of bandages under his uniform; there had been more than the usual complement of close calls, at least one of which could be traced to his protective attitude toward Rick. Max had suffered some minor burns because of it, but Rick had nearly gotten himself killed. That he saved Rick’s life was all that mattered-a secret only he and Miriya shared.

  Jean thanked him for the drink and wiped her cheeks with the palms of her hands. “What are we going to do?” she put to all of them.

  “We’re going to pitch in and make it happen,” Vince said, knocking back the drink in one gulp. “It can’t take forever to get the generators back in shape.”

  Max and Miriya traded looks. “Five years,” she said.

  Jean gasped. “Miriya, no!”

  “That’s just Lang’s first estimate,” Max added hurriedly, trying to be helpful. “And I’m sure he’s playing it well on the safe side.”

  “But five years, Max…The kids…”

  Vince put a massive arm around his wife’s trembling shoulders and quieted her. “They’re both better off where they are.”

  “With war on the way?” Jean’s face flushed with anger. “Don’t patronize me, any of you!”

  Distraught, she sighed and apologized.

  Miriya said, “Even if it takes five years we’ll reach Earth ahead of the Masters. They abandoned Tirol ten years ago, and Cabell’s guess is that it will take them another ten.”

  “Estimates,” Jean said. “Is that how we’ll explain it to Bowie and Dana-that we guessed wrong in thinking the Masters would be here?”

  No one had an answer for her.

  “So this is all that remains of Tirol’s children.”

  Arms akimbo, Breetai drew himself up to his full Micronized height and made a disappointed sound. All around him Tiresia’s humanoid citizenry-the weak and aged fringe who had taken to Tirol’s wastes during the Great Transition-were being cared for by med-staff personnel from the GMU, which had been moved from its LZ to an area near the center of the ruined city. Elsewhere, Destroids and Hovertanks patrolled the streets, continuing their search-and-sweep and cordoning off restricted areas, including the Royal Hall’s vast circular plaza.

  Exedore, who had shuttled down to the surface with members of Lang’s Robotech team, heard the anger and frustration in Breetai’s words. And he knew that Breetai spoke for all the Zentraedi under his command.

  “You would no doubt have preferred a face-to-face encounter with the Masters, Commander.”

  “I won’t deny it.” He looked down at his companion. “I feel…what is the word, Exedore?”

  “Cheated, my lord.”

  Breetai inclined his head knowingly. “Yes. Although…”

  Exedore raised an eyebrow.

  “…on some level, we failed.”

  To recapture Zor’s ship and return the matrix, Exedore completed. It was the Imperative reasserting its hold, the Masters’ cruel imprint. He was tempted to point out that the matrix would only have made it as far as Dolza’s hands in any case. But what was the use of contradicting Breetai? Besides, Exedore had more pressing concerns on his mind.

  “Commander,” he said at last, “have you arrived at a decision yet?”

  Breetai grunted. “You have become quite the diplomat, Exedore.” He turned to regard Fantoma’s sinister crescent in the skies behind him, thinking, Zarkopolis, where my real past lies buried. To be returned there after so much space and time…

  “We will comply with Lang’s request.”

  Exedore smiled. An even older imperative. “It was meant to be,” he said, eyes fixed on the living remnants of the Masters’ fallen empire.

  T. R. Edwards studied his reflection, leaning in toward the mirror in his quarters, fingertips playing across the raised and jagged devastation of his face. The scars could easily have been erased by microsurgical techniques, but a cosmetic solution was the last thing Edwards desired. In their raw ugliness, they were a constant reminder of the deep-seated injuries spread through the rest of his body and soul-areas no laser scalpel could reach or transform.

  He was feverish, and had been so since the incidents in the Royal Hall; it was almost as if his brief contact with the Invid brain had stirred something within him. Beneath the fever’s physical haze his thinking was lighting-quick and inspired; his goal was clear, and the path to it well-marked. He realized now that he had been guilty of a kind of reductionist approach to both purpose and destiny. He had convinced himself that Earth was the star-a Ptolemaic sin-when actually the planet was little more than a supporting player in a much grander drama. But he was finally beginning to understand that there were worlds for the taking!

  He rationalized his failures, however, blaming fate for having kept him Earthbound while the SDF-1 had spent two years of cosmic journeying.

  Let Zand and Moran and Leonard play their little games on Earth. Edwards laughed to himself. And let the Masters arrive to soften things up. In the meantime he would construct the fleet to conquer all of them! It was going to require a good deal of manipulation to wrest the Council from Hunter and Lang’s control, but he suddenly felt more than up to the task. Perhaps if Hunter could be fooled into setting off on some secondary mission…

  Edwards savored the thought. Lang would be preoccupied with overseeing the mining project, Reinhardt was no problem, and the Zentraedi would be offworld. That still left Max Sterling and that troublemaker Wolff, but how difficult could it be to undermine them?

  Edwards struck a gleeful, triumphant pose in front of the mirror. “No more demolished man,” he said to his reflection. “Let the games begin.”

  A week went by, then another, and still there was no sign of the Invid. The high command began to wonder if the battle for Tirol hadn’t been won after all. With the Masters gone and no trace of the Flowers of Life, the Invid had little use for the world; so perhaps they had simply disregarded it. Cabell spoke of other planets the Invid were thought to occupy-worlds that had been seeded by Zor. Surely those constituted more than enough to satisfy them; and moreover, what quarrel could they possibly have with Earth at this stage of the game?

 
With all this in mind, a gradual transfer of personnel, stores, and equipment to the surface of Tirol had commenced. Refortified, Tiresia would serve as the RDF’s tactical and logistical headquarters. The SDF-3, with a substantially reduced crew and half the VT

  squadrons, was to remain in stationary orbit, protecting both the moon and the soon-to-be-operative mining colony on Fantoma.

  Hope and optimism began to find their way back into the mission once everyone accepted the conditions of the extended stay, and it was only a matter of time before a certain celebratory air took hold. Terrans and Tiresians worked side-by-side clearing away the horrors of the recent past, and the city seemed to. rejuvenate. Both sides had known death and suffering at the same alien hands, so there was already a bond of sorts. The Council, hoping to enlarge in this and at the same time take advantage of Earth’s New Year’s Day, finally scheduled a holiday.

  A rousing set from Minmei and Janice accompanied by their newly-formed backup band kicked things off. The superstar of the SDF-1 performed with an enthusiasm she hadn’t demonstrated in years, and dug into everyone’s collective past to blow the dust off songs like “We Can Win” and “Stagefright,” classics for most of the crowd, nostalgia for some.

  After the set she danced the night away with heroes and rear-echelon execs, but spent most of that time in the embrace of Jonathan Wolff. No one was surprised when the two of ‘them disappeared together halfway through the festivities.

  Nor was Dr. Lang surprised to see that his AI creation had zeroed in on Rem, whom Lang, despite Cabell’s claims to the contrary, seemed desperate to accept as Zor incarnate. He had been meaning to urge Janice to move in just that direction-for who knew what secrets Rem and Cabell might be hiding?-but Lang’s personal encoding of the android had made that unnecessary: Janice was as attracted to Zor’s likeness as Lang was. Cabell, unaware of Janice’s laboratory origins, seemed positively delighted by the fact that she and Rem had coupled off; round midnight he was even out on the dance floor executing a Tiresian clogging step that looked to some like an old Geppetto jig straight out of Pinocchio.

  Elsewhere in the crowd, Jack Baker and Karen Penn were talking; when Vince Grant had rescinded the order that had kept them both confined to quarters, Karen had reversed her own decision never to speak to Jack again.

  “Come on, Karen-just one dance,” Jack was saying, tailing her as she threaded her way across the floor. “One dance is gonna kill ya?”

  Karen stopped short and whirled on him; he brought his hands up expecting a spin kick, and she began to laugh. “I’m talking to you, Jack-isn’t that enough?”

  “Well, no, dammit, it’s not enough.” Karen was back in motion again. Jack ignored a bit of razzing from friends and set out after her.

  “All right,” she said, finally. “But just one.” She held up a finger.

  “My choice?”

  “Anything you want. Let’s just get it over with.”

  He waited until the band played a long, slow number.

  “You gotta admit,” he said, holding her, “it was a good ride while it lasted.”

  She held him at arm’s length for a moment, then smiled.

  “The best…”

  Not everyone was dancing, however. Or smiling. Years later, in fact, some would say that the “New Year’s” celebration showed just how factionalized the Expeditionary mission had become in less than a month out of Earthspace. At the center sat Lang, Exedore, and the Council, joined now by Tirol’s unofficial representative, Cabell; while the fringe played host to two discreet groups, Edwards’s surly Ghost Riders, and Breetai’s Zentraedi, on what would be one of their last nights as Micronized warriors. And separate from any of these groups were certain RDF teams, the Skull Squadron, the Wolff Pack, Grant’s GMU

  contingent.

  Rick Hunter, recovered from his wounds, seemed to occupy a middle ground he and Lisa had staked out for themselves. They had been trying hard to make some sense of their dilemma, slowly, sometimes painfully. But at least they were lovers again, back on the honeymoon trail, and confident that things would work themselves out. The Council had yet to rule on Rick’s request, and for the time being the topic was shelved.

  “Home, sweet home,” Rick was telling Lisa. He put his arm around her and motioned with his chin to Tirol’s starstudded sky. “We’ll have to draw up a new set of constellations.”

  Lisa rested her head on his shoulder.

  “Which way’s Earth?”

  Lisa pointed. “There-our entire local group.”

  Rick was silent a moment. “Whaddaya say we dance, Mrs. Hunter?”

  “Thought you’d never ask.”

  They walked hand-in-hand toward the center of the floor, and were just into their first step when the music came to an abrupt stop. Murmurs swept through the crowd and everyone turned to the stage. Dr. Lang was at a mike stand, apologizing for the interruption.

  “Listen to me, everyone,” he was saying. “We have just received a dispatch from the SDF-3. An unidentified ship has just entered the Valivarre system. It is decelerating and on a probable course for Tirol. General Reinhardt has put the fortress on high alert, and suggests that we do the same. Skull and Ghost Squadrons are ordered to report to the shuttle-launch facilities at once. CD personnel are to report to their unit commanders immediately. Admiral Hayes and Admiral Hunter-”

  “Lisa, come on,” Rick shouted, tugging at her arm.

  She resisted, hoping she would wake from this, so they could continue their dance.

  “Come on!” Rick was repeating…

  The war had come between them again!