by Douglas Hill
'life support' system.
Somewhere in the brain the memory will still be working, storing information. But the inner self has no access to the data, and so cannot even confirm its own identity.
Somewhere the reason, the imagination, the intelligence will still be working, waiting for some stimulus to spur them into assessing, deciding, responding. But they too are cut off from the isolated self.
Neither stimulus nor response reaches past the barriers.
Somewhere even the emotions and instincts are still alive – the capacity to feel anger or fear, to laugh or weep. But their normal channels have also been blocked, and they cannot touch or activate the self.
So after a while, in most cases, the sense of self at the core of the mind will begin to fade, shrivel, dissolve. Slowly, behind the barriers that imprison it, it will die.
Then the brain and body that the self had once inhabited become fully those of a puppet, a robot.
And if the outer controls should be removed, the brain and body would be as helpless, as useless, as a puppet without strings, a robot without a power source.
When the tendril of Arachnis wrapped round Keill Randor's head, the barriers were instantly slammed shut in his mind. The tendril broke away, closing upon itself to form a tight cord encircling the skull, but the link remained, even though the brain was no longer directly connected to Arachnis.
And through that link, at the unimaginable speed of thought, the supermind of the Twenty-four reprogrammed Keill's mind, to make him their puppet, their robot.
If the isolated inner centre of Keill's being had been able to make a noise, it would have been an endless scream.
But it could not. Curled in the void at the core of his mind, Keill's sense of self merely floated – in an endless deprivation, forgetful of the past, unmindful of the future, unaffected by events.
---
For a while the robot that had been Keill Randor was left mostly alone, in a narrow, bleak room in one of the extensions of the vast Deathwing building. There he waited passively, sitting on the edge of a hard bunk and staring emptily at the wall. He was unaware of the activity that was going on within the mind that was no longer his own.
The Arachnis link did not only wall off Keill's control over his own being. It also gave the Twenty-four full access to all of his knowledge and memories. In no time they had extracted every scrap of information about the Overseers, their hidden asteroid, and their far-flung monitoring devices. They had studied every detail of Keill's life since the destruction of Moros – including the fact of his remade skeleton. And they had dug out all that Keill knew about Glr.
They did not learn where the Overseers' base was located, nor where Glr was hiding on Golvic, for Keill did not know. But every other secret contained in Keill's mind had been uncovered and opened like a book.
In his narrow room, passive as a disconnected machine, Keill knew nothing of what had been revealed. He merely waited, while at the core of what had been his mind his inner self curled more tightly, not even aware of how close it was to its final dissolution.
Yet there was a unique quality within that isolated inner self of Keill Randor. Something that retained a spark of strength, that fought to resist its destruction.
The legendary self-discipline and control of the Legions of Moros did not grow solely from the ceaseless, rigorous training imposed on every legionary from earliest infancy. The training merely reinforced something that was bred into the Legions, implanted in their very genes, over the centuries of their life on Moros. So deeply was it embedded, so unyielding was its strength, that it might have been a mutation in its own right.
It was the resolute, indomitable, diamond-hard will of a legionary.
And at the deepest core of the robot-being that Keill Randor had become, his will endured.
It was blind, wordless, cut off from all sense of identity, purpose or control. But it was intact –
for it simply fell back on its last, defiant, defensive position, its ultimate resource. The pure determination to survive.
Steadfastly, unconquerably, the will of a legionary kept what remained of the real Keill Randor, the essence of his true self, intact and alive. And waiting.
---
Days passed, though the robot Keill did not measure their passing. But at last green-tunicked Golvicians came to take Keill from his silent room, through the corridors of the huge building, into the presence of a golden giant, whose grey puffy lips wore an evil smile of triumph. As did the narrow face of another man, waiting with the giant – a man whose eyes glowed oddly, and whose right shoulder was heavily bandaged.
The robot Keill was indifferent to their expressions. He stared straight ahead, empty-eyed.
'His functions, his skills, will be quite unimpaired, Festinn, I assure you,' The One said.
Festinn nodded, gazing thoughtfully at Keill. Without warning he lashed out his left fist, a blindingly swift blow at Keill's face.
But reflexes are automatic, not needing the conscious control of a mind. Keill's reflexes, and all his power and speed, had not been damaged by the Arachnis link. Festinn's fist struck empty air as Keill swayed aside – and then Keill's own hand was chopping down in a counter-blow that might have broken Festinn's one good arm.
But the chop was not completed. Keill froze like a statue, as the controlling supermind of the Twenty-four clamped on its restraints. Then he relaxed, and resumed his former stance, staring blankly into nothingness.
'Excellent,' Festinn said. He stepped closer to Keill, grinning into the empty eyes. 'You are to be honoured, Randor,' he said mockingly. 'The very cream of the Deathwing has assembled, to receive the benefit of your guidance.'
The gloating laughter that followed meant as little to Keill as the words.
Festinn took him then to another room – broad, bare, with a few items of gymnasium equipment scattered at one end. Clustered idly at that end was an assortment of humans – a dozen of them. Some of them seemed wholly normal, almost ordinary, save for a trace of cruelty in the set of their mouths, a flinty coldness in their eyes.
But among them were several whose appearance was weirdly different from the human norm.
Two might have seemed to be Golvicians, at first glance. But the livid green of their covering was not that of Golvician tunics. They were naked to the waist, and the green was the colour of their ridged, reptilian skin.
Another of the group was a skeletally thin woman, her skin a bleached white, looking even more deathlike by contrast with her shock of black hair and her bright scarlet jumpsuit, which had heavy metal bracelets at the wrists.
Another was a misshapen figure that seemed more beast than man – short bowed legs and immensely long arms, dangling almost to the floor, extended even more by multi-jointed fingers three times longer than a normal human's.
Yet another was an unnaturally broad and bulky dwarf – his face almost hidden in a massive black beard, his body covered with segmented, glittering armour like a mosaic made with mirrors –
holding in one fist a short, heavy baton of black metal.
Once Keill might have studied them with interest, as examples of the Altered Worlds. But the robot Keill remained empty-eyed, indifferent, as he was led towards them.
'Here comes our teacher,' a sneering voice from the group called out.
The woman in scarlet rose to her feet, bloodless lips set in a thin line. 'Festinn, this is an outrage!' she said sharply.
A chorus of angry mutterings arose in agreement from the group around her.
'Silence!' Festinn shouted, eyes blazing. As the group quietened, he swept the fury of his gaze across them.
'This is by direct order of The One,' he snapped. 'We are well aware of your abilities, your successes, your skill with your own chosen weapons. But now we wish you to extend yourselves!'
His voice took on a conspiratorial tone. 'It is only just. Randor was responsible for destroying The One's earlier plan for a special strike forc
e. So now he can put the final touches on the new one!'
Cold smiles appeared on the faces of some of the group, and there was a rumble of cruel laughter.
'Each of you,' Festinn went on, 'will be responsible for a section of The One's special task force.
Each unit must be as formidable, as invincible, as a command group of the Legions of Moros themselves.'
He grinned viciously. 'So we will use our tame legionary, to polish your skills with other weapons, besides your favourites. To perfect your ability to kill without weapons. To advance your knowledge of many techniques – infiltration, ambush, high-speed raiding, much more.
'When this course of instruction is over, each unit of the Deathwing will be the equal of an army, on any planet of the galaxy!'
He had won them over. The hard faces now wore coldly eager smiles – except for the woman in scarlet, who stood apart from the others, scowling angrily.
The entire scene meant nothing to the robot Keill. Nor did the intense activity of the days that followed, as the inner programming of Keill's enslaved mind directed his efforts.
Much time was spent in practice with the most advanced weapon of the Inhabited Worlds, the energy gun. There the armoured dwarf proved most adept, for his preferred weapon was the heat-wand, the metal baton that fired a controlled ray of heat, almost as powerful as the energy beam.
With other hand-weapons, the green-skinned reptilian pair came into their own. They were experts with a lethal weapon formed from razor-edged blades, fanning out into a disc-like circle, like the petals of a flower – which gave the weapon its name, the blood-rose. They adapted readily to a variety of other bladed weapons, and weapons to be thrown, that Keill demonstrated.
In unarmed combat, the long-armed monkey-man was outstanding, with his immense agility and wiry strength. His skill was that of the stealthy assassin – those unnaturally long fingers had crushed many a throat. He followed avidly Keill's instructions about the holds and blows, to pressure points and nerve centres, that would instantly disable or kill.
So long, wearying days went by. Soon some of the Deathwing group were detailed to continue the special training of the others, while Keill worked with the less adept. Increasingly, each of them grew more skilled, more deadly. And all of them were being welded into a tight and murderously effective combat unit.
All except the woman in scarlet, who did no more than go grudgingly through the motions, whose angry scowl remained in place whenever she looked at Festinn, or at Keill.
At last what patience Festinn possessed came to an end. The group were in the gymnasium again, where Keill was tirelessly demonstrating a complex counter move, in unarmed combat, designed to leave an attacker with shattered vertebrae. The woman in scarlet was pointedly paying scant attention, and Festinn's eyes were flaring with anger.
'We can't be expected to learn all a legionary's tricks in two or three weeks,' the woman spat.
'You know very well what is expected,' Festinn snapped. 'Now continue at once!'
'Why should I bother?' the woman shouted. She tapped her heavy bracelets meaningfully.
'There's no one alive who can get near enough to use that hold on me!'
'Marska,' Festinn said, his voice dangerously cold, 'you will do so because I order it. Or I may instruct Randor not to hold back, so that you will learn how easily your back can truly be broken.'
'Can it?' the woman raged. 'Let's see how easily he can counter this!'
She wheeled, and her right arm snapped forward. And from the bracelet flamed a burst of pure energy – not a beam, but a controlled, shaped bolt, like a fireball.
Keill had been standing several paces away, robot-patient, not even looking at the quarrelling pair. But his reflexes were intact still. He moved almost casually, and the fireball flashed harmlessly past him, to explode against the far wall, blasting a gaping hole in its smooth metal.
The rest of the Deathwing turned to look at Marska – and went very still. There was even a trace of fear in some of their eyes. For Marska's bone-thin body was suspended high in the air, by the crushing grip of two huge golden hands on her wrists. The One had come unannounced among them, and he was angry.
'You will be punished, Marska,' the hollow voice was saying, 'until you understand. I intend the Deathwing to be the supreme fighting force in the galaxy. You will give all your effort to it, fully and willingly, or I will put an end to you.'
The golden hands opened, and Marska fell to the floor in a huddled, terrified heap.
'As for Randor,' The One went on, 'should a time come when he is to be killed, it is I – and only I – who shall have that pleasure.'
He turned to Festinn. 'This period of instruction will shortly end. The spacecraft are now being assembled, and the Master is preparing for transfer.'
Festinn's eyes glittered. 'Then the base has been located, and is suitable?'
'Entirely,' The One said. 'It was not difficult for our technology to locate some of the monitoring devices, and eventually to trace their messages back to their origin.'
He glanced at Keill with a small evil smile. 'How unfortunate that Randor cannot appreciate the irony – that he and his Overseers have provided the ideal command centre, from which the Master can complete his conquest of the galaxy.'
CHAPTER SEVEN
The One's ominous words meant no more to Keill than all the others that were spoken to him in those days. And he was just as unaffected by the change in his routine. Soon after that day, he no longer met and worked with the Deathwing. Now he was assigned more simple duties as an instructor for Golvician soldiers.
'These troops will form the special units led by the members of the Deathwing,' Festinn told him, still taking a perverse pleasure in speaking to Keill as if he could understand. 'They will strike the final, disruptive hammer blows that will complete the Master's victory, once the final galactic war is ended.
Won't you be proud to know how you have contributed to that victory?'
And he laughed viciously into Keill's empty robot face.
In the days that followed, squad after squad of soldiers assembled with Keill for hours of unceasing instruction. Within the Deathwing building they acquired some of the basic skills of unarmed combat – moves and defences that the children of Moros would have mastered by the age of eight. Out in the empty desert beyond Golv City, Keill directed the soldiers' practice with handgun and rifle. He led them through basic assault patterns, and defensive regrouping. He demonstrated the close-combat use of military flyers. He improved their speed, mobility, discipline and tactical awareness.
Through all those days his body moved with all of its former flowing power. He gave orders and instructions with crisp efficiency. Yet the movements, the words, were not his. All his supreme military skills were at the command now of another mind. The blankness of his eyes did not alter for a moment.
But eventually those days, too, came to an end. Keill travelled with the soldiers, and several flyers full of Golvician technicians, to the Golv City spaceport. There he waited passively as the soldiers and some of the technicians filed on to a vast spacecraft, a troop carrier, that finally lumbered with thunderous power up from the port to vanish into the chill grey sky of Golvic.
And Festinn came again to gloat.
'You should know that the Deathwing assault on the new base was successful, almost comically easy,' he said. 'Now those men will prepare the way for the Master. And you, Randor, are to lend your services to the transfer.'
He stepped closer, peering hopefully into Keill's eyes. 'Is there not some part of you left,' he murmured, half to himself, 'to feel anguish over what has been done?'
But there was not. The robot Keill went as blankly as ever about his new duties. They concerned another giant spaceship, the largest type of transport freighter that could be landed on a planet. A small army of technicians laboured in and around it, and Keill laboured among them.
The whole interior of the ship was ripped out, and in the shel
l a new structure began to take shape. It took the form of a deep well, or shaft, constructed from an unusual metal that arrived at the spaceport in pre-formed sections, to be assembled. Within the shaft a complex array of delicate, high-technology equipment was fitted, all sheathed in the same unique metal, and then tested and re-tested, while more alterations went on in the other sections of the freighter.
Keill did what he had to do, without curiosity or comprehension. In the same way, he dutifully followed Festinn, many days later, into one of the sleek flyers, which carried them swiftly back to the Deathwing building in Golv City.
'The transfer will go smoothly,' Festinn said. 'But you need not be troubled by the Master's departure. His power is immense. He will be able to reach you, even from the new base. Nothing will change.'
As always, the mocking laughter had no more effect on Keill than the words.
But it was true. Even after the great freighter also lifted off with its burden, Keill's days remained the same. The training of new squads of soldiers continued, and so did the constant jibes and mockery from Festinn.
And there were other experiences that continued – things that had been happening throughout all the days and weeks of his robot existence. But these seemed to have their origin from within the empty regions of his enslaved mind – though they meant no more to him than outer events.
One of the inner experiences took the form of a frequent, fragmentary image of a large ovoid shape, glowing with the changing flow of the energies that bathed it, sprouting countless long tendrils that writhed in unending motion, like some giant, alien, undersea plant.
With it came another recurring image, of twenty-four serenely smiling people, wearing what looked like thick coronets around their heads. They seemed always to be whispering, murmuring, tugging, urging, within Keill's brain.
The robot Keill did not understand these images, nor was he troubled by them.
Equally, he was untroubled by another awareness, within his robot-mind. It appeared less often than the others, and mostly at night, while Keill lay on his narrow bunk and stared obliviously at the bare ceiling, waiting for the greater oblivion of sleep.
