by Douglas Hill
"joss, you're wrong. Quern's wrong - if he really believes what he says. Just tell the Council that I'm coming in, with a message that their lives will depend on."
"I'll tell them," Joss said doubtfully. Then she added, "Keill, how did you get here ? What ship is that ?"
He had been prepared for the question. "Some kind of Veynaan ship. After Groll left me behind, I took it away from the men who came up to the satellite. Tell you about it later."
He broke the connection, and turned his attention to landing as his ship hurtled down through the Ouster's yellow sky.
Skimming the upthrust crags of the rocks near the Home, he quickly found what he sought - the flat slope on the other side of the ridge where the Veynaan ship had attacked the ground-car, just after his arrival. Retros booming, landing jets screaming, in a cloud of billowing dust and flame he swept to a landing on the slope, hidden by the ridge from the Clusterhome beyond.
As he rose, Glr looked at him, a wistful, worried expression in the round eyes. He stroked her head reassuringly, wishing he could speak to her. Then he took an energy gun from his weapons compartment, clipped it to his belt and left the ship. Behind him, the airlock slid shut with a sound like finality.
At the Home, a crowd had gathered in the lower area. Nervousness as well as excitement sounded in the buz2ing murmur that swept through them as Keill entered. No one spoke to him directly, but they fell back, making a passage for him as he strode quickly through, staring worriedly after him as he moved out of their sight up the spiral walkway.
In the corridor leading to the meeting room, Joss was waiting - pale and lovely, her dark eyes clouded with doubt and concern. She moved swiftly to him, her hands a feather-touch on his shoulders.
"Keill, I'm glad you're safe. But I'm not sure it was wise for you to come."
'Maybe not," he said. "But I have to find a way to stop the insanity that you people have got yourselves into. Will the Council listen ?"
'They'll listen - but I don't think you'll convince them." She stepped away, and held out a hand. "And, Keill - Quern has insisted that you shouldn't enter the meeting room armed. I have to ask you to give me your gun."
Keill hesitated for only a moment. Speaking to the Council was the important thing. If the worst came to the worst, he knew he could deal with Quern as easily with his bare hands. He freed the gun from its belt-grip and handed it to Joss, then walked wordlessly into the meeting room.
As before, the Council sat at the long table, as if they had not moved since he was last there. The two old men seemed distinctly nervous, Fillon smouldered with ill-concealed anger, and even Shalet would not meet Keill's eyes. He was briefly grateful that, this time, Joss did not take her seat, but remained beside him, as if to lend her support to his words.
And, in the central seat, Quern was smiling.
'So glad to see you safe, Randor. Groll has felt the edge of ffly anger for his... hasty action."
Keill looked at him silently, his eyes moving to the compact case of dark metal that the albino held, attached to a strap slung across his bony shoulders. No doubt it was the remote activator for the controls of the orbiting ultrafreighter, and its terrible cargo.
He swung his eyes to take in the rest of the Council. "Joss have told you what I want to say. The Veynaans arc going to attack the Cluster, before the time limit on your ultimatum runs out. Maybe any moment.
And it won't be just a hit-and-run raid. They're coming in force to level the Home, to wipe you out."
Fillon leaned back, sneering. "Are you carrying messages from the Veynaans now ?"
'My message is about the Veynaans, not from them," Keill snapped. "Listen to me! I'm trying to save your lives, and the lives of all the Clusterfolkl'
'Sounds more like you're trying to save the Veynaans !" Fillon spat.
"I'm trying to prevent more slaughter," Keill replied. "Slaughter that would horrify you - some of you - if you stopped to think about it."
Beside him Joss stirred. "You said more slaughter."
'There were two hundred and thirty Veynaans on that planet Quern used to demonstrate your weapon on. An exploratory team. And I don't doubt Quern knew it."
The others turned to the albino, shock registering on the faces of Shalet and the two old men.
Quern shrugged coldly. "There are casualties in every war."
"Casualties?" Keill said bitterly. "You're sitting there with the power to murder millions of people - and you're planning to use it !'
Shalet interrupted, her broad face frightened. "But Keill -Quern has said all along that the Veynaans'll give way, that the weapon won't ever be used."
"and I say it again," Quern put in. "The Veynaans may make warlike noises among themselves, but they will not move against us."
"even if they do," Fillon added darkly, "we can't just run and hide and give them the victory. Not if we and our children are going to have the kind of future that we have been fighting for !"
Keill clenched his fists angrily. "There will be no future, for any of you, if you give Quern his way. You must all see that. You must realize that Quern wants to use that weapon - just as he has been using your revolution. For his own insane, evil purposes !'
There was a blank, stunned silence. Then Fillon's lip curled again. "That's an absurd statement. What are these purposes Quern is supposed to have ?"
In that moment, Keill knew that he had lost them. He could not introduce into this gathering the truth about the Death-wing and its evil Master. He had no way of proving such statements - and even in making them he would be revealing more about himself, and why he was there, than he dared.
And Quern laughed. "See, he has no answer." He rose to his full height, the icy smile fading. "We have listened to this foolishness long enough. To my mind, it is deeply suspicious. Here is Randor, returning in a ship that he admits is Veynaan, filled with wild tales about a Veynaan attack, seeking to undermine our courage, our will to win !" One skeletal white hand slapped down on the table. "That, to me, is no less than treachery !'
A further silence fell. Keill glared round the table, but saw that even Shalet seemed confused and worried by Quern's words, while the faces of the others had hardened, as if convinced that the albino was right.
Quern cocked a white eyebrow, his mouth twisting in an acid, triumphant grin.
And once again within Keill an incandescent fury began to build, channelled and controlled to feed the power that was on the verge of exploding. He poised himself to do what he had to do - the only alternative left to him.
"I haven't come to betray you," he said, eyes blazing. "I've come to save you from betrayal - and worse. And I will."
His muscles tensed for the final leap at Quern's skinny throat But in that instant he sensed movement behind and beside him. And he held back, trying to tarn, to redirect his forward lunge.
He did not see the blow. But he felt it, like a sunburst in his head. Then he felt nothing more.
CHAPTER TEN
He awoke -with what seemed to be laughter all around him, dying away as his consciousness returned. Deathwing laughter, cruel and gloating. Or perhaps, out of some nightmare, the laughter of death itself, drawing near - his own death, that of many Clusterfolk, the megadeaths of Veynaans.
He sat up carefully, letting dizziness and the pounding of his head subside.
He was lying on a bunk in a cubicle - perhaps the same one that he had used before. The door was no doubt locked, and probably guarded, though no sound penetrated from the corridor outside. And he was manacled.
His hands and feet were embedded in two blocks of clear plastic, a familiar enough form of restraint on the Inhabited Worlds. The plastic would have been liquefied until his hands and feet had been placed within it - then a molecular hardener would have been added, to transform it into solid, unbreakable blocks. Somewhere there would be a key, a sonic device that would alter the stresses within the plastic and crumble it into dust. But he had no doubt that Quern would be in charge o
f the key.
His Legion training rallied, bringing a clear-minded calm to rinse away the frustration and fury that threatened to build within him. Coolly, he assessed his position.
He had failed, of course, completely. The Home would not have been evacuated, even though the Veynaan attack might come at any second. Quern was still fully in charge. And even Joss had turned against him, at the last - probably swayed by Quern's accusation of treachery, or driven by her own fierce dedication to the Ouster's aims.
Worst of all, he thought sourly, she had even hit him •with his own gun. He might have done well to remember, sooner, how quickly she could move.
Look for positive factors, he told himself. But he knew they were few, and thin. At least Quern had allowed him to remain alive, for unknown reasons - though the plastic manacles reduced the value of that fact. And, more positively, Glr was nearby - though, again, she would not know what had happened and so would not know what action to take, until, perhaps, it was too late.
In a way, Keill thought, it's too bad I wasn't killed. Glr would have sensed that, and then she would have moved against Quern. Probably more effectively than I have.
He surveyed his surroundings - but could see nothing of use in the nearly empty cubicle. Pointlessly he strained every gram of his strength against the confining plastic He rolled off the bunk and struck the cube that gripped his arms, in front of his body, fiercely against the floor, then against the metal base of the bunk. The hard plastic was not even scratched.
He lay still, his mind searching fot even a hint of a possibility.
And the cubicle door opened.
Shalet came in. Gone was all the bluff cheeriness that was normal to the big woman. She seemed hunched, older. Worry had etched deeper lines in her broad face, and her clenched hands were trembling slightly.
Keill hoisted himself to a sitting position on the floor. "How did you get in?
Isn't there a guard?"
She nodded. "Friend of mine. Told him official business." Her mouth twisted.
"Maybe it is, too. Keill, I got to talk to youl'
"All right," Keill said wryly. Tm not going anywhere."
Shalet wrung her hands. Tm scared, that's whatl Quern's been sayin" some funny things, actin" odd, ever since he got back last time. He acts -i dunno - he acts hungy, sort of, an" eager, like as if everythin" that's happenin" makes him real happy and excited. An" he's got that Groll doin" whatever he says, and Fillon - and Joss, too. You know she hit you ?" Keill nodded, grimacing.
"Whole Council's under his thumb now. "Cept me, I guess. But I got to noticin', whenever Quern talked about what'd happen in the Ouster once we'd won, he started sayin" "I", not "we". As if he'll be runnin" things, alone.
An" then when you came back, an" said what you did..." Her heavy jaw set solidly. "I always had a good feelin" about you, Keill, an" I don't think you're a traitor I" "Thanks for that," Keill said quietly.
"An" I tell you what I do think -i think Quern's sick, that's what I I think he's out for power, like you said - an" doesn't care who he hurts, or how many he kills !'
"You don't know how right you are, Shalet," Keill said. TDo any other Clusterfolk feel like that ?"
She shrugged. "Dunno. Everybody knows what you said about the Veynaans comin" - you know how news gets round the Home. Lots of people have left - scattered out in the rocks somewhere, just in case. I'm thinkin" of goin', too. But I didn't want to leave you here. Quern said somethin" about havin" a lot of questions to ask you - an" he didn't look like he was goin" to ask them nice."
"I can imagine." Keill held up his plastic-encased hands. "But how can you get me out ?"
Shalet glanced over her shoulder at the door, then tugged something out of a pocket. Not a weapon, but a short, thia tube with an oddly shaped bulge at one end. The sonic key.
Keill stared at it, amazed, then grinned at the grey-haired woman. "Shalet, I could kiss you. How did you get it ?"
She beamed. "Groll had it - he was the one who put you in them things after Joss whacked you. I just told him I'd look after it, and he handed it over. After all, I'm still head of the Council - an" Groll's as stupid as he is big."
"You're a genius." Keill held out the manacles on his hands, Shalet raised the sonic key - then they both halted, listening.
The sky outside the Home seemed at once to be filled with a throbbing, rumbling roar - as if the grandfather of all thunderstorms was unleashing its wrath.
The massive building vibrated. It shook again, and again, as if pounded by some gigantic fist. The corridor beyond the cubicle filled with the sounds of plastiglass smashing, people screaming, the clatter of running feet.
"Keill" Shalet yelled. "The Veynaansl'
Beneath them the floor rippled and heaved. Shalet, ashen-faced, lost her balance, stumbled to her knees moaning in fright.
"Quick !" Keill's voice slashed across her hysteria like a whip, as he held up his trapped hands. Fumbling, weeping, Shalet brought the key into position. It made no sound above the violent tumult beyond the cubicle, but the plastic fell away, crumbling to powder.
He snatched the key, freed his legs, then sprang up, grasping Shalet's arm, dragging her roughly to her feet.
Then he flung open the cubicle door. The guard was standing in panic-stricken indecision, watching the terrified Clusterfolk pouring past him in a huddled, screaming mass. He began to turn as the cubicle door opened, but Keill effortlessly plucked the laserifle from his hands.
"Get out while you can, friend," Keill said gently.
The guard looked around wildly, then turned and fled into the throng. Keill pulled Shalet out of the cubicle, thrusting the laserifle at her.
'Shalet, if these people panic completely, most of them will die inside the Homel They need direction now - they need you !"
The big woman steadied herself, eyes clearing, jaw setting firm. "Right - I'm all right now."
Keill gripped her shoulder in reassurance, then turned and plunged into the crowd. Behind him he heard Shalet's powerful voice booming, rising even above the thunderous, crashing explosions that spelled the end of the Home.
He moved through the packed, stampeding people with desperate speed, pushing, shouldering, dodging. At last he was on the walkway, springing up the deserted ascending spiral, ignoring the frenzied stream of people pouring down the descender.
He was remembering what Joss had said about the Council waiting in the meeting room for the Veynaan reply to the ultimatum. They might still be there, now that the Veynaans had replied with violence and death. He might still have a chance to stop Quern, and to save Joss and the others.
The upper levels of the Home were nearly empty when he reached them, and the wreckage more complete. Cracked and shattered walls, lumps of plasticrete flung from the Home's exterior, littered the corridor. But he did not slacken speed, sidestepping or hurdling the obstacles. Beneath him the floor leaped and bucked, like a living thing, as a heavy explosion nearby ripped at the building. But he kept his balance, hurtling through the meeting room's doors that hung twisted and askew.
Within was chaos and destruction. One wall of the room no longer existed, and smoking, half-molten rubble lay heaped on the floor where the table had stood.
Keill feverishly kicked through the wreckage, but found only broken shards of the table. No bodies.
So all the Council had got out.
They might have tried to make it to the shuttles, he thought. Or they might have been on the descending walkway, among the crowds, even as he had rushed up the ascender.
But one way or another he knew that, as he stood there, Quern might be pressing the switches that would murder a world.
He sprinted back to the walkway, ignoring the continuing blasts that tore at the fabric of the upper levels all around him. The descending walkway was nearly empty now, save for a few stragglers. And the lower levels were emptying fast, as the Clusterfolk streamed out of the many exits, away from their dying Home.
Outs
ide, it was a scene from an inferno. Flame and smoke darkened the sky, the screams of terrified and injured people cut shrilly through the manic bellow of attacking spacecraft. Above the Home, the dart-shapes of a dozen Veynaan fighters wheeled and dived, energy beams slashing and pounding at the building. On the roof of the Home, a few remaining laser cannon bravely spat defiance - but even as Keill looked up, the whole of the two upper levels collapsed in a deafening eruption of smoke and dust.
And in the distance, Veynaan warships were settling on to the rocks, armed men in full battledress pouring from their airlocks as they touched down.
The Veynaans were landing on the far side of the basin where the Home stood, away from the ridge that sheltered his ship. If any Veynaan fighters had spotted his ship, it would have been a sitting target. But more likely the Veynaans were concentrating on levelling the Home. And Keill knew that Glr would wait for him until the very last minute - and, if necessary, longer.
He rounded a spur of rock, seeing that the Veynaan foot soldiers had rapidly moved closer, spreading their formation into a wide, sweeping, relentless curve. But some of the Clusterfolk were rallying, forming small pockets of resistance - tucking themselves into the shelter of the rocks, laserifles blazing at the attackers.
A group of such rifles was firing from an outcrop to Keill's right. Crouching, he moved towards them - and heard with pleased surprise the resonant voice of Shalet, directing the fire.
There were five in the group, including Shalet - their smoke-blackened faces set like stone with fierce determination. Shalet greeted Keill with a whoop of joy, and almost in the same instant dropped a Veynaan with a lancing beam from her rifle.
'Shalet, do you know what happened to Quern, or the others?*
She shook her head. "Haven't seen "em. I heard old Bennen was killed, in the Home - and Rint's out here somewhere, with a rifle. Don't know about Quern."
She fired again, missed, cursed richly. *But somebody said one of the shuttles lifted off just before the Veynaans got here."
