Juanita Coulson - Children of the Stars 04

by Past of Forever

  This pair had made Tavares their scapegoat without hesitation. A typical, head-over-heart Saunder-McKelvey power move. However, Tavares was still alive, and his career was only temporarily on hold. The yacht crew was dead. The Saunders wanted answers—and revenge. Dan appreciated that. Topwe and his people had deserved better.

  “No, it wasn’t suicide. Not in the normal sense. They were made to trigger that overload,” Dan said. The Saunders were at a loss, but Praedar’s team picked up on the implication immediately. They nodded as he went on. “The scratching was a tipoff. That’s what the robot does when it goes into gear. I don’t know how...”

  “Stimulation of nerve endings,” Joe supplied. Sheila agreed. “Okay. That’s one of its tricks, along with quakes and who knows what else. I told you it would try to repair itself. This is proof that it has done so, at least in part. It’s graduated from party crashing to murder. The Astra was destroyed by human saboteurs. The yacht was blown up by an alien machine. It obviously controlled the crew’s minds, using them as its slaves.”

  Kat gasped. “The N’lacs were forced to blow up their space ships, too!”

  “Exactly.”

  “The Old Ones—” Praedar’s bass rumble sent chills down Dan’s spine. “—most probably employ extrasensory powers. Their robot is so equipped, as well.”

  Dan looked toward the dissipating smoke that marked the yacht crew’s pyre. “It’s starting all over again, after two thousand years. A robot scout, setting up humanoid slaves for its masters.” “That’s... that’s ridiculous,” Feo said.

  “You saw our injured and the castings of the robot’s prints,” Sheila retorted. “You laughed and said we were faking the whole thing. Who’s laughing now? How did you think our people got hurt?”

  Baines added, “And what made Hanging Rock fall and kill Chen? A random quake, generated by the same robot. It’s resorting to nastier terror tactics ...”

  “Taking out the spacecraft is brilliant,” Dan said. “My brother would approve completely, from a military standpoint. Our escape route is cut off. In case nobody’s noticed, we’re stranded. The yacht was parked next to Praedar’s Project. It’s gone, too.”

  “Oh, Dan, your ship...” Rosie cried.

  Hope stammered, “This—this fantasy about an alien robot... you can’t expect us to ... to swallow...”

  “It is the truth.” Praedar was at his spellbinding best. He nodded to the distant smoke. “That is the truth. What we explained to you about the N’lacs’ history is truth. What reason have we to lie?”

  “Your reputation in xenoarchaeology,” Feo shot back. “Eleven years of work on this planet wiped out, if you’re proved wrong...”

  Dan wanted to shake his cousin until Feo’s teeth rattled. “Listen! I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt because we’re all reeling. But, dammit, get this through your head! We are not on stage at your Assembly. This is no interview for your PR staff or Ito’s Pan Terran Network. Topwe and his crew are dead. Chen is dead. That robot’s responsible for their murders. And we’re trapped here. Is that soaking in?”

  The Saunders paled and Feo stammered, “We—we can summon help, alternate transport. Our crews on Wolf or Arden ...” “What makes you think our mechanical enemy—or the Old Ones—are going to wait until they arrive?” Dan demanded. “And if any more ships land before we’ve solved this, their crews will die, just as Topwe’s did.”

  “There has to be a way out,” Rei Ito exclaimed, a bit shrilly. Her pose as a cool, detached reporter had developed enormous cracks. Kimball was no longer so cocky. Apparently he wasn’t so callous about his own imminent demise as he was about the fates of others in this war zone.

  “No way out—for us,” Dan said. “However, you’d better pray that self-repairing machinery in the dome does its job slowly—or the Old Ones may have a way in. And then we’re done for.”

  “You... you weren’t kidding,” Kimball said, flabbergasted. “Welcome to the real universe. No, I wasn’t kidding. And I wasn’t pulling my theory about a matter transmitter out of thin air. It answers all the transportation questions. All of them and a hell of a lot more.”

  “If we are destroyed,” Praedar noted, “we will not be the first humanoid species to become extinct. That is the ultimate end of every species.”

  “But not ours,” Dan said. “Not this time. This time, we have to win.”

  Feral hunger gleamed in Praedar’s starry eyes. “Indeed! I do not intend to yield easily. There is too much to be learned.”

  Hope murmured, “But... but there’s only one robot...”

  Dan rounded on her. “An alien robot with capabilities we can barely guess at. We’re in trouble. Big trouble.”

  “The Fleet!” Feo oozed warmth and persuasion at his kinsman. “Your brother Adam. Call him. Hope and I will back you, of course. You and Juxury can count on our complete cooperation ...”

  Under other circumstances, Dan would have guffawed. “Kind of late, cousin. I’d love to hold you up for ransom—bottomless funding for the expedition, a new starhopper, and your full endorsement and admission our interpretations are right and yours ^ wrong. But none of us has the time for any of that.” He punched the air, burning off accumulating tension. “What we need is time, Feo. That’s one thing you can’t buy.”

  “Surely ;i call to the Fleet, assistance from Adam’s armed cruisers..

  “That’s a big universe out there.” Dan jabbed a thumb skyward. “Thanks to your dirty tricks, this dig is poor. No fancy com equipment, such as you’re used to. The one decent subspace rig on this planet just went up in flames. If we send an S.O.S. to Adam right now, it would take hours to reach him and hours more in time lag exchanges for you and me to convince him to come here—if we could convince him. A local day and three-quarters for his fastest ships to get here. Plus, there’s no assurance that damned robot can’t reach into orbit and knock a warship out, as it did the yacht.”

  “We do not know when the machine will strike again,” Praedar said.

  Galvanized, the scientists tossed ideas around, thinking fast.

  Dan wanted to push and prod. Time... time... TIME! Ticking away.

  The discussion had barely begun when another crisis hit.

  The Whimeds were the first to sense it. Praedar snarled, “What occurs?” and Drastil, Yvica, and the other felinoids peered around anxiously.

  Offworlders gawked as a living river flowed past them, moving westward.

  N’lacs were on the march—hunters, diggers, gardeners, mothers with infants at the breast, and children. Chuss was in the forefront, with Sleeg hobbling in the rear. Like puppets, the N’lacs stumbled forward, obviously being drawn against their will. Sleeg’s quavering voice rose, keening.

  “That’s a death song!” Kat said, gasping.

  The e.t.s fought whatever was manipulating them. Occasionally one would break free for a moment and grab a stone or a brushwood club, as if he hoped to attack their unseen foe.

  Like a massive blow, the same force driving the N’lacs smashed into the scientists. It was an agonizing pressure in the skull, a fear that sapped the will, and a violent urge to scratch until one bled.

  The Saunders, their aides, and the reporters were hit hardest. Praedar’s expedition, more familiar with the sensation, resisted it. But that invisible puppet master was tugging them in the N’lacs’ wake, making them all follow the e.t.s’ entranced exodus.

  “Loor! No!” Joe Hughes’ medical training overcame the manipulator. He tore free, pushing through the mass of N’lacs, shouting “Sheil! Help me! We have to get her back to the hyper chamber! She’s in labor!”

  The same humanitarian impulse goading Hughes helped the other parameds. One by one they pulled away from the throng and managed to separate Chuss’ mother from her people. The parameds bore her toward the village, while Loor continued to paddle reflexively with her feet, still obeying her orders.

  The rest of the scientists, inspired by the medics’ example, braced against th
e pain. They grabbed at N’lacs, trying to halt them.

  “Wait!”

  “Stop!”

  “Where are you going?”

  ‘There’s nothing over there!”

  Doggedly N’lacs plodded on, descending the banks of the ancient, dry riverbed and crossing the rough terrain. Sometimes offworlders succeeded in wrestling a couple of villagers to the ground and pinning them there. The flood simply parted and moved on past them as if the obstacle weren’t there.

  Chuss was far ahead of his tribe by now. Dan abandoned his attempt to corral minor members of the N’lacs and made an end run, hoping to head Chuss off. Praedar did the same thing. They lunged down the dusty slope, dodging jumbles of boulders deposited there eons ago. Losing his footing, Dan slammed into a small island of packed soil and jagged pebbles. Stunned, he shook his head, then renewed his pursuit.

  A dozen young N’lacs were scaling the far bank. Their small feet and hands didn’t disturb the loose earth much. They had no trouble making the ascent. Dan, though, scrambled for purchase, impeded by the crumbling slope. He yearned for an Ulisorian’s platform or antigravs. Finally he reached more or less level ground—the valley plain.

  Chuss’ gang loped onward, shrieking insanely: “Demon! Kill!”

  Behind them, near the complex, along the riverbed, the off-worlders fought maddening itches, pain, and the mesmerized N’lacs.

  Praedar and Dan raced to block Chuss and his adolescent cronies from further flight.

  “Oh, my God,” Dan panted.

  The robot was parked out there in the open, less than seventy meters ahead!

  The xenomech’s curiosity glands were salivating. How much they could learn from that machine! A whole new technology!

  Just a bit farther!

  N’lacs closed in on their tormentor, throwing rocks, bashing the robot with clubs. The villagers would have to be kept at bay, of course, while offworlders dismantled the thing...

  A terrible new wave of pain hit Dan hard. He fell flat on his face. Half senseless with shock, his vision dancing with lights, he lifted his head. Praedar lay a few meters from him. The Whimed thrashed wildly, like a hog-tied big cat.

  Red-faced mites, the N’lacs, swarmed over their metal foe. It flailed with its tentacles, knocking them aside. Its motions were clumsy and uncoordinated, as if certain circuits weren’t working right. Had it burned out vital components when it killed Topwe’s crew? There might be hope yet.

  Why was it here, west of camp? Could it transport itself? Was that why none of the searches had located it?

  Pain pounded at Dan, pinning him. Through a blur of tears, he gazed at the unreachable target. It was daylight now, and he wasn’t drunk. He tried to absorb details, even though the setting sun partially silhouetted the object, obscuring some features.

  A power pack, there? Eight, nine, ten limbs. The xenoarchs specializing in Procyon Five’s octopoid culture would love that fact. There were dents and numerous signs of bad landings and micrometeroid strikes. And ... were those glittering facets at the narrow part of its upper torso optical receptors?

  The N’lacs thought so. They tried to cover those insectoid apertures with their paws, believing if it couldn’t see them, it couldn’t hurt them.

  Another wave of agony smashed into N’lacs and offworlders alike. Those who were still upright fell, whimpering.

  Chuss, however, was held erect, a red-skinned doll, turning at the machine’s whim. It made him raise and lower his arms and cock his head as it probed its specimen. Was this the species the masters hunted? A final test must be made. Chuss was clutching a sharp stone he’d used as a weapon. Now he was forced to turn the lithic blade inward, slashing bloodily.

  Dan, bound by a mind-grip, watched impotently as Chuss flayed himself.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  The Door into Forever

  It was nightmare incarnate. Chuss’ death was Dan’s—was every humanoid’s.

  Fiery tendrils in the brain relaxed, their hold becoming weaker.

  He could move!

  Killing Chuss had demanded too much from the automaton’s crippled systems. It couldn’t maintain its control over so many beings.

  What remained of Chuss was on the ground, life ebbing fast. The lethal stone tool fell from limp fingers.

  And at that moment, Dan and Praedar leaped to their feet. The rocky plain gave them plenty of ammunition. Dan threw a skull-size rock as hard as he could. The machine lurched, ropy tentacles swaying. An even larger stone, hurled by Praedar, crashed into its other side, skewing the killer on its axis.

  Two more hits ripped the robot over—and short-circuited its remaining hold on its victims. Released, the N’lacs attacked their ancient enemy in full force. Dan and Praedar had to cease fire for fear of hitting the e.t.s. Chuss’ people wrenched tentacles out of moorings, battered the insectoid eyes, and crushed panels and metal feet, wreaking havoc with stones, clubs, and bare hands. If only the machine could suffer, as their young leader had suffered!

  Praedar moved among them, begging “No, please, stop. It is disabled. It is information we must have...” But he couldn’t put much power into his orders. Like the N’lacs, his shock was linked with rage.

  Finally the N’lacs turned away from the demolished invader and gathered around Chuss’ corpse. Sleeg had made his way painfully across the river. Now he hunkered beside his murdered apprentice and chanted sorrowfully. The sound echoed countless laments down the long ages of humanoid civilizations. A life had been snuffed out. Survivors mourned their loss.

  Dan still held a rock he’d had no chance to throw at the hated robot. He slammed it into the ground so hard it bounced; he roared, “Dammit, dammit, dammit!” Physically and emotionally drained, he dropped to one knee, choking on tears and grieving for a dead friend.

  Offworlders and N’lacs were one, stricken. Somebody offered to summon the parameds, then abandoned the thought. There was no point. Joe and Sheila could do nothing for Chuss, but they might be able to help Chuss’ mother.

  The news hounds were recording. Dan didn’t object, this time. Their tri-dis were proof this had actually happened. Eventually the expedition might need that evidence, to convince a Space Fleet Board of Inquiry or C.S.P. Council that this whole tragedy wasn’t a mass hallucination.

  Feo was murmuring “Terrible, terrible...”

  Hope, sharing her rivals’ pain, was weeping. Death upon death had affected her deeply. “It... it has to end. It has to. So... so unbelievable.”

  Dan rose and nudged the robot’s wreckage with his boot. A tentacle toppled against the bashed, bulbous torso with a tinny clink. “Unbelievable? What? Admitting you were wrong?” “Don’t.” Feo groaned. “Not at a time like this, Dan. Don’t be unfair. We... we concede we may have made errors... But now we have to... to pull together...”

  “I agree,” Dan said. “But I don’t think you grasp, even yet, exactly what we’re up against. This isn’t over. It’s just beginning.”

  Meej’s voice hung in the twilight breeze. Sleeg’s lament was a drone beneath the boy’s pidgin Terran. “Forever time! We all go back to forever time! Evil Old Ones come again. They take us to temple, to the place to be gone. We fellow, them fellow friends —all gone to forever time...”

  “The scout. The forerunner,” Praedar said. “The invasion will arrive from the temple.”

  Dan nodded. “The dome.”

  Praedar’s expression was a taut mask of agony. He looked much as he had when he was picking himself up after Chen’s death. The Whimed pointed to the pile of junk and asked Rosie, “Can you re-create? It may tell us how to defeat the Old Ones.” “I-I’ll need help,” Rosie said. Her face was dust-stained and streaked with tears. “This technology... Dan will have to advise me. We’ve got ten years’ worth of reconstructed model demons, but this... It will mean re-creating a tech manual as well as the object.”

  “I’ll assist you when I can,” Dan said. “I think I’d better tackle that door into the main dome now,
though. It’s our first priority. I just hope to hell we’ve got enough time...”

  Feo was shivering. “You... you can’t mean that these Old Ones, these legends, might possibly still exist?”

  Kat snapped at him and Hope. “Can you assure us they don’t? If you’re wrong, it won’t mean a tarnished professional reputation; it’ll mean the enslavement of six humanoid sectors.”

  Very solemnly Praedar said, “Speculate on today’s incident magnified. Not the much damaged and impaired mechanism the N’lacs disabled—after grievous loss—but the beings that designed this robot, and perhaps other robots far more deadly.” “That chamber that shows up on Armilly’s scans,” Dan added. “The anomalies in the readings. I told you something’s waking up in there. We’d better pray it’s not too late to head off whatever’s coming—as we were too late to save Chuss.” He broke off, his throat thick with anguish.

  “It’s a death race,” Baines said. “Not just our lives are at stake, but every Terran’s, every Whimed’s, every Vahnaj’s, the Lannons, the Rigotians, and even the Ulisorians ...”

  Praedar was looking at the N’lac funeral. “The manner in which the robot dissected Chuss! As we would dissect a plant specimen or an insect...”

  “Why?” Hope exclaimed, aghast. “Why would they do that? And why would they come here themselves... if... if they exist? Why not send more... more... Spirit of Humanity help us! More robots?”

  “You ask the motives of beings alien beyond our present knowledge to understand,” Praedar replied. “I cannot tell you. I can only repeat Kat’s warning—we must not assume that the Old Ones will not choose to come here. There are too many undiscovered data.”

  The Saunders struggled to cope. As ranking members of Earth’s First Family, they could have squandered their lives in hedonism. But they’d chosen to devote their vast fortune to science—and not all their acclaim in that career had been purchased. They had been contributors. Now they used that intelligence to adjust, trying to keep up with Praedar’s leaps of reason and with their kinsman’s view of what might confront them.