Weak, weak! he thought. But it’s the best I could come up with. I hope what I said doesn’t make Khruuz suspect that I suspect him.
“Very well,” Khruuz said. “He stays. I like Clifton, and he does provide companionship. But he must want to be with his own kind, and I offered to send him here because of that.”
He paused, then said, “I thank you for considering my feelings of loneliness.”
“You’re welcome,” Kickaha said. The Khringdiz certainly did not behave as if he wished to get Clifton out of the way. If Khruuz was up to no good-but why should he be?-he could easily kill Clifton, who would not be on his guard.
“I would like to return immediately so that I may get started quickly on the research,” the Khringdiz said. “I’m eager to grapple with the problem.”
He punched a button on the control panel and rose from the chair. Suddenly, the room seemed to crackle with emotional static. Khruuz was smiling, but that did not make his face seem less sinister. It looked that way no matter what his expression. The tendril on the end of his tongue was writhing; his stance was subtly changed. Like a lion who’s been drowsing but has just smelled a strange lion, Kickaha thought. He’s ready to defend his territory. Ready to charge the intruder.
But the Khringdiz spoke calmly. “You are making much from nothing. I sense that you have unaccountably become hostile. I cannot as yet easily read subtle human expressions or understand certain inflections of voice. But it seems to me that you-what should I say?-have become suspicious of me. Am I wrong?”
“You’re right,” Kickaha said as he withdrew his beamer from its holster and pointed it at Khruuz. “I may be completely wrong to doubt your intentions. If I am, I’ll apologize. Later, that is. But the stakes are too high for me to take a chance with you. For now, you’ll be locked up until I determine if I’m right or wrong. I’ll explain later.”
He waved the beamer. “You know where the gates to the special cells are. I’ll be right behind you. Don’t try anything. If you do, I’ll know you’re guilty.”
“Of what?” Khruuz said.
“Get going.”
They walked toward the door. Khruuz, instead of making a beeline toward it, veered a few feet to the left. Kickaha said, loudly, “Stop!”
The Khringdiz took two more steps, halted, and began to turn. Kickaha had his finger on the trigger. He had advanced the power dial on the side of the beamer to a setting for a more powerful stun charge. Khruuz, he calculated, would have more resistance to the normal charge than most human beings.
Khruuz was saying something in his native language while he turned around to face Kickaha. Then he was gone.
For several seconds, Kickaha was too surprised to react. When he recovered, he smacked his forehead. “Code word! That’s what he was saying! For God’s sake! He’d set it up! Slick! They don’t fool me often, but…!”
The Khringdiz had formed a gate inside a loop of the symbol for eternity, the figure eight, one of the designs on the carpet. Standing in the area of the gate, he had uttered the code word and was now, most probably, in the underground fortress in his planet.
Clifton was doomed. Khruuz would kill him at once.
Kickaha strode to the control panel and called for an all-stations attention. Then he ordered Wemathol and Ashatelon to report to the nearest screen. A minute later, both their faces were in the panel screens. He told them what had happened. Both looked alarmed. Wemathol, distinguishable from his brother by his green headband, said, “What do you think he’s planning to do?”
“I don’t know,” Kickaha said. “Listen! He may pop back through the gate or another gate at any moment. Can either of you set up a one-way exit gate covering the floor of this room? That’ll stop him if he tries to reenter.”
Wemathol said, “We both know how to do that.”
“Then get up here on the run and do it!”
Ashatelon, wearing a crimson headband and crimson boots, was the first to appear. Several seconds later, his brother entered the room. Ashatelon, breathing hard, said, “The Khringdiz could have set up gates anywhere in the palace.”
“I know that, but we can’t cover the floors in every room! Can we?”
“Yes, but it would take time. If we did that, then the gates we use now would be closed. You could not transport food to my father, for instance. Not that I would mind if he starved to death.”
“Besides,” Wemathol said, “Khruuz could have set up gates in the walls. Or even in the ceilings.”
“Just cover the floor of this room,” Kickaha said. “Get to work, you two.”
They seated themselves before control panels. Kickaha called the captain of the guards and told him some of the situation. “Put your men on a twenty-four-hour roving patrol. Work in three shifts. If the Khringdiz shows, shoot him.”
He doubted that Khruuz would come back soon. He suspected that the scaly man would be returning to Zazel’s World, or trying to do so. Khruuz wanted the data for the creation-destruction engine as fiercely as Red Orc desired it. Or so it seemed reasonable to assume. Just why, Kickaha did not know. But he would not put it past the Khringdiz to use it to destroy all but one universe.
Doing that would make him the most solitary of all sentient beings. Unless he had means for cloning himself and changing some of the duplicates into females. He might even have the data in his files for altering the genes of the clones. That would make a genetically varied people.
No use speculating. Get done at once what needs to be done.
He used a recorder to send a message to Manathu Vorcyon and had it taken by a runner to the gate that channeled to her world. She might come up with an idea for invading Khruuz’s World. Kickaha did not like sitting around waiting for the Khringdiz to attack. Attack as soon as possible was his motto. By the time that the messager reported that the recorder had been placed in the gate, the clones had finished setting up the one-way exit gate over the control-room floor.
Wemathol said, “It does not interfere with the operation of the controls, however.”
When Kickaha was convinced that there was nothing more to do, for the moment anyway, he went to Anana’s suite of rooms. The entrance to this was a door with a huge monitor screen on it. He called to her. The screen became alive. He saw her walking back and forth just beyond the door. A caged tigress, he thought, and even more beautiful. She hates me and would kill me if she could. That was a thought to choke his mind. Whoever would have thought that his beloved would one day tear him to bloody rags of flesh if she had the opportunity?
He asked for permission to enter. She stopped pacing and whirled around, her face twisted with anger.
“Why do you keep up this charade of politeness and of caring for me? You’re the master here! You can do anything you wish to do!”
“True,” he said. “But I would never harm you. However, I can’t trust you-as yet. I’ll be gone for a while. I don’t have time to explain the situation to you, and it wouldn’t change your mind about me, anyway. I’m putting you in a special suite for your own safety and for mine. Someday, maybe you’ll understand why I’m doing this. That’s all.”
He had intended to enter her suite and talk face-to-face with her. But he had changed his mind. He went to another screen section on the wall and called Wemathol and Ashatelon.
“New plan,” he said. “Here’s what you must do at once. Gate Anana into Cell Suite Three. Pick four trusted women servants to gate food and water and other necessary supplies to her and Red Orc while we’re gone. Send all but fifty guards off on a paid vacation. Those left-and they must be the most trusted men you know-will continue the twenty-four-hour patrol. After that’s done, close up the palace, bar all gates, lock all lowerstory windows. I give you two hours and thirty minutes to do the job. Then report to me. Be ready to go to Zazel’s World.”
The clones started to protest that there was not enough time to carry out his orders. He said “Do it!” and turned the screen off. Ten minutes later, he had sent anothe
r message to Manathu Vorcyon. This brought her up to date on the situation. Then he verified that Anana had been transmitted to the escape-proof suite. At the time he had set for them, Wemathol and Ashatelon appeared on their one-man airboats.
Kickaha said, “Let’s go.” He lifted the Horn to his lips.
20
THEY HAD EXPECTED A WORLD MADE ALIVE AGAIN BY DINGsteth. But it was as dead as when they had left it. However, it was not quite as it had been during their previous visit. And it looked as if someone had blasted through a section of a wall. The new hole led to a very large cave containing live plants and animals and an area with chairs, tables, dishes, cutlery, a kitchen, and a bathroom. Dingsteth must have lived here, though there were no signs of struggle.
“Khruuz has been here,” Kickaha said, “and he captured Dingsteth despite its traps. Nothing subtle or easy, just powered his way through them, destroying them. So, we go to Khruuz’s World.”
“Elyttria!” Wemathol said. “How do we get into his world? And would it be wise to go there?”
“No,” Kickaha said. “Not if you want to live forever. We’ll have no trouble, though, transmitting ourselves there. The Great Mother is helping us. She told me some time ago how we could do it. The way is now set up.”
They flew back to the final X marking the gate through which they had entered. Here, Kickaha blew three times on the Horn. Manathu Vorcyon had also arranged that blowing it thrice at this point would alert her to open the passage to Khruuz’s World. Kickaha did not know how she did this, but the important thing was that she could. She was now willing to use the knowledge she had kept to herself for so many millennia.
After warning them, though unnecessarily, to be alert, Kickaha led them into the gate. They came into the many-tunneled place a long way from Khruuz’s headquarters. Using the detector Manathu Vorcyon had gated to him days ago, Kickaha saw where the cluster of gates was located and rode off in that direction. Though the Khringdiz must have assumed that he had closed all the gates, they still glowed faintly in the detector and so could be found. The Great Mother had indeed provided well for them.
They had expected traps in the form of explosions, deadly gases, or gates switching them into a circuit or to a desolate universe. But they encountered none. Khruuz seemed to have assumed that no one could gate to his complex unless he permitted them entrance. Finally, after searching the scaly man’s living quarters, which were empty, they got to the entrance to Khringdiz’s control chamber.
Kickaha was the first to go into it. He halted; the others crowded around him. They stared at the smears of dried blood on the floor directly before the main control panel. Then Kickaha saw the body on the floor fifty feet from the stains. Clifton was lying there on his face. His outstretched hand still gripped a beamer. He had not been taken completely by surprise by Khruuz.
Kickaha strode to the body, noting on the way that there were no bloodstains between the smears and Clifton. Kneeling down, he put his finger on Clifton’s neck. No pulse. He had not expected one. Clifton was wearing only a kilt, sandals, and a belt with a holster. On the back of the left arm was a cauterized hole, and close to the lower spine was a similar hole. He had been shot twice with a narrow beamer ray.
He turned the Englishman over. The two wounds in the front matched those in the back. Rising, he said, “Khruuz must’ve been in a hell of a hurry. He didn’t even take the time to get rid of the body.”
He ordered Wemathol to take the corpse into the hall some distance away and disintegrate it with the big beamers on his airboat. The Thoan put on his gas mask and began dragging the body from the room. Kickaha went back to the smears before the main control panel. He looked at them more closely.
“Clifton did get off some shots before he died. It looks as if Khruuz was wounded. But not bad enough to lay him low.”
Again, he got down on one knee, and he examined one edge of the stains. He said, “Ah! Here’s the imprint of the front part of a foot! It’s not human! And it’s not Khruuz’s! Has to be Dingsteth’s! It was standing close to Khruuz when the beamer fight was going on!”
Ashatelon got close to the half-print. When he arose, he said, “You’re right. But was Dingsteth a prisoner, or did it come with Khruuz voluntarily?”
“I doubt very much it came willingly.”
Ashatelon said, “Why would Khruuz take Dingsteth with him? If Dingsteth obeyed your orders, it would have erased all data about the creation engine.”
He stopped, then said, “Oh, I see! I think I do, anyway. The data in the computer could be erased, Dingsteth having followed your orders. But it could be in Dingsteth’s brain!”
Kickaha nodded. “I goofed up. I should have thought of that Dingsteth wouldn’t have told me the data was in its mind unless I’d asked it if it was. Khruuz was smarter. He may even have thought of it when we were there. But he kept quiet about it for his own reasons.”
The clone said, “He’s hellbent for revenge. He’s going to do what Red Orc meant to do! Destroy all universes except one!”
Kickaha said, “We don’t know that for sure. But you’re probably right. We’re going back to the palace but not until we see Manathu Vorcyon. Bad as the situation is, she may want to join us. I think Khruuz is already in the palace. He’ll expect us to be treading on his heels. We may have hurried him so much he didn’t take time to prepare for us. Let’s hope so. In any case, we’re going to take a detour, see Manathu Vorcyon first.”
If the giantess was surprised by their sudden appearance, she did not show it. As soon as she had been informed of the latest events, she said, “I’m going with you. I have not left my world for many thousands of years, but I have not forgotten how to fight. It will take a few hours to get ready. Meanwhile, eat. You need the rest and the food.”
What she did during this time, the others did not know. But when she appeared before them, she wore a suit like a firefighter’s, a transparent globe over her head, gloves, and an oxygen tank on her back. A harness over her torso held at least a dozen weapons, some of them unfamiliar to Kickaha. Behind her were four servants carrying similar outfits. These were given to the men.
She is indeed the goddess of war, he thought. But Athena never looked so formidable. And it was at once evident that she had assumed command. Though Kickaha did not like that, he knew that it was best for all of them. Her millennia of experience made him look like, pun intended, a babe in arms.
“Follow me,” she said, her voice coming through a speaker in her helmet. “We’re going to a place where only I have been. You may put on the suits when we get to it.”
They went up the winding staircase in the tree to her room. She spoke a code word. The glindglassa, the huge mirror, shimmered. Kickaha, the first in line behind her, stepped through it into a gigantic room with many doors. He did not have time to marvel at its many objets d’art, some of which must have been twenty thousand years old, nor at the stuffed bodies of men and women standing here and there, all arranged in various postures, their faces expressing a range of emotions. These, he supposed, were enemies she had killed during the ancient Time of Troubles. Unique mementos-and dust-free, too.
She led them from the room into a hallway at least four hundred feet long. Near its end, she turned into a fifty-foot-high entrance. Beyond it was a huge hangar housing scores of aircraft. At her orders, the four donned the clothes. The holsters on their harness, however, contained only the familiar: beamers, hand grenades, knives, and tasers. She told them how to snap the globes into the metal rings at the top of the suits and secure them with a tiny snap lock on the rim. Inside the globes were transmitters to bring in outside noises. She also gave them instructions on the operation of the oxygen apparatus. After their helmets were on, they heard her voice only through a transmitter-receiver attached to the globes.
A minute later, they got into a transparent-hulled vessel shaped like a blimp envelope minus the rudder and fins, but with top and bottom turrets. She showed them their posts and how to operat
e the big rotatable beamers spaced around the ship to be able to fire from every side of the craft. Two of them were instructed briefly on the operation of the retractable turrets. She pointed out the six foldable single-pilot craft secured along the hull.
“They operate just like those you rode into Zazel’s World. Be ready to use them.”
She got into the pilot’s seat and instructed them in the use of the simple controls. After that, the others strapped themselves into the swivel chairs at the beamer stations. Wemathol occupied the bottom turret; Ashatelon, the top turret. Kickaha was the rear gunner. He preferred to be the pilot or, if he could not be that, the top turret operator. But the Great Mother had ordered otherwise. Like the rest of the crew, he took ten minutes familiarizing himself with the turret and beamer controls. Then Manathu Vorcyon lifted the ship from its landing supports and drove it slowly into the wall at the back of the hangar. The gate, unlike so many, did not display a shimmering as the vessel went through it.
For a moment, they were at an altitude estimated by Kickaha to be five thousand feet. The sun was bright, the blue sky was clear, and the land beneath was forest-covered. Whether or not they were still in Manathu Vorcyon’s world he did not know. Then they were suddenly surrounded by water and a feeble light from above. A minute later, they were again flying, this time in a moonless night.
The Grandmother of All certainly made it difficult for an enemy to track her through the gates.
Kickaha recognized the constellations. He had seen them every night while in Red Orc’s stronghold. They were flying above Earth II. Their attack would be from outside the palace instead of inside it.
Manathu Vorcyon’s voice came through his helmet receiver.
“In two minutes, we’ll be within the palace! If you can take Khruuz alive, do it! He is the repository of knowledge that we do not possess. And he is the last living person of his species. He may plan to destroy all living creatures in all the universes. He cannot be condemned for his madness, though he cannot be excused.
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