by Douglas Hill
A room like the one where he had lain – and a bed, in which he saw Tam, staring wide-eyed towards him. And one clone guard at the foot of the bed, whose gun fired harmlessly wide as the beam from Keill's gun blazed a gaping hole in his chest.
'Keill!' Tam gasped. 'Where did... what is...'
'Don’t talk,' Keill grated, crossing to the bed. 'Can you move?’
'I was drugged,’ Tam said weakly, 'but it has nearly worn off.' He sat up, swung his legs to the floor, his face contorted with effort. He too was wearing only a thigh-length bed-kilt.
'My clothes...’ he said, looking hopefully at Keill.
Keill moved swiftly to a nearby cabinet, chafing at the loss of precious seconds. He could hear the crackle of flame in the ruined laboratory, but he knew that even that destruction would not divert every clone...
And he knew it all the more when a different crackle heralded the energy beam that bit into the cabinet beside his hand.
'Don't move,' said a voice, 'or the next one kills your friend.'
He froze, poising himself.
'Throw the guns away, very slowly,’ the voice went on.
Gritting his teeth, Keill let his energy guns drop to the floor, and carefully, slowly, turned.
Ten red-uniformed men – a full squad of clones – clustered in the doorway, guns fixed on himself and Tam.
The one who had spoken, a Callor wearing a number three, stepped easily towards Keill. 'The boss predicted you'd come this way,’ he said scornfully. 'It’s too easy.’
Keill said nothing, but watched in surprise as Cal-3 slid his gun back into his holster, and his nine men, grinning, did the same.
'Altern wants you back in one piece,’ Cal-3 said. 'But he won't mind if you've got some new bruises.'
None of Keill's astonishment showed in his face. They were going to try to take him alive – since Altern obviously still wanted to carry through his plans.
'You're good, Randor,' Cal-3 went on arrogantly, 'but not that good. It's time you learned that we're legionaries too.’
No, Keill said silently, you're not. You only have the bodies, and some of the skills. A great deal of skill, there was no doubt about that. But the clones knew nothing of the true Moros training, from infancy. They knew nothing of the background, the traditions, the example of generations, that motivated each legionary to strive to perfect himself or herself.
There was no way that the clones could have become legionaries inside, where it mattered. In the heart and the mind and the will – in the discipline and self-mastery.
And in any case, Keill had fought legionaries – in the uninhibited, exhilarating violence of the Martial Games of Moros. Where legionaries tested themselves against one another in every form of competition, including hand-to-hand combat, and only the light regulation padding saved the losers from crippling injury, or death. The first year Keill had reached the final round, he had confronted five other legionaries, in an all-in free-for-all. Afterwards it had taken more than a month for his injuries to mend – but he had won. And the following year he had won again.
No, the clones could have no conception of what it really meant to be a legionary. They were mockeries, travesties, skin-deep imitations. And he was ready for them. All the coldly burning anger that had been born within him when he first discovered what they were – all the vengeful determination to erase this ultimate Deathwing outrage against the memory of Moros – flared within him, feeding and strengthening his readiness.
'If you really were legionaries,’ he said to them, his tone biting like a whip, 'you wouldn't have to boast about it.’
As he expected, fury blazed In the eyes of Cal-3. In a blur of movement he feinted a blow with one fist, and lashed a brutal kick at Keill's groin.
But even before the kick was fully under way, Keill had read it and countered. He stepped inside it, and struck upwards with a short, perfectly judged elbow smash that drove deep into Call's lower ribs.
Air whistled from the clone's sagging mouth as he was lifted off his feet by the power of the blow. Then he crumpled, face purpling as he strove to breathe, lips flecked with blood as fragments of his crushed ribs stabbed into his lungs.
Keill stepped away, almost casual in his relaxed calm. The other clones looked at each other grimly, then began to edge forward, some sidling away so that their movement brought all nine of them in a circle surrounding Keill. Still they did not reach for their guns: pride, and the order to cause no permanent injury to Keill, held them back.
Within the circle Keill tuned his awareness to its highest pitch – alert to every intake of breath, every rustle of clothing, from the clones behind him. As if he could see backwards, he knew where each of them stood, how each was positioned. And the slide of a boot on the floor was all the warning he needed, to let him drop into a crouch, perfectly balanced, and without looking drive a precisely aimed, ferocious kick backwards, at the knee of the clone trying to spring on him from behind.
The crack of splintering bone was audible above the clone's shriek, before he collapsed, fainting from the agony. Still Keill did not look round, but straightened – the entire movement having been so swift that the other eight had only begun to tense themselves to react.
But they were going to move any second, Keill knew – and this time there would be no one-man bravado. This rime they would all attack at once.
No point, Keill thought, in letting them take the upper hand.
With not the slightest warning, without seeming to set himself in any way, Keill leaped – a standing jump that became a mid-air twist, ending with the meaty sound of his boot striking the solidity of a skull.
But as the owner of the skull toppled, the other clones were upon him.
They were strong and quick, and fought well as a team. Chopping blades of hands, battering fists, crushing kicks rained in on Keill from all sides.
Yet it seemed that they were trying to hit a wraith, a spinning, dodging will-o'-the-wisp – and one that had also apparently grown extra limbs and joints. However swiftly a clone struck, whatever unexpected angle the blow came from, Keill always seemed to have an extra millisecond to block or parry, to weave aside or slip beneath.
And every defensive evasion became in the same flowing motion a counter-attack. A forearm block by Keill, halting a chop at his throat, would smoothly extend itself into a savage hooked punch at a clone's face. A twist of Keill's body away from a kick led to a wrenching grip on the clone's leg, hurling him full into the leaping rush of another.
In one instant Keill was gripping the shoulder of a clone, swinging him around off-balance, so that the clone took a murderous punch aimed at Keill. In another instant Keill was falling backwards away from a lashing kick, turning the fall into a perfect backspring that slammed his boots into a clone's face on the way.
Yet the clones were not amateurs, not untrained, clumsy brawlers. They too could dodge and parry and counterpunch. Often their vicious attacks broke through Keill's defences, and though even then he could ride the blows, and so lessen their force, he was battered and bruised within seconds of the first onslaught.
Yet he realised in the first of those seconds that the clones' orders were still holding them. They were seeking only to disable him. And their training was very properly directing their most punishing blows to crack a rib, smash a knee, splinter a forearm.
The clones could not have known the impossibility of breaking any bone in Keill Randor's body.
But they did learn, quickly – though for them too late – that the controlled and deadly battle fury of a legionary, fighting for his life against heavy odds, shows no mercy and pulls no punches. When Keill landed his most punishing blows, with precision and perfect timing, the clones that were their targets simply never got up again.
And all of this, all of the combat that stormed and raged ruinously through the confines of the room, happened at the speed of instantaneous reflex and reaction, so that few eyes could have followed the separate incidents within
the furious, shadowy blur of battle.
It seemed that one moment Keill was hardly visible under the onslaught of eight red-uniformed men. And almost the next moment, he was standing among seven fallen bodies, while the eighth clone, taken in an intricate one-handed throw, sailed gracefully over his head and crashed with finality against the wall.
Brushing an ooze of blood from his cheekbone, where a fist had slashed his flesh, Keill turned back towards Tam – and froze. The clone whose knee he had smashed, lying on the floor with his face grimacing in agony, had nonetheless managed to drag out his beam-gun. Keill knew he had no chance to reach him before he fired.
But it was another beam-gun that flashed, and it was the clone whose body jerked with the impact of the deadly energy. Young Tam had picked up one of Keill's guns, during the brief seconds of the combat, and had used it in time.
Keill grinned at him savagely. 'Couldn't have done better myself.'
Tam's face was deathly pale, but he managed an answering smile. 'I thought they would kill you,'
'They might have,' Keill said, 'if whoever trained them had cured them of over-confidence.’ He glanced round swiftly. 'Now we have to get out of here. There'll be mote along soon.'
'Have we a chance?' Tam asked.
'Always a chance,' Keill grinned. He glanced towards the cabinet that held Tam's clothing, but then a better idea struck him. Quickly he stooped and began dragging the red uniform off one of the fallen clones. 'Here you are,’ he told Tam. 'You're going to be a brother.’
Tam looked bewildered, but pulled on the uniform at Keill's urging.
'Now look outside, and see if we have company,' Keill told him.
Tam obeyed, then beckoned to Keill. The open area beyond the door, round the elevators, was dear. Obviously the laboratory fire was occupying many of the clones. And no doubt they all imagined that the squad of ten sent by Altern would have no trouble subduing one man.
Thrusting a beam-gun into his belt at the back, Keill hurried Tam towards the nearest elevator shaft, handing another gun to the Jitrellian.
'Stand with your back to the elevator opening,' he said, 'holding the gun on me. Anyone on the other levels will see me under guard, by someone in a red uniform. We just might get away with it.’
Tam looked dubious, as they stepped together on to the next disc. But he took his position as instructed, while Keill stood opposite him, hands raised, wearing a glum, defeated look.
The energised metal walls of the shaft slid past as they descended. On the next level, clones about to step on to a rising disc whirled, guns ready, but paused with puzzled looks as Keill and his
'guard’ went down past them. On the next level and the next the pattern was repeated, as clones waiting to ascend watched them pass without challenging them.
But as another level approached, before their disc reached floor level, one clone jumped towards the shaft. 'Move, brother,’ he shouted. And Tam had the presence of mind to step forward just in time as the other man crowded on to the disc behind him.
The disc slid steadily down. The newcomer, an Osrid with the number twenty, hardly glanced at Tam, who was anxiously trying to keep his face hidden, but stared curiously at Keill.
'Shouldn't you be taking him up to the boss?’ he said at last Tam shook his head – but Keill could see that the young Jitrellian was close to panic, knowing that he would be exposed at any second. Then the memory of his earlier ride on the elevator stirred in his mind.
Before anyone could speak again, Keill said idly, 'Something wrong with the power? This thing's slowing down.’
Os-20 glanced round at the shaft, then laughed. 'Not likely, legionary. These elevators don't change speed unless the walls get damaged somehow.’
'That's what I hoped you'd say,’ Keill replied. His hand seemed only to twitch, but then there was a beam-gun in it. Slowly Os-20’s jaw fell open.
'Cover him, Tam,’ Keill snapped – and turned, firing the gun in a sweeping downward arc against the walls of the elevator shaft.
Energy hissed and crackled as the metal split, molten globules running down its surface. And beneath their feet the disc leaped and bucked, as the magnetic support from the shaft walls was disrupted.
’You’ll kill us!’ wailed Os-20, stumbling to his knees.
But then it was too late. The disc jerked again, as – though Keill did not know it – did all the other discs in the linked pattern of descent down the shaft. Then the disc tilted slightly under their feet, and began to accelerate downwards in a plunging fall.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Keill fought to keep his balance as the disc tilted in its crazy plunge. If he had guessed wrongly about the nature of the magnetic power in the walls, he knew that it would be his last guess of any sort. There was a long way to fall...
But he had not been wrong. Within seconds the disc settled and began to slow, as the magnetic grip of the walls reasserted itself. Yet as it did so, the restored disc slid down to one of the floor-level openings in the shaft – into full view of two clones with guns in their hands.
They were ready and they were quick. Their guns flashed at the very instant that Keill fired. But none of the beams hit their targets. Os-20, half-dazed with fear, had lurched to his feet at just the wrong moment, blocking much of the opening. All three beams blasted into him, and he was dead before he began to fall.
By then the disc had slid away, down into the solid shaft before the next level. Ignoring Tam's white-faced look of alarm, Keill swung his gun and fired once more into the wall.
As before, the disc jerked, and began to fall at an accelerating speed – whisking past the next level's opening. As before, it slowed and righted itself within seconds – only to be accelerated again by a blast from Keill's gun.
On they fell, speeding and slowing, while the levels slid by. Keill could not be sure how far they were now from ground level, but guessed that it must be near. There seemed to be fewer clones as they descended: obviously most of them had hurried to the higher levels, where the action was. But he knew it would not be long before they were moving as rapidly downwards, after him.
Then the disc struck bottom, and as it slid sideways to take its place in the ascending shaft, Keill leaped off, dragging Tam with him. A quick glance around showed no sign of clones on this level.
Turning, he swept the lowest section of the elevator with the deadly beam from his gun – and in a flaring shower of sparks the disc came to rest, the shaft's magnetic energy collapsing finally upon itself.
One set of elevators out of action, he thought. That might slow them down a little.
On this lowest level, he saw as He looked more carefully around, there were no room partitions.
The whole area was open, the entire breadth of the tower. Part of it seemed to be used for storage: containers, spare skimmers and other objects were stacked at the far end. On one side of the elevator shafts, a wide ramp led upwards, presumably used by skimmers as well as men. But what lay nearer the elevator caught Keill’s attention especially.
A broad, squat shape of metal – large as one of the rooms on the upper levels, but an apparently solid casing of matt-black metal fixed immovably to the floor. From within the casing Keill could hear the hum and rumble of mighty machinery.
He knew what he had found – he was sure of it. The power source of the tower's force field.
As he studied the metal casing, Tam moved wearily up beside him. 'It is a surprise to me,' he said in his stiff Jitrellian diction, 'that we still live.'
'We're not out yet,’ Keill said. As he spoke he was reaching for the gun in the holster of Os-20, whose body still lay in the elevator shaft. Then Keill leaped towards the great bulk of humming machinery, his fingers swiftly disassembling the guns, freeing their energy charges.
Tam watched, horrified. 'Keill – if you remove the control caps, the charges will go critical! They will explode!’
'That's the idea,’ Keill snapped, bending to press the freed energy charges a
gainst the base of the metal casing. 'Just hope it'll be enough. Now – run!'
They fled up the ramp, flinging their weight against the heavy metal door at the top. It opened on to a broad but short sweep of corridor – the entrance-way of the tower, and as deserted as the lower level. At the near end Keill saw the seams in the metal where the wide outer doorway would open. At the far end, the remaining elevators rose and fell, with no one on the discs. But there soon would be, Keill knew.
Then beneath his feet the floor shuddered, and the heavy door leading to the ramp trembled and boomed, as the energy blast exploded. Keill leaped to the controls that opened the tower's great door, and felt a fierce delight as it swung ponderously open.
There was no sign of a red haze. The force field no longer existed.
But as he and Tam rushed through the opening, delight turned to dismay. A sweep of choking dust struck them, borne on a blast of air that made them reel.
The Starwind was reaching gale force – and still rising.
You seem to have won the war,Glr's inner voice said joyfully.
'Only a battle,Keill said. 'The clones will soon be pouring down here.'
What can I do?
'Protect yourself,'Keill said sharply. 'Why didn't you tell me the wind was this strong? I’m sending Tam out – you and he can find a cave somewhere.’
Not I,Glr replied. I told you earlier – I would rather face the Starwind at its worst than lose my sanity under the ground.
'Then try to reach the ship!'Keill said. 'The suppressor field will be off as well as the force field.’
Should I not join you in the tower?Glr asked dubiously.
'The tower won't be standing much longer,'Keill said desperately. 'I've got to be out of here by then. I could never reach the ship in time, on foot, but you could – and come back for me.’
If you survive that long.
'l will,'Keill insisted. 'And when you bring the ship, also do something about that spacecraft on top of the tower.’
Glr paused for a moment. I had almost forgotten that. We cannot let the metal one escape, can we? Her laughter was bright. Very well – I will bring the ship. Stay alive.
