The Cosmic City

by Brian K. Lowe

  Tofan Res shot Vanu’A a look, and for a moment she returned him a gratifyingly panicked expression before gathering her control. Score one more point for my primitive and unreadable brain structure.

  “You see, it all goes back to the attack on the Chronologic Institute. We thought someone was trying to kidnap Dr. Wilner, and we were right. You wanted him to help you with your researches. It would have worked, too, had we not interfered.”

  “Why would I want Wilner? He’s a political plant. He doesn’t know any more about time travel than Vanu’A does.” He smoothed his last comment with a nod to her.

  “We will get to that later, I promise. But for now, yes, Dr. Wilner is doubtless a hack compared to you, but he is director of the Institute and the most likely candidate to help you.”

  Tofan Res snorted. “Help me to do what?”

  “To repair the damage your experiments had done to the space-time continuum,” I announced. “You knew of the danger long before you ever met me, let alone when you heard it from the Librarian.”

  He slumped back in his chair, all the breath going out of his body at once. For a few seconds, he looked quite old, as if he had aged half a century in the space of a few heartbeats.

  “Damn you,” he whispered, and slowly shook his head. “What goes on in that prehistoric brain of yours?”

  “Ironically, Captain Lobok saved us. That was before you and he and Farren joined forces. He had always been Farren’s man, but he had to do his duty as an officer in order to keep his position, so he brought his men to the Institute as ordered and reinforced us.” I paused to recollect. “Of course, being Farren’s man, he did his best to get me killed, and that was how your men captured me. I escaped, no thanks to Farren, but I had brought the Library to the Procyon, and that’s when you heard about it—through her.” I pointed at Vanu’A.

  “I saw Vanu’A on the ship that day. You had sent her down via the matter transporter to try to locate Dr. Wilner, but before she could reach him I saw her, and scared her off. She did not come away empty-handed, however. Not only did she learn of the existence of my branch library, but also of Lobok’s plans in regard to Farren. I imagine once she reported back to you, it was easy for her to establish contact with them and set up your alliance. You had a ready-made army, Lobok had the Procyon, and Farren had Lobok. My only question was how you managed to do it so quickly.”

  “It took me several days to work out the details,” the doctor responded dully. “Then I used the time machine to send a message to Farren and Lobok right after you boarded the Procyon.”

  By now even Maire was watching me with open awe. I would have liked to have had time to enjoy it.

  “Ah, of course. Sometimes the most obvious answer is the hardest to see. So you persuaded Lobok to turn me over to you once I found your time machine. Since Farren wanted nothing more than to get rid of us both, this was a golden opportunity. Making Maire disappear was dangerous, buy this way, there would be no trace of us at all that could lead to him. But all of you miscalculated. Lobok and Farren thought you meant to strand Maire and me in another time—and you thought I would bring the Library with me, since under normal circumstances I would never let it out of my possession.

  “Once you realized I had left it on the ship, being repaired, you had to come up with a way to retrieve it and to make me make it available to you. So you pretended not to believe my story about time fractures to make me more desperate, and you played just out enough line to hook me before you reeled it in. I have to say, doctor, you are very good. I thought I had fooled you, but in reality you had me fooled.”

  I allowed the ensuing silence to grow before I broke it. “The only question remaining is…” I turned to Maire. “What did you really promise him to make him bring me back?”

  “I promised him,” she replied in a cold, lifeless tone, “that I would go before the Council of Nobles and demand that they abdicate and allow him to assume the presidency of Thora.”

  Chapter 47

  Return to the Center of the Earth

  Now I knew how Tofan Res felt when I unraveled his entire scheme in front of his eyes. I was having a hard time focusing my thoughts; I felt unmoored from myself. Had Maire actually volunteered to betray her entire race for me?

  “No, you did not. Tell me you did not. You lied to Tofan Res so he would bring me back… And now I am back. Tell him you were lying.”

  Maire shook her head, causing the tears streaking her cheeks to meander back and forth.

  “I couldn’t lie, Keryl. Vanu’A would have known. I made a vow, and I will keep it.” She took my face in her hands. “I would do anything for you. Please say you don’t hate me.”

  Hate her? I only hated myself, because deep inside I knew I was glad she had done what she had done; it was the only way we could be together. What would I have done in her place? Would I have betrayed my oaths, my people? It was too easy to say that I would not. I gathered her into my arms and held her as she wept.

  “I have a remote activation device here,” Tofan Res reminded us, holding up his hand to show the controls strapped to his wrist. “It is telepathically operated and will only respond to commands from Vanu’A or myself.”

  This was no news to Maire or me, since it was being repeated for the fourth time. Tofan Res was taking no chances with our obedience once we returned to Earth, although since we still had no idea where we were going, such precautions seemed overblown.

  “I should warn you, also, that we are going to appear in the middle of my headquarters. It is possible Farren will be in the room.”

  Maire let loose a wordless outcry and I stared at him.

  “When were you planning to tell us?” I demanded.

  “I don’t see the problem,” he said primly. “You’ve both offered to kill him. This could be your chance.”

  “The problem is that Farren has also tried to kill us. You made half of his army disappear. One way or another, he is expecting us. Farren’s M.O. is to drop everything and run at the first sign of trouble. If he is still in your headquarters, it can only be because he has something planned for us, and now you want to drop right in the middle of it!”

  “Doctor, can’t you land us somewhere else? Somewhere nearby?”

  “No, my lady. My transporting device is pre-programmed to that spot. I couldn’t re-program it without researching the area first to find a safe place to reappear.”

  If he was being deceptive, I could not sense it, but his shields were very strong right now. I would be willing to bet that he wanted us to re-emerge right in front of Farren, so one of us would have to kill him. No matter how he might paint the picture, Tofan Res’s scheme had gotten well away from him and he was desperate to regain control. Be that as it may, there was no help for it.

  We were armed for a fight, in any event. Maire, Vanu’A, and I all carried the Thoran rifles that the doctor’s guards used, and I had the pistol I had brought back from the 20th century in one pocket. It was a Colt .38 Special, not as powerful as the Webley I had carried when I originally came to this era, but I found the loud bang of an ancient lead-thrower was sufficiently distracting to my modern enemies to overcome its lesser stopping power. There was also the advantage that, like my old friend Bantos Han, many people did not even recognize a pistol as a weapon. Finishing our ensembles, Maire and I both wore the Nuum staff-weapon.

  “If Farren has run away,” I said in a weak attempt at humor, “I am going to be inclined to feel rather overdressed.”

  I caught the look on Maire’s face. She did not believe it either.

  At the last second, I thought to ask Tofan Res how, if he needed to be sure our landing area was safe, he could be certain no one was standing in that exact spot right now? when he activated the device and we departed the Moon at the speed of light.

  “Welcome to Utopia!” the doctor announced—and seldom has any pronouncement been so premature, or so blatantly wrong.

  We were standing inside a glass-walled area sev
eral yards across, evidently dedicated to just this purpose. The glass served another function, however, in that it made it easy to see that Farren had not only not vacated the premises, he had prepared us a special welcome.

  “Does anyone happen to know how thick this glass is?”

  Chapter 48

  Fish in a Barrel

  If Tofan Res knew, he must have thought that the information would do us no good, because he did not respond. It was a hollow question in any event, since the glass partition surrounding us was not a solid wall, but a set of thick panes with space in between to allow egress. The four zomon Farren had set against us were not intelligent, but they knew enough to place themselves opposite these openings. And all of them were pointing weapons at us.

  “Zomon?” Maire asked. “Where the hell did he get more zomon?”

  “I have friends,” Farren said, materializing before us with such suddenness that he was obviously merely a holographic projection. Even so, something about his appearance was odd, but I could not put a finger on it. “Very special friends, who can get me anything I want on short notice.”

  “I can give you something on short notice,” Maire promised, leveling her rifle. The zomon focused on her immediately, and she lowered her weapon with a scowl.

  “You should come out of there. You look silly standing around like that. If I give the word, they’ll shoot you anyway, and that glass won’t stop them.”

  “Aren’t you supposed to be taller?” Maire asked, ignoring his advice. “Something wrong with your holo-projector?”

  Farren smiled in a way that had always made me think of a rat. “There’s nothing wrong with the projector. I just thought it would be more convenient if my Thorans thought they were taking orders from another Thoran. They have a rather jaundiced view of the Nuum.”

  “Your Thorans? They’re my Thorans!”

  “Ah, Doctor Res, we meet at last.” Farren cast his glance on Vanu’A and let it linger for a good long time. “And this must be the telepath. I admit, the reports I had did you justice, but I rather disbelieved them. I’m glad I took the warnings about your telepathy more seriously, since if it’s as good as you look, I could be in great trouble otherwise.”

  “That explains the hologram,” Vanu’A said to me. “He’s hidden somewhere, probably shielded. We can communicate with him, but anything more than that is impossible unless I know where he is.”

  It also explains the zomon, I thought. Hideously strong, frightening tenacious, and possessing little intellect, Vanu’A would be hard-pressed to prevail upon them with any of her skills.

  Tofan Res was not to be derailed. “What did you mean when you called them your Thorans? They answer to me. I’ve been making visits down here every twenty years so as to monitor their progress. They know me.”

  “Yes, they did.” Farren sighed theatrically. “But tragically, after you died, I was sent to take your place.”

  The chill that ran down my spine could not have compared with that which Tofan Res felt. Vanu’A moved to a place between him and the nearest zomon. I failed to see what difference it would make, since Farren was bound and determined to kill all of us. Although… Farren was a man of excessive appetites. He might well make some attempt to save Vanu’A for himself if he thought he could muzzle her telepathy.

  If we survived the next few minutes, there might be an opening there.

  “I’m afraid, Maire, that it’s getting late, and I have places to go. Would you do me the favor of ordering your friends to put down their weapons so we can move on?”

  Maire asked him if he would do her the favor of dying via a most improbable anatomical contortion.

  Farren was a Nuum lord, and unused to being insulted even by one of his peers, particularly in front of “lesser” races like Thorans. He motioned, and the zomon put their rifles against their shoulders.

  “I’ll not ask again. I have some friends of yours downstairs who would like to see you, and I was planning to send you all off together, but it’s not necessary.” He glanced away as if to check on something in the room with him that we could not see. “And time is getting away.”

  As one, the three of us lowered our rifles to the floor, and when the guns on us did not waver, Maire and I surrendered our staves as well. Only then did the zomon relax, although had you asked me how I could tell it relaxed, I would not have been able to tell you.

  Farren pointed at me. “That one has a branch library in his pocket. He never goes anywhere without it. Bring it to me.”

  One of the zomon entered the enclosure and clumsily patted my pockets. I went very still, but did not resist. The Library would do Farren no good; it would never activate for him. The zomon felt the Colt, but evidently recognizing that it was not the object he had been told to retrieve, he ignored it. I mentally let out my breath. While most Nuum would have had no idea what it was, Farren had seen me fire my Webley a long time ago. He might have remembered what a pistol looked like, except that the zomon, following its orders precisely, never showed it to him.

  “Keep it until I come for it,” Farren instructed. “Don’t let it out of your hands.” The zomon shouldered his rifle so he could wrap the Library in a gnarled grip, and I doubted a crane could have loosened it. Without realizing it, Farren had just made his first mistake.

  No, I corrected myself. That was his second mistake. If he makes any more, we may live through this.

  I was partly right.

  Chapter 49

  Farren’s Mistake

  Farren was smiling now, his expression of satisfaction grating on my nerves like sandpaper. I idly wondered if we had ever met when we were not directly in conflict, and I was confident the answer was “no.”

  “I’ve issued instructions that your friends should be brought to you. I’m sorry for the delay, but I rather promised, and a promise, even to a lower order, is a promise.”

  I’ll remind you of that, I thought, when the time comes.

  “It may take a few minutes longer,” he continued, “because I need the Thorans to fetch them. While I was here, I only used the Ancients for my errands. Their immunity to mind-reading was a hindrance at first, but I quickly learned that some of them were not stupid, and we were able to understand each other quite well.”

  He was bragging now, and pompous little toad that he was, he could not stop. “It was your own fault, really, doctor. They weren’t Thorans, you know, not like you thought. They were—what was the term?—Earthmen, that was it. They weren’t brought up to hate the Nuum like your other children. When I explained that they were really expendable, once you got what you wanted, and that the best they could hope for was for you to release them to live however they could on the wasted planet up above, they were more than happy to listen to my proposition. They looked like Nuum, they should live like Nuum, that’s what I said.”

  Tofan Res jerked upright, drawing attention from the zomon. “That’s a lie! I would have treated them just like all the other Thorans!”

  Farren shrugged theatrically. “Every man fights for something. I just needed to find the ones who fought for money. It wasn’t hard; all of your research was right there. I just looked up where the mercenaries came from and called them in for a talk. Before you know it,” he paused as if for thought, “well, you know all of those launch silos you built for your attack fleet, the ones that had to built far away because of the vibrations? Before you sent the Ancients all back, every one of those silos was manned by my people. I had my own fleet. What with the Procyon, and those ships, I would have overrun Thora in a week.” He shook his head, affecting a visage of sorrow, sighing. “Had I the Celestial, too, I could have done it in a day.”

  I know what Maire had told me, but I could not resist the dig.

  “You should have thought of that before you crashed it.” I felt Maire stiffen.

  Farren looked up. “What? Oh, no, that wasn’t me. That was Lobok. He told me about it. The Crystallen didn’t want Dure to have a ship before they could, so
they sent Lobok and some men to sabotage it.” He shook his head. “I have to say, I wasn’t happy with him, but he already had the Procyon, so what was I going to do?”

  “You’re lying!” Maire screamed. “The Crystallen are our friends! They would never do that!”

  Farren stared blankly at her. “Really? And why would I lie?”

  There was, tragically, no answer to that.

  Sudden the little lordling seemed to remember himself. “Oh, it’s almost time for your friends to arrive. I must be getting ready to leave; I have things to do.”

  “You’ve outsmarted yourself, Farren,” Tofan Res announced. “When my Thorans get here, they will see me and know that you betrayed them.”

  I willed those words to be taken back with all my heart, but it was too late.

  Farren pointed at Tofan Res. “That one. Kill him.”

  “Now!” I shouted.

  Farren’s first mistake had been appearing in holographic form so that Vanu’A could not reach him. Conversely, as long as we kept our communications purely telepathic, he had no way of knowing that we were talking together, which we had been ever since Vanu’A alerted us to the possibility. We had made our plans and awaited only the moment to act…

  At my shout, we each fell down in place, grabbing at our discarded weapons while the slow-reacting zomon fired above our heads—except that Tofan Res, slower than we, was caught high in the shoulder and spun wildly around.

  “Father!” Vanu’A cried, and went to his aid. Meantime, Maire and I were returning the fire of the three zomon who were trying to adjust themselves to our dodge—three, because the fourth had no way to shoot while he maintained the double-handed death-grip on the Library that Farren had ordered him to hold onto no matter what.