The Hate Parallax

by Allan Cole

  At her look of confusion, Billy realized what he’d done and switched to English. As a half-breed child he’d spent many secret hours studying all things American. Especially the language, which he was much better at than his teachers realized.

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “I didn’t mean to bother you.” He pointed at the spread out cards. “The seven of spades can go on the eight of hearts.”

  The woman looked down. “So it can,” she said, surprised.

  She played it and the numerical barrier fell away. A moment later she’d won and she looked up with a smile so bright Billy lost his heart.

  “Thank you very much, my young friend,” she said. Although Billy didn’t know it, she had a slight Spanish accent. “You are very observant, yes?”

  Billy shrugged. “I like to play cards,” he mumbled.

  The woman laughed, thrilling him. “We must not warn the casinos,” she said, “that a gambling man approaches and they are in much danger.”

  The boy blushed. “I’m too young to gamble,” he protested. And then he hated himself for making such an admission.

  The woman put out her hand. “My name is Lupe,” she said. “Lupe Morales.” Then she laughed, blushing. “I mean, Lupe Morris. Forgive me, I haven’t been married long enough to become accustomed to my husband’s name.”

  Billy felt an odd pang at the announcement that she was married. Then he felt stupid. What could it matter? He was only a boy. For the first time he truly hated his age.

  But he bravely took the woman’s hand, saying, “I’m Billy Ivanov.”

  Lupe’s dark brows rose, but the smile remained. “Russian?” she said. She squeezed his hand, sending an electric thrill through his body. “I’ve never met a Russian before. And your English is so good!”

  Billy despaired as she let his hand go.

  “I’m only part Russian,” he said. “The other part’s American. Just like you.” In the past this had been his greatest shame— now he was immensely proud.

  “I’m pleased to meet you, Billy Part American Ivanov,” Lupe said, shaking his hand again. Then she gestured at the game table. “Would you like to play?”

  Would he! Billy instantly took up a seat on the other side. In a moment they were both engrossed in a game of hearts. Hours passed. Lupe proved to be an excellent player and Billy had to be careful she didn’t catch on when he politely let her win.

  For reasons he didn’t fully understand, Billy always knew what cards his opponent held. He had other small talents, like sensing when someone was near and being able to find lost objects with ease. Although he didn’t know it, Billy was a budding mage.

  It hadn’t been noticed yet, thanks to his status as a half-breed. Both of the two super power federations— America and Russia— had intensive programs and tests to discover mages and wizards at an early age.

  Mages were rare. Wizards, who were much more powerful, were rarer still. And it was wizards and mages who made the Galaxy livable for mortals— commanding the demons and their minions to do their bidding. Combining magic with human ingenuity and technology to make starships for space, weapons for war, computers for science and business and even quick cookers for household kitchens.

  But for Billy, all that was in the future— if he was to have a future, that is.

  He stirred in his sleep, dreaming of Lupe. They played cards like they had that first time. He let her win and she rewarded him with a kiss, soft and sweet. Billy sighed, pulling the blankets tighter.

  In his dream Joe Morris didn’t rudely interrupt his wife and insist it was late and he wanted to go to bed. He didn’t leer at Lupe, or put a possessive hand on her round haunch when she left with him.

  And he didn’t turn and fix Billy with those flat Amer eyes and say, “Night kid.”

  No, none of those things happened in Billy’s dream. Instead Billy was tall and muscular and by God, significant!

  And Lupe kissed him and purred his name in that funny way she had, making it two names instead of one: “Bil-ly. Bil-ly.”

  Just like that.

  * * *

  Old Scratch was satisfied. All was well.

  His latest spell whirled in the very depths of the Continuum and the plasma spurs rushed from the ship’s jet spiracles as if from the nostrils of Leviathan himself.

  He allowed himself a little break.

  And then…

  What?

  Had something passed by… just at the edge of his magical sight? A faint tremble, a slight shiver, had seemed to run through the still bones of the ship. One swift second… and then all was gone.

  Old Scratch sighed. Too many e-days in Uttermost Space. Too many spells, too much growling and grousing and drilling of his crew. Rest— that’s what he needed most of all.

  Then:

  Oh! Again that feeling of something just beyond his sight.

  Scratch shook his scaly head. Must be that damned Tob. That damned good for nothing Control Brownie!

  It was Tob’s task to monitor the upper-port PlasmaFeeder but the lazy Brownie was seldom to be found working in its hot jaws. Yet when it came to Really Hot Stories, Tob was an eager champion.

  Old Scratch suspected the miserable Brownie had cast a snooperspell on some of the honeymoon suites and was selling his dirty recordings to the dim-witted Goblins.

  Scratch didn’t blame the Goblins. He felt sorry for them. Their work was the hardest, the dirtiest and the lowest paid. But as for that damned Brownie…

  “Tob!” Old Scratch roared. “May the angels and elves roast you to devildust! What are you doing, sneaking around in there?”

  There was no answer.

  “Tob!”

  His Ruling Spell roamed through the ship. An extremely powerful one, filled with real wrath.

  Finally, “Yes, Master Scratch!”

  A frightened Tob wisped up from the burning throat of the PlasmaFeeder.

  “Report!”

  “Parameters all normal, Master Scratch. Generating spirits— density twelve megaGhosts per one magic …”

  “Never mind,” Scratch commanded, cutting Tob off.

  And he thought: oddity of all oddities, Tob really was at his proper post. So the disturbance couldn’t have been caused by him.

  His big devil shoulders sagged and he breathed a long sigh, thinking, Old Scratchy, you’re just too tired. You need rest, my fiendish one. Rest.

  He’d have to be careful. He couldn’t let some tyrant of a Supervisor Enchanter know that he, Old Scratch, firm and solid as stone, who never failed to bring a starship to port, suffered from halluces.

  Well, so be it.

  Nothing had happened. Remember that, Scratchy. Nothing in general or even in particular had happened.

  Back to work.

  Spell, spell, spells. Casting, whirling, cutting The Way Through. Another spell. Taking the Brownies’ reports. Goblin crew hard at it— keeping the plasma hot for the jet-spirits.

  Old Scratch’s fiendish team was doing its best, but the cold threat persevered.

  There— deep, deep in Scratch’s memory.

  The Void stretching endlessly before the starship was common Uttermost Space, with ruinous streams of many PowerRivers, cold and hot magic torrents, invisible for softskins except for their most powerful Mages.

  And then:

  It was like a short spasm of pain. Pain running through the ship from rib to rib, from strut to strut.

  Dreadful vibrations touched the StarEngine’s external circuits. Small, frightened fiends rushed about in blind panic.

  The vibration shuddered off the ship’s skeleton, stippling the very fabric of space like sand raining on the surface of a still pool.

  The disturbance rippled out, stirring the deep Spacefolds where swift scout ships waited, listening, listening. Their tensed antennae bristled in reaction.

  Then, before Old Scratch could overmaster his crew, coded signals beamed out.

  CHAPTER THREE

  The alarm howled at a most inconven
ient time.

  Katya’s uniform skirt was coming up, up, up. And the handsome young Russian officer’s trousers were coming down, down, down.

  “Damn!” she said.

  Not only passion but all her hopes for the future clung to that delicious moment before the alarm sounded. The answer to Katya’s dreams was a tall officer with sun-kissed hair and even sunnier prospects.

  His name was Igor Dolgov and on his cheek was a dashing combat token— a small, but deep purple scar that whitened when he became upset. And just now as the alarm resounded through the space fortress Borodino Katya saw that scar become as white as the driven snow.

  Igor’s high forehead suddenly glistened with sweat.

  “Damn!” she said again.

  Katya, assigned to the headquarters’ cryptographic team, was a common Frontier Girl. Small, slender, yet her figure was somehow lush. Built for the boat ride, as they say. But all that promise of smooth sailing over gentle swells was being forgotten as that damned alarm hammered away and Igor’s scar got whiter and whiter.

  Disappointment shone in Katya’s big dark eyes. She was thinking, this young busybody seems to be the only one on the whole base thin-witted enough to marry a girl so common. He’s my passage off this dismal place.

  She’d be swept away to the glamorous life of an officer’s wife back in New Russia. With a thick Frontier Officer’s spousal credit of LT’s to nourish her. Dim as Igor was, he was from a good family and destined for promotion.

  And if only Katya could latch on it would be the end of the squalid existence she faced in the poor neighborhoods of her home planet.

  Her heart and hopes sank as Igor moved away, clutching at his trousers.

  “I’ll be damned!” Igor exclaimed. “What’s going on? False alarm? A training exercise?”

  Katya knew she’d been defeated. But she was game and tried to make that defeat temporary.

  “It’s all right, Igor, honey,” she said, standing on her tiptoes to kiss him. “Never mind. Next time…”

  Igor complained, “Those upper echelon arse kissers will never allow us to…”

  His voice trailed off and he shook his head at the unfairness of it all.

  Then he made a small shrug of apology to Katya, fastened his uniform and pushed open the door of the tiny chamber they’d chosen for their love nest— hidden amongst all the machinery that littered the Borodino’s powerplant level.

  “What’s worse,” he said, “it’s my turn in the chair!”

  By this he meant he had the shooting officer’s duty watch. When the alarm sounded he was the officer in control of all warsystems on the great space station, with hundreds of men and hundreds of thousands of fiendish creatures waiting to be unleashed at his command.

  As he stepped out of the chamber and looked back at Katya, who was adjusting her clothes, he thought, The poor little fool. Is she serious? To consider me such a dolt as to marry her? It’s just a little fun I want. But she— she…

  The corridors of the Borodino were suddenly filled with tramping. The boomgrates bellowed, “All hands on deck!”

  Igor angrily brushed away all thoughts about Katya. Let the Engine Devils get her! They were crazy about that kind of thing, it was said.

  And he rushed on, weaving his way through the throngs to the command center.

  * * *

  It was a wide hall with shields built of the very best armored alloy.

  Good plas-metal was accompanied with good spells— eleven mages not less then fifth class and three real Wizards.

  Igor took courage from all that strength as he glanced about the command center, moving at a controlled fast walk for his seat. Then he looked up at his problem on the huge vidwall and cursed.

  The damned Amers were close, way too close! And suddenly the chamber’s armored shielding felt very, very thin.

  A huge anatomic chair snatch up his body like a predator. He found himself praying as the heavy bars locked him in place with a clang like prison gates slamming closed. A combat helmet lowered from above, covering his entire head.

  Inside, the helmet’s display flashed red and blue. White lines shot across and through it.

  Igor saw instantly what was happening:

  Yeah, coded transmission. On a secret pulse wave, changing its length and frequency each second. Hiding precious information in waves of white noise. He searched, searched, then—

  That’s it!

  And he had it by the guts.

  Igor may not have been very bright— he only thought he saw through Katya and in the end he would happily succumb— but he was a genius in the chair.

  He feared the device, but once in the chair’s clasp he became part of it. Igor was at the top of his class in the training exercises. He played the warboard like a grand musical instrument. Fingers flashing, throat-miked commands singing the song of death.

  Deep in the weapons room hundreds of fiendish inhabitants stirred, obeying his orders.

  Mentos— mental exchange— is much faster than words or fingers. And so that was what Carvaserin, the human Wizard-In-Chief, used when he received Igor’s commands and roused his hordes.

  He’d trained his magical crew well and in no time at all his fiendish scouts received their orders.

  * * *

  “Uruumph!” belched Chyvaist, the tiny DeathSpirit. He was curled in several smoke rings and he floated up from them to the ready-to-shoot missile. “Hey, guys,” he cried, “it’s time for a feast! Target in range!”

  “Will somebody shut him up!” growled Homula, the great Daughter of Death.

  Homula, mother and feeder of the forever hungry DeathSpirits rose from the far corner like an immense black cloud, shapeless and faceless.

  She took charge, gulped down the ready time and saw she had five seconds before launch— more than enough time to talk, to consider.

  “Maybe we’d better check this further,” she cautioned.

  Chyvaist turned the color of old blood. “What’s to check?” he said. “We’ve got our orders. If we wait… and I’m caught out… then boom! A big damned boom!”

  In the curling wheels of red smoke that formed him there appeared something like an odd, crumbled up and quite evil face. Chyvaist was only an old DeathSpirit, that’s all. Waiting out his final moments.

  “Let ’em be roasted!” spat Khinvaist, another battle spirit.

  None of the supernatural recruits on board the` Russian space fortress cared a bit about the possible massacre of their fiendish kin powering the enemy ship. Those who die are weak and must die, was their motto.

  This was one of the cruel, circular laws of the Fiendish World. Some theorized their natural cruelty was the secret of the ancient victories of human wizards over the powerful but primitive Demons and Devils and their lesser kin.

  Others dismissed this explanation, hinting darkly of a mysterious cabal, that might, or might not be human. But none of these conspiracy theorists ever spoke openly about their ideas.

  Within the spheres of influence of both super powers, it was well understood by all that it was best not to discuss such things.

  Homula considered her options and gave a long sigh. “Good luck,” she said.

  Like a mother, she feared each battleraid. She fed her crew, cared for them, and she knew each launch might be their last.

  And she worried, What if those damned shatatniks had a powerful Wizard aboard?

  “Well, time to go.” This from a column of red smoke that entered the rocket warhead.

  Another puff of smoke— “Okay, boss, I’m ready!”

  “Good hits,” growled Chyvaist, entering the Fiendish Circle— the engagement of all battle spirits’ minds. This allowed ghosts and other magical creatures to see what was happening on the battlefield.

  Homula whirled the dark veils of her bodysmoke and joined the party.

  * * *

  The Fiendish Circle transmitted the image from the missile warhead to the central post monitors.

  Igor
once again requested information from the database.

  And then, and then…

  * * *

  “Wah! To work, to work you miserable horde!” boomed an old bearded dwarf.

  He was crouched in the middle of the optics drive inside the base’s big main supercomputer.

  “Well, well, what are you doing? Don’t do that!” This was for Jungde the HellBat, the message bearer and executioner.

  Although both dwarves and Jungde were rather small (the HellBat, for instance, was no more than a fingertip in height), the passions burning there were intense.

  “How dare you tell me what to do?” shrieked the HellBat.

  A long whip snaked in the air.

  “Information request! Codes accessed! Read, you fiends, read! Or I’ll crack your thick skulls and tear your beards to pieces!”

  Mighty spells cut in, accelerating the timeflow.

  What seemed like long minutes for the team of OpticsDiskDrive Dwarves was nanoseconds for Igor, who’d just miked the command.

  With many curses and much blame-heaping the great force of ODD dwarves rushed to their places. The huge disk began to rotate. Sitting above it in special cradles, dwarves began to spellread the stored information. Another team was busy rotating the drive.

  “Well, well,” the HellBat said. It seemed pleased and its hideous face reflected a shadow of a smile. “So be it. Continue working!”

  * * *

  That’s it!

  For Igor there was no mistaking the electronic signature— it was American military code, no doubt about it. You could kiss his ass and call it Father Lenin if it wasn’t so.

  Woolly-headed Yank bastards, how dare they even think of it? They’d disguised a Class A destroyer, bristling with the latest weapons, as an elderly civilian cruise liner.

  And from all the red alert signals on his visor those weapons were moments from firing on the Borodino.

  Igor took it even more personally than that. They were about to fire on him!

  The response was clear. Strike first! To do otherwise risked certain destruction— or a firing squad if you survived long enough to face a court martial.