The outer airlock entrances would be guarded, for such was the paranoiac thoroughness of the Hegemony that they would guard even these exits to oblivion, entrances through which there was no one to pass—but they would be guarded lightly.
Duntov made a hand signal to his men as they trudged out onto the plain and towards the dome. The party split up: seven men began circling the dome towards the spaceport airlock on the other side, while the other three followed Duntov around pools of lead and powdered-rock quagmires towards the auxiliary lock.
Duntov halted them at a jumble of boulders about twenty-five yards from the airlock. He crouched down behind a small boulder, motioned for his men to take cover.
He peered out over the top of the boulder at the airlock, a short hemicylindrical tunnel projecting out from the side of the dome like the entrance to an igloo. Two men in spacesuits idled by the sealed airlock door at the blunt end of the hemicylinder. Only two! A piece of cake! Duntov thought as he unholstered his lasegun and trained it on the man to the left.
He gestured to his men. At this prearranged signal, one of them aimed his lasegun at the man Duntov was covering while the other two covered the right-hand Guard.
Duntov held his free left hand over his head and waited. This had to be timed right. He had to give the other party time to reach the main airlock before seizing this one, or the plan would be given away and the Guards at the main airlock, who probably would be more numerous, alerted.
Strictly speaking, it was not actually essential to control both locks—but if the Guards maintained control of either one, they might be able to send a large force against the other across the Mercurian surface before the Council capitulated. He would then be forced to go through with the killing of the entire population of the dome, a prospect he did not relish. …
So Arkady Duntov waited long minutes, reaiming his lasegun occasionally as his target shifted position, waited as the suit temperature continued to rise, as rivulets of sweat began to trickle down onto his face. …
Three … five … ten … fifteen minutes.
That should do it, Duntov thought. They’re either in position now, or they’ll never be. …
He jerked his chin against the pad inside his helmet, turning on his suit transceiver. “Mouse!” he said crisply, trying to make the break in radiosilence as brief as possible.
“Trap!” came the countersign, crackling with solar static, Duntov turned off the transceiver. Now! he thought.
He dropped his left hand. Four laseguns fired; blazing red beams of light, momentarily brighter than even the nearby glowering sun, lanced out simultaneously.
The two Guards were hit immediately, puffs of air wafting visibly out of the holes burnt into their suits. They fell, mortally wounded by the lasebeams, cooked within their suits by the terrible Mercurian heat as well.
Still maintaining radiosilence, Duntov leapt up, led his men across the rubble strewn surface to the airlock. Duntov studied the great heavy door on the blunt end of the airlock. Burning through it would not be easy. Perhaps—the Brotherhood’s information had not been that complete—there was a way to open the door from the outside …?
Yes! That looks like it! he thought, spotting the single stud set in small panel on the frame of the massive door.
Duntov pressed the stud and the door began to slide ponderously upward. He aimed his lasegun at the doorway, just in case, and as the door slid to a fully opened position—
A startled spacesuited Guard screwed his face into a mask of pain as the full glare of the sun blinded him through his unpolarized visor.
Duntov shot him in the midsection, then again, as he crumpled and fell, in the helmet. One of the men pressed a stud on the inside doorframe, and the door shut behind them.
We’re inside! Duntov thought, as he waited a minute while the airlock re-established its Earth-normal atmosphere. Then he cracked his helmet, swung the visor open and breathed deeply of the cooled air.
“Okay,” he said, “set it up, Rogers.”
The man carrying the backpack unstrapped it, withdrew a great wad of adhesoplastic explosive, and stuck it to the inner airlock door while the third man took a small detonator box from the pack, jammed its prongs into the explosive wad and then checked out a smaller box, a tiny radio transmitter. The explosive, Duntov knew, could be detonated from that small transmitter, or the one back on the ship, or the one the other party had, or b charges could be detonated by any one of the three.
“All set!” Rogers said.
Duntov unstrapped the powerful transceiver on his back, set it on the floor, tuned it to the Standard Internal Frequency of the Mercurian Ministry of Guardianship.
Then he spoke into his suit mike.
“Mousetrap One to Mousetrap Two! Mousetrap One to Mousetrap Two! Cheese One in position!”
A moment’s silence, and then a static-distorted voice from the suit transceiver: “Mousetrap Two to Mousetrap One! Mousetrap Two to Mousetrap One! Cheese Two in position!”
The second explosive charge was in place in the main airlock. “Roger and clear,” Duntov said, “Stand by.”
“Okay,” he muttered, turning on the auxiliary transceiver, “the Hegemony’s got its rat, and now we’ve got ours!”
He unhooked the microphone from the transceiver, thumbed it on, and began to speak.
“I could of course have you killed,” Vladimir Khustov said to the silent Boris Johnson. “Perhaps eventually I will. But if you cooperate, if you submit to depth psychoprobing willingly, perhaps you may be spared. Perhaps you can even be cured of your madness. If we can determine the exact nature of the psychosis that produces aberrant individuals such as yourself, it may be possible to correlate the disease with specific genetic traits, and by forbidding Wards carrying those genes to breed, eventually weed them out of the race. …”
Jack Torrence watched the whole sorry performance with a mixture of contemptuous amusement and disgust. It’s a side of him I just never could understand, Torrence thought. Khustov the pedant—almost like Gorov, now. Khustov the fanatic. … Does Vladimir really believe all that swill? But he can’t—after all, he’s enough of a realist and a shrewd enough politician to’ve made himself Coordinator, and to keep himself in the catbird’s seat—so far. A man like that’s got to be a pragmatist, he can’t actually believe all that garbage he’s babbling. Sure, Vladimir has the best reason in the world to preserve the order of the Hegemony intact—he’s at the top. I, on the other hand, Torrence conceded, would support any system that put me on top, no matter how many changes it brought about. Why not? The system exists to serve the ruler, not the other way around.
Vladimir must know that. …
Yet what ulterior motive can he have for this tiresome performance? What sane reason is there for keeping Johnson alive? Vladimir Khustov—fanatic. There ought to be some way of using that against him. …
“Haven’t we listened to about enough of this, Vladimir?” Torrence finally said. “This farce is just a waste of time. Let’s just dispose of Johnson and be done with it.”
“I told you, we must study Johnson and his kind in order to—”
“Oh, come off it!” Torrence snapped. “First you’re soft on the Brotherhood, now you don’t want to kill Boris Johnson. Might I remind you that this man tried to kill both of us not so long ago?” He glanced around significantly at the other Councilors. “Might I also remind you that he just tried to kill us all? Are you getting squeamish, Vladimir? The Hegemony can ill-afford a squeamish Coordinator. …”
He studied the faces of the Councilors as he uttered the last innuendo. Even Khustov’s tame Councilors seemed to be wondering—and why not, since this man their boy now wanted to keep alive had just tried to murder them! Only Gorov seemed interested in Khustov’s plans to “study” Johnson, and that idiot would study a maniac with a knife while he was being hacked to pieces.
Khustov, on the other hand, seemed really bugged. “I’m getting a little tired of you, Jack,”
he said. “Let me point out to the entire Council that my plan has worked perfectly every step of the way. Results are what count, and none of you can deny that results are what I’ve given you. Vice-Coordinator Torrence is very good at shooting off his mouth—I would be the last to deny that. But results. … That takes another kind of man entirely. I’ve been right so far, and I say we have very good reasons for—”
The communicator buzzer began to sound. Irritably, Khustov thumbed the audio on. “Well,” he grunted, “what is it now …?”
An unfamiliar voice filled the Council Chamber:
“This is an agent of the Brotherhood of Assassins. This is an agent of the Brotherhood of Assassins. Both airlocks of this environment dome are now under the control of the Brotherhood. We have placed powerful explosive charges in both airlocks. The charges are connected to dead man’s switches. Any attempt to retake the airlocks will result in their instant detonation. You will be given seven minutes to verify the situation. At the end of that period, you will be given further orders. If those orders are not obeyed, or if any attempt is made to retake the locks, the charges will be detonated, the airlocks and adjacent portions of the dome blown apart and the interior of this dome exposed instantly to the conditions of the Mercurian surface. Everyone within the dome will be destroyed. You will now verify the situation and await further orders. Out.”
The moment the communicator fell silent, everyone was shouting at once.
“What!”
“A bluff!”
“Send the Guards to the airlocks!”
“Seal the Council Chamber!” Torrence shouted, then realized that it would do no good. If the dome were holed, the entire environment control system would be destroyed by the terrible heat and caustic gasses. They might survive a bit longer in the sealed Chamber, but it would only be postponing the inevitable. … Of all the …!
Boris Johnson was laughing. “How does it feel?” Johnson crowed. “Caught in your own trap. The hunters become the hunted. The—”
“Enjoy yourself while you can!” Torrence said shrilly.
“What makes you think the Brotherhood’s on your side? They’ll probably—”
“Shut up!” Vladimir Khustov roared, cutting through the tumult. Councilors, Torrence, even Johnson were cowed to silence. “We’ve got no time to yell and scream at each other,” Khustov said. “We must act, and the first thing we must do is verify the situation. We could very well be faced with nothing more than a foolish bluff. …”
He turned to the communicator, spoke a few terse sentences in harsh, guttural Russian.
“You know that some of us don’t speak Russian,” Torrence whined, instantly suspicious. “What did you—?”
“I merely instructed the Commander of the Guards to attempt to establish contact with the men guarding the airlocks,” Khustov said. “We should know in a moment if—”
A voice speaking breathless, excited Russian came through the communicator speaker, and Torrence had no need to understand the language to make out the meaning as Khustov’s face creased in a heavy frown, as the Hegemonic Coordinator slammed a fist into a palm and cursed bilingually.
“It’s no bluff,” Khustov said in English. “The suit radios of all the airlock Guards are dead. The life systems telemetry channels are out too—the Guards can’t be alive. No answers from the communicators inside the locks either. They’ve done it, all right!”
“But the bombs could be bluff …” Councilor Kuryakin suggested wanly. “Maybe we should take the chance and storm the locks …?”
“If they’ve captured the airlocks, there’s no reason for them to be bluffing about the rest,” Khustov said. “Time enough for desperation measures when we hear what their demands are. …”
The Councilors waited in stolid silence—like cattle in an abattoir, Torrence thought, his mind working feverishly. But all he could think of was how much he wanted to live. How insane the Brotherhood was What could they do? What way out was there? It couldn’t all end this way. … It just couldn’t!
Finally, the voice of the Brotherhood agent over the communicator broke the silence:
“You have now had ample time to verify the situation,” nally, ce said. “You now know that you must follow our orders to the letter or die. You will be given exactly fifteen minutes to comply.”
There was a dreadful, pregnant pause, and then the voice continued: “Your orders are as follows: Boris Johnson will be conducted to the emergency airlock and turned over to the Brotherhood of the Assassins.”
Another pause, during which the Councilors heaved great sighs of relief, and Johnson’s face became a mask of utter confusion.
Jack Torrence all but laughed. Go figure the Brotherhood! he thought. They could kill us all—but all they want is Johnson! That’s not so bad. A total victory becomes merely a partial one. That’s not so bad at all. …
Then the voice spoke again: “Johnson will be accompanied by Councilor Constantine Gorov and Coordinator Vladimir Khustov. All three must be turned over to us at the emergency airlock, and they must arrive at the airlock alone. If there is the slightest hint of treachery, the main airlock will be instantly blown. If any attempt is made to follow us when we leave, the explosives will be detonated by remote control. You have fifteen minutes to comply, from my mark. If the three men are not in our hands by then, you are all dead men. Mark! And out.”
Khustov went pale. “I’ll send every available Guard in the dome to the airlocks immediately!” he said. “We’ll—”
“Just a minute!” Torrence snapped, his mind recovering from a moment of bewilderment. The Brotherhood taketh, he thought, and the Brotherhood giveth away! Blessed be the Brotherhood of Assassins!
“I don’t think the lives of this Council and of everyone in the dome are yours to dispose of at will, Vladimir,” Torrence said. “This is clearly a matter for the whole Council to decide. I demand a vote. I say we have to go along with the Brotherhood. What choice do we have? Either we all die, or we lose our prisoner and our good Councilor Gorov … and of course our treasured Coordinator. Two of us are taken prisoner, or we all die. The choice is obvious. Let’s have a vote!”
Councilors nodded.
“We’ve got no choice!” Steiner said.
“He’s right!”
“We can’t resist!”
“Wait! Wait!” Khustov screamed. “You can’t do this to me! We can’t knuckle under to threats! We’ve got to fight for—”
“I’m afraid the Vice-Coordinator is right,” Gorov interrupted, in cold, even tones. “If we resist, we all die, you and I included, Vladimir. Even the two of us have nothing to lose by complying. Perhaps we won’t be killed. It’s literally impossible to predict the actions of the Brotherhood of Assassins. They never do the obvious.”
Well, well, well! Torrence thought. Now there’s an unexpected ally! Gorov’s mad as a hatter. A human machine. … But that should clinch it. …
“Vote, gentlemen!” he said. “The ayes, please?”
“You can’t do this!” Khustov screamed. “I’m the Coordinator! You can’t do it!”
Torrence smiled. “And we’re the Hegemonic Council,” he said. “We elected you, and we can … er, decide your fate. Will all those in favor of complying with the ultimatum please say ‘Aye’?”
“Aye!” “Aye!” “Aye!” “Aye!” “Aye!” “Aye!” “Aye!”
“Aye …” said Constantine Gorov.
“Aye!” Torrence said, with a broad grin. “The nays’ “?
“No!” Khustov howled. “No! No! No! No! No!”
“The ayes have it, nine to one,” Torrence said. “I hereby declare the motion carried.”
He bolted to his feet, half-lept to the communicator. “Guards!” he ordered, as Khustov stared furiously at him in frustrated rage and fear. “Send a squad to the Council Chamber immediately. Their orders are to convey Boris Johnson, Councilor Gorov and … former Coordinator Khustov to the emergency airlock. …”
He turn
ed to face the Council. “I think it would be wise to relieve Vladimir of his Coordinatorship temporarily, in order that the Guards not receive conflicting orders,” he said. “Of course, if somehow Vladimir should be … ah, restored to us, he would reassume his position. But during the present emergency, I think it best that I assume the position of acting Hegemonic Coordinator. I trust there are no objections.”
No Councilor spoke.
“Commander,” Torrence said into the communicator, “you will inform all Guards that the powers of Coordinator Khustov have been suspended by the Hegemonic Council. You will inform them that Councilor Torrence is now acting Coordinator, and no one may countermand my orders—especially Councilor Khustov.”
Torrence exulted as he waited for the Guards to arrive. Acting Coordinator! At last! And that “acting” will be easy enough to remove, with Vladimir out of the way. Hegemonic Coordinator Jack Torrence—ah, what a ring to it! There’ll be changes made. … And if the Brotherhood ship should be intercepted—hmm, best idea would be to order it destroyed on sight. … There’ll be changes made indeed!
“It is vain to search for solid ground on which to stand. The solid matter of the ground is, after all, but an illusion caused by a particular energy configuration—as is the foot which stands upon it. Matter is illusion, solidity is illusion, we are illusion. Only Chaos is real.”
—Gregor Markowitz, The Theory of
Social Entropy
10
BORIS JOHNSON found himself walking mechanically down a corridor toward the airlock, flanked by Gorov and Khustov and all three of them surrounded by a phalanx of sullen Guards. As soon as they had left the Council Chamber, Khustov had ordered the Guards to return and arrest Torrence, but the Guards had not even bothered to refuse. They had simply ushered the three of them out of the Ministry and into a groundcar without a word, as if Khustov were no more than an ordinary ward they had been ordered to dispose of.
Agent of Chaos M Page 13
