by Douglas Hill
Its door was tightly shut. And Keill was well aware that ruses or disguises would be no use, this time. There was only one way in – just as there had been only one way for his ship, into the asteroid. A flat-out, frontal assault.
He plucked his fourth and last grenade from his belt, and readied his energy guns. Not a great deal of firepower left, he knew – but he would probably be facing only whatever weapon The One was carrying. It was unlikely that the Twenty-four would join a fire-fight. They were generals, not soldiers.
In any case, he would tackle The One bare-handed, if necessary. He had done so before.
With a snap of the wrist he sent the grenade spinning towards the metal door, and dodged back from the bludgeoning force of the explosion.
Then, as billowing smoke and flame clogged the opening where the door had been, he sprang through.
At once he swerved to his right, letting himself fall to the side, his gun seeking a target through the dark clouds of smoke.
There, directly ahead... A huge, looming figure of golden metal.
He was firing in the instant that he saw it. And despite his swift sideways motion, his balance and accuracy sent his beam directly at the heart of the golden giant.
At it – and through it, harmlessly, as if it was not there.
And in the next instant, it no longer was there. The golden figure faded and vanished, leaving Keill staring at empty air.
Then cruel, hollow laughter sounded from beyond the smoke cloud.
And from it an energy beam crackled – and blazed agonisingly into the flesh of Keill's left shoulder.
He spun, half-falling, one gun dropping from suddenly nerveless fingers. And the hollow voice sounded again.
'Throw the other gun behind you, Randor, out of the room, or my next shot will remove your head!'
Slowly, cold anger rising within him, Keill tossed his other gun away, and turned in the direction of the voice. As he did so, Glr's worried voice came to him.
Keill...?
'I'm all right,'he said grimly. 'They used some kind of illusion.'
An image, projected by the Twenty-four,Glr said. Keill, the growth of Arachnis has awakened a huge telepathic power in their mind. I sense it clearly – and there is no way of telling what it can do!
'All right,'Keill said. 'It's my problem now. You get Talis to the ship.'
He stood still, balanced and ready, forcing himself to ignore the livid pain of his seared arm, as the last of the smoke cleared.
He saw a broad, sparsely furnished room, with one wall that was entirely transparent – through which he could see the loathsome, flailing tendrils of Arachnis, and the upper bulge of its glowing body.
He saw, near the opposite wall, the seated figures of the Twenty-four, in their chairs round the bulky console of their life-support, from which the twenty-four cable-like tendrils reached out to entwine round their heads.
And he saw The One stalking towards him, puffy lips parted in a vicious grin, great hands cradling an energy rifle that was trained on the centre of Keill's torso.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
'Come forward,' The One said, his hollow voice gloating. 'Very slowly and carefully.'
Keill stepped farther into the room. His arm felt as if it was still on fire, but he moved it imperceptibly and found that, despite the pain, he still had some use of it. He glanced around the room again, seeking something that he might turn to his advantage.
The transparent wall panel? Clearly it was part of the shaft wall, which had looked so solid from the other side. So Golvician technology was able to polarise that metal, to make it transparent from one side, just like the wall of the cage that had carried him to Golvic.
The One followed his gaze, and his smile widened. 'Do not develop false hopes, Randor. The metal is as impervious from this side as from the other. In any case you would not enjoy making renewed contact with Arachnis.'
Keill remained silent, watchful, as he continued to move forward, poising himself.
'Stop.' The One gestured with the rifle, and Keill halted. Still too far away, he thought sourly, to try to beat that rifle.
The One looked inquiringly towards his master, and Keill looked as well. The Twenty-four were frowning slightly, exactly the same expression on the face of every one of them.
'I am displeased, Altern.' Again the unsettling sound of twenty-four soft voices speaking in perfect chorus – and again the reference to themselves as one person. 'He is far more resourceful and dangerous than you had led me to believe.'
A shadow flickered across The One's small eyes, and Keill recognised it as fear. 'He has been fortunate. Master,' The One said defensively.
'He has escaped Arachnis, and survived.' the soft voice said. 'He has come here, fought his way through an entire detachment of militia, and wiped out the elite of the Deathwing. That is not merely good fortune. It is as well that I decided to destroy the rest of his people, if this is what one legionary can do.'
'But he has done only superficial harm,' The One insisted. 'The asteroid can be repaired, the militia are replaceable, and I can rebuild the Deathwing in no time.' The gloating smile reappeared.
'Whereas we have finished off the old fool who employed Randor, and will soon finish him off.'
'Not soon. Immediately.' A whiplash of command had entered the soft chorus of voices. 'Kill him now, where he stands.'
Keill did not seem to move, but he was gathering himself, ready for a last desperate rush.
'Master...' There was a pleading note in The One's voice that made Keill's skin crawl. 'You know how long this man has opposed me. Let me have my revenge more sweetly, more slowly. You may even find the process... amusing.'
The Twenty-four were silent for a moment. 'I understand your feeling, Altern,' they said at last.
'But you have faced him alone before, and failed to kill him.'
'True,' The One said, glowering at Keill. 'But now he has no weapon, and he is injured. And my new body is stronger and more invulnerable than the last one.'
Keill considered those words gloomily. When he had fought The One before, hand to hand, the golden armour had resisted his fiercest assaults, for a considerable time. If this replacement was even tougher...
But the thought broke off, as the Twenty-four came to a decision. The frown cleared from all their foreheads, at once, and twenty-four simultaneous smiles curved their lips. 'Very well. Deal with him as you wish. And if you get into difficulty, I can perform a further test on the newest gift conferred on me by Arachnis.'
That would mean the telepathic power, Keill knew. Glr might know what to do about it – but there was no time to contact her. The One was lowering the energy rifle, his cruel smile broadening.
'Be grateful, Randor,' he said. 'You will have some extra moments of life after all.'
Keill watched him, expressionlessly. Here it is again, he thought – the Deathwing arrogance, the total belief in the superiority of those who follow the Warlord. That supreme overconfidence had been the undoing of the Deathwing before, in encounters with Keill. Perhaps it would be so again.
The golden giant was fumbling with the rifle, and Keill saw with surprise that he was removing the energy charge. Casually The One flung the charge into the far corner of the room – and then gripped the empty rifle and effortlessly bent it into a twisted, useless shape.
'No weapons, Randor,' he grinned savagely. 'Just our bare hands – to the death.'
---
But the grin on the grey face faded at once, for Keill had already begun to move. One running stride and he was launched into the air like a projectile, boots hammering forward in a ferocious drop kick. One boot slammed with crushing force into the centre of the great golden chest, where Keill knew the almost invisible seam of the armour lay. The other boot struck upward, towards the mottled flesh of the face.
But The One was protecting his face, the one exposed area of his true body. A vast golden hand had flashed upwards, to block that blow. And the batte
ring impact of Keill's other boot, against the chest, had only staggered him.
Keill came to his feet lithely, circling away, thinking hard. The One moved much more quickly now than he had in his previous armour. And he had spoken the simple truth about the strength of his new body. That kick, Keill knew, would have damaged a plate of niconium steel. But the broad golden chest showed not a scratch.
The One raised a hand, unconsciously, to the jagged scar at the edge of his grey face – a legacy of his earlier encounter with Keill. 'You will not catch me that way again,' he snarled.
He leaped forward, hands clutching. Keill spun away out of danger, but was again surprised at how much more speed The One had acquired, as well as strength. One of the hands had grasped an edge of his tunic, and had torn the fabric as if it were paper.
Again Keill twisted and dodged away from a hurtling attack. And as he evaded the deadly grasp, his right hand chopped savagely up at the puffy face.
But The One was swift enough, turning his head so that the edge of Keill's hand struck the metal of the golden hood, and rebounded harmlessly. And Keill was barely able to fling himself backwards in time to avoid a brutal counter from one massive golden fist.
So the pattern of the battle was maintained. The One advanced, swinging swift, clubbing blows, or reaching out to clutch Keill in the terrible grip of his hands. And Keill retreated, dodging and evading, striving to find a way to make his counterattacks effective against that impervious armour.
And as the battle went on, Keill grew uneasily aware that the injury to his arm, and the huge output of energy in his earlier assault on the Deathwing, had taken a toll even on his supreme resilience.
He was soon breathing heavily, and there was the faintest of sensations in the muscles of his legs that warned of the approach of exhaustion.
Time to change tactics, he thought grimly.
He had retreated most of the way across the room, and now there was a wall close to his back.
As The One charged once more, Keill feinted a slash at the eyes, feinted once more as if to dodge to his right, then with blurring speed moved in towards the golden body. The One's murderous blow swept millimetres past his face – and then Keill had grasped the metal arm, adjusted his stance, and used the giant's own impetus to fling the metal bulk up in the air and over, crashing into the wall.
The One bounced up as if he had been made of rubber rather than metal. But by then Keill had turned, and was running.
Not towards the door, to escape. But towards the far corner of the room, where The One had casually flung the energy charge from his rifle.
He knew exactly how to alter the mechanism, so that the energy flow would be disrupted. The resulting explosion could kill everyone in the room. He intended to use that threat to hold The One at bay, until Glr could get there with a gun. It was his only chance...
His hand was just reaching down to scoop up the energy charge, when the inside of his head seemed to erupt in an explosion of enormous, intolerable pain.
---
It lasted for only a microsecond, before it was cut off as suddenly as if a switch had been thrown. But the brutal agony, no less overpowering than the pain when Glr had torn away the Arachnis link, had driven him to his knees, and left him momentarily dazed and shaken.
He remained where he was, trying to regather his strength, as The One stepped forward and kicked the energy charge out of reach.
'Most effective,' said the chorus of the Twenty-four. 'I had wondered if he had some special resistance, when he escaped from Arachnis. It seems not.'
The One replied, but Keill did not hear the words. He was listening to another voice – inside his head.
Keill, that was a psychic blast,Glr said rapidly. Part of the Twenty-four's new mental power. I shielded you at once, as I did on Veynaa.
'Can you keep it up?'
It is immensely powerful, in human terms, Glr said. But I can withstand it. Shall I come to your aid?
'See to Talis first,'Keill said. 'I'll try to hold out. And if I don't...'
The image in his mind showed Glr what he wanted. If he lost this final battle, she was to take his ship out, and use every particle of its firepower to destroy the asteroid and its occupants.
If you wish,Glr said bleakly. But you must survive!
'There's no law that says so,'Keill told her. 'But I won't go down easily.'
The entire exchange, at the speed of thought, had taken the briefest of moments. In that time Keill had come to his feet, fighting off the last effects of the psychic blast, as The One advanced once more.
The battle resumed. Again Keill began a blow that smoothly became a lifting hold, swinging The One off his feet and hurling him halfway across the room.
That might shake some of those mechanisms loose, inside the armour, he thought.
But as before The One came at once to his feet, unharmed, and charged back to the attack.
Again Keill dodged, and gripped, and threw. Again the giant form hurtled to the floor. But first, the lunging blow of The One had found a target. Not the side of Keill's head, where it had been aimed – but the muscles of his left shoulder, only centimetres from the gaping wound in his arm.
The pain of the arm blazed up overpoweringly, and Keill staggered slightly as he fought for control. In that moment The One was upon him, swinging a terrifying kick that smashed against Keill's side.
Ordinary ribs would have been pulped, but the unbreakable alloy of Keill's bones survived the impact. Yet the immense power of it flung him back, vision blurring, half-falling at the feet of the nearest member of the Twenty-four.
He fought to clear his head. The One was advancing again, unhurriedly, certain now that Keill was on the edge of defeat. And at the same time, the smiles widened on the faces of the Twenty-four, and they leaned slightly forward, their eyes narrowing slightly. Keill realised that they were hurling another psychic blast at him, to ensure the victory of The One.
He felt nothing, for Glr's sturdy mind-shield had operated at once. But he contorted his face as if in agony, let his body tense and convulse, then sagged limply to the floor.
The Twenty-four sat back, nodding with satisfaction. The One's advance slowed, deferring to his master. And that momentary pause was just long enough for Keill to overcome the effects of the punishing kick, and gather himself.
Without warning, he launched himself from the floor. Not towards the golden giant – but into the midst of the circle of the Twenty-four.
Simultaneous expression of shock appeared on their faces. 'Altern!' they shrieked. 'Stop him!'
Panic-stricken, yet still moving as one, the Twenty-four struggled out of their chairs, flinging their wasted bodies towards Keill. The great tentacles of Arachnis attached to their heads twisted and tangled as they moved, impeding The One's lunging rush.
And Keill reached to the console with his right hand to clutch a handful of the thick tendrils.
They were smooth, clammy, writhing slightly in his grasp. He struggled to get a firmer grip, while sweeping his injured left arm backwards to free himself from the clawing, flailing, shrieking mass that was the Twenty-four.
The renewed pain from the movement threatened to weaken his hold on the tendrils. And then The One was plunging through the tangle of bodies, swinging a fist like a huge golden club down on to the wrist of Keill's hand, where it clutched the Arachnis tentacles.
Again Keill's vision blurred as the new pain of the bruised flesh lanced up his arm. But neither his wrist nor his grip had been broken – and still he fought to find the leverage he needed.
'Kill him, fool!' screamed the frantic Twenty-four. .
The giant lunged forward again. The grey face was contorted with fury, and there was a fleck of foam at the corner of the puffy lips. The sudden, unexpected turn of events had thrown The One almost into a frenzy – and though his speed and strength remained, all caution had been flung aside.
With a heave of his shoulders Keill sent several of the Tw
enty-four sprawling. And in a movement too swift for any of their eyes to follow, he swung himself up and around, using his grip on the Arachnis tentacles as a pivot, and met The One's charge with a crippling smash of both boots into the giant's unguarded face.
The One fell back, crashing to the floor in a sliding, threshing clatter of metal limbs. And Keill swept the remaining members of the Twenty-four aside, and reached both hands to the tentacles of Arachnis.
But one of the Twenty-four, finding strength in terror, regained his feet. Before Keill could stop him, he had slapped his hand on to a small lever at the side of the console.
Behind Keill, the great glass panel that was one wall of the room slid smoothly open.
And a hundred, a thousand, of the writhing tendrils of Arachnis whipped in through the opening, ready to enclose Keill in their web-like trap.
He had no hope of preventing one of the tendrils from finding a grip round his brow. There was only an instant before he would again be a slave-robot of Arachnis, at the total mercy of the Twenty-four.
In that instant he wrapped both his arms round the clammy bulk of all the tentacles rising from the console, and jerked backwards, in an irresistible, balanced explosion of power.
The thick tentacles writhed, stretched – and gave way.
Their coiled ends ripped free of their grasp on the twenty-four heads.
And the Twenty-four went insane.
The screams that filled the room were no longer in chorus, but a shrill and ragged discord. The twenty-four bodies no longer moved in unison, but twisted and shuddered and convulsed in separate, agonised contortions. Some clutched their heads and curled tightly upon themselves, squealing in anguish.
Some fell threshing and foaming to the floor. Some toppled silently, and lay motionless, struck instantly dead by the unbearable disruption of their union with Arachnis.
And the tendrils of the Arachnis monster, no longer directed by the united supermind of the Twenty-four, waved quietly in the air, brushing harmlessly past Keill as he watched the grisly death agonies of the Warlord.
