Chapter 26
This was the moment Boran Hexon had waited for all his life. A fierce fire roared in his belly; he thought of all the ancient tales in his family, which claimed to trace itself back to the ancient Picts who once inhabited a place on Earth now part of the Lost Lands, called England. He had relished the tales of their bloody fights, their conquests, and even their defeats, for they had been a proud breed of men, who had set a goal and then never flinched from pursuing it.
All his life he had wanted to be that kind of so! dier—that kind of man. Now he was getting his chance.
However, he didn't quite know what he was fighting yet.
"Report from Sector Five," he snapped to the leftmost of the Screens mounted in front of him. Nothing came back.
"Sector Two—report," he snapped to the next.
A soldier's face appeared—but not that of Captain Keep-Nel, who was in charge in that area.
"Who in hell are you?" Hexon growled at the scared young face.
"Poston, sir," The soldier made a half-hearted salute, glancing behind him as he did so, and Hexon made a mental note to have him disciplined later on.
"Poston, where the hell is Captain Keep-Nel?"
"Dead, sir."
"And what about the rest of your officers?"
"All dead, sir."
"Look at me when I speak to you, son" Hexon roared, as the young man once again looked over his shoulder. There was a commotion there, which Hexon could hear but not see.
Poston turned back, looking very scared.
"I'm sorry, sir—" Poston's mouth went wide in pain, and he hissed out something before a bright flash subsumed his image.
Suddenly Hexon was faced with an oval, featureless, helmetless visage made of light. Hexon had the feeling he was being studied.
The Screen went blank.
The main Screen below the others blinked on, giving him the face of young Jean Sneaden.
"Colonel Hexon," Sneaden said without preamble, "you are hereby promoted to the brevet rank of major general."
Hexon's chest swelled with pride. "I will live up to your expectations, sir."
Sneaden nodded, but Hexon picked up the fear on his face.
"Don't worry, son," Hexon said, in as soothing a voice as he could muster. "We'll beat 'em back to Mars."
"So far, nothing has stopped them," Sneaden said.
Hexon answered, "They haven't hit our main defenses yet. I have concentrations of troops in the center of every city and town. The outlying districts we've already had to concede, and they now control the feeder stations, which they went after first. But no matter." Hexon felt his bravado swelling. "They're not us. They're just a bunch of light beams." He gave a grim smile. "Maybe they'll just run out of juice."
"If you could knock out their orbiters—"
Hexon shook his head. "We tried that immediately. After our shields went down and they beamed those things to the surface, the shields went back up again. But there's an eyehole in the frequency they're feeding those things with."
"Can't you jam it?"
"We tried, but no luck. And our cannon can't get through the shields. What I'm hoping for now is something here on the ground to neutralize them where they stand."
"And if you don't come up with something?" Hexon froze the grim smile on his face. "We'll come up with something."
Sneaden's worried visage blinked out, and Hexon immediately called for an orderly and stood still while a set of general's bars was affixed to his collar.
We'd better come up with something. . . ."
In the center of Frolich City, little Arnie Cam saw the beams of light, like beautiful yellow strings falling down from the sky, and stopped her swinging. Her father had built her swing set for her himself, with expensive wood from the nearby Thin Forest, where he worked as a conservationist. It had taken him nearly six months to collect enough castoff pieces of good quality to make the swings, but after the wood was gathered, it had taken him only two days to construct the swings. It had made Arnie by far the most popular girl in the neighborhood—though today there was no one else out to play with.
And she shouldn't have been out, anyway. Her mother had made her promise to stay in her room. But it had been so boring in there, with nothing on the Screen but bulletins and warnings. So she had waited until her mother took a nap, late in the day, and then she snuck outside.
And now this show in the sky! There were so many strings that they looked like spaghetti going into a pot. Some of them had looked like they were falling straight at her, where she sat still and openmouthed in her swing—but at the last moment they had begun to fan out away from her, hitting the ground like fireworks blocks away. There was a fizzing sound as they fell and hit—and then suddenly things were back to normal.
Arnie began to swing slowly again, keeping her eyes on the sky in case more fiery spaghetti fell. But things were just as they had been before.
Silent. Still.
Boring.
And then the sirens went off.
Instantly Arnie stopped swinging and ran for the house. There was one thing every boy and girl in Frolich knew, and that was to obey the sirens.
Her mother, eyes wide with surprise and sleep, met her at the back door.
"Wha—?" her mother said, grabbing at Arnie but looking with wonder at something behind the little girl.
Arnie turned around and saw a man made of fiery light; he was crouching as if he would jump.
Then there was a blur, and the man was not there anymore. Arnie felt a singing on her skin and grabbed for her mother, but felt only a vague burning in her hands.
She looked up and saw the man of light staring down at her with his blank yellow face..
And her mother was not there.
The man made of light lifted her and carried her away, kicking and screaming.
And now, through her hysterics, Arnie saw the doors of other houses opening, and men of light were marching out with Arnie's friends in their arms, Bil Mart and Fin-Del and little Jay from next door, who had only started to walk.
Arnie twisted her head around, crying, and looked back at her own house, where something that looked like two parts of a real human were laying in the doorway, not moving.
"We have reports of high civilian casualties," Major Lent-Kel, who was even more of a soldier than General Hexon himself, reported tersely.
Hexon stared at him, waiting for Lent-Kel to elaborate. They were on one of the last transport shuttles out of Sector One, flying at mid-altitude. The first shuttles to attempt a retreat were fired on from orbit; the shields had been dropped completely now and Cornelian's own ship, manned with raser cannon, had picked off two of three of the first retreating craft. The next two, flying at treetop level, had been downed also, one by ground raser and the other by, incredibly, a leaping light-soldier, who cut the tail from the ship.
"Apparently," Lent-Kel said, "the plasma soldiers have been programmed to kill all adults."
Hexon blew out an angry breath. "What I'd give for just a minute alone with that Martian insect Cornelian." He turned his hard attention back to Lent-Kel. "What about the children?"
"They're being gathered."
"Have we been able to save any of them?"
Without blinking, Lent-Kel said, "Whenever we have, the plasma soldiers go right for that area and wipe out our men." His own frustration and anger was barely held in check. "Why can't we fight them?"
"Because they're not human," General Hexon went on, as if amazed at what he was saying. "Three hours, and it's almost all over. Eighty-five percent casualties—almost all of them fatalities." He looked at Lent-Kel. "You've heard the term lightning strike?"
"Yes. Twenty-first century Earth. From an even earlier term, blitzkrieg."
Hexon nodded, pleased. "You know your history."
"I grew up on it. My father was a historian—and he also fought in the Afrasian War."
Hexon said, "I missed that war by three years." He snorted in f
rustration. "But I got this one. The Afrasian War lasted four years. This one will last four hours."
He shook his head. "Blitzkrieg isn't a good term for this."
"Not fast enough," Lent-Kel said, and General Hexon almost laughed.
In the distance, the peak of Sacajawea Patera steadily grew. With a little luck, they would reach the Piton in a half hour. Every available shuttle from every sector was concentrating on this one goal. At the Piton, they would make their final fight. There was little else to do. With most of their men gone and nearly all of their equipment confiscated, it made a grim sort of sense that they would all go down the drain together.
Hexon's greatest frustration, besides the fact that he had been unable to stop or even impede the plasma troops, was that so many civilians had been sacrificed and he had been able to do nothing about it. But someday, he vowed, knowing that it would in all probability not be by his own hand, Prime Cornelian, the mass-murdering arachnid, would pay for what he had done—
They did not see the shot that hit them. Hexon was watching the scenery drag by—a cool-looking lake surrounded by a scattering of new structures, including what looked like a boathouse and the beginnings of a dock—when his eyes detected light all around him.
Uttering a curse, Hexon stiffened his back and went out proud. He had lost, but had given the fight everything he had—even though that had been almost nothing. In the flash before annihilation, his thoughts were of his ancient ancestors, the Pict general, no doubt, among them who had seen the Iron Age men swarming down on him in the final fight, leaving him nothing but pride.
Benel Kran was alone now, he knew. The last pullout had been more than an hour ago, which meant that he had had to hide under a table to prevent being dragged along.
But he had been successful in his quest for solitude—not because he wanted to desert and not because he wanted to be alone, but because he knew in his gut that he was twenty minutes away from beating the plasma soldiers. Twenty minutes. But that wasn't a twenty minutes anyone would give him—not Sergeant Morrin or anyone above him. If Cast-Prin had survived, he would have understood what Benel was talking about, because Cast-Prin had been the only other physicist within a thousand miles. And now Benel Kran was probably the only physicist left on the planet Venus.
Tentatively, Benel crawled out from under his table and glanced around. Yes, he was surely alone. In the far distance, he could hear occasional battle sounds—sounds which had become increasingly infrequent over the last hour or so. But every flit of a raser cannon still made him flinch, and each noise outside the building made him hold his breath.
He stood shakily and realized that his vision was blurry. Closing one eye and then the other, he discovered that the corneal overlay on his left eye had peeled off and been lost. If only he had gone for implants or the even cheaper alternative of eye replacement; but the thought of someone pulling his eyeball out and putting another in its place—the thought of anyone messing with his body parts at all—made him queasy.
So, keeping his left eye closed, he could see what he was doing.
He turned to the equipment on the top of the bench—a scatter of digital analyzers, CompScreens, even a few very old-fashioned loose wires and test leads—and tried to pick up where he had left off. The solution was to merely mirror the plasma entities' energy. In effect, turn them on themselves. When faced with their own "anti-soldiers," the plasma troops should just ...
Disappear.
He had been on the verge of demonstrating this when the pullout had been ordered. And now all he had to do was activate this circuit . . . here, and find a willing subject.
Cradling the miniature aiming dish and humming tubes and boxes, which were difficult to carry (he would have to get one of the engineers to cram all this stuff into an elegant case—that's what engineers were good for), he wandered out of the barracks building, still seeing through one eye.
Outside, a troop shuttle flew low overhead, making the hairs on the back of Benel's neck prickle. It pulled up in a steep sudden angle before flattening out again; in a moment it was gone.
Close by, though, Benel found what he wanted. At a range of perhaps fifty meters, a plasma soldier was making its way, its back to Benel.
As the plasma trooper sensed him and turned in his direction, Benel pointed the aiming dish in the creature's direction.
For a moment he thought he had achieved instant results, when the plasma soldier disappeared. But then he realized that he had overlooked one facet of the creatures' abilities: their quickness.
Without turning, Benel felt the hairs on the back of his neck rise once again.
He knew the plasma soldier was standing behind him.
"Uh-oh—" he managed to get out, before dropping his equipment in a heap at his feet.
For three hours, Jean Sneaden had been bothered by the sight of Targon Ramir all but lashed to a chair, following the proceedings like a prisoner. Now he ordered the older man freed.
There were some surprised looks, but Sneaden repeated the order and it was carried Out.
For a moment Targon remained seated, rubbing the spot where the security device had been. Then he rose and walked stiffly forward to the Piton's jutting, windowed end and stood, with his hands behind his back, still gently massaging his wrists.
Sneaden approached him.
"I imagine you consider me little threat now," Targon said gently. He did not turn around to face the younger man.
"That's true," Sneaden said. "And I need your help."
"I would have given it to you tied to that chair," Ramir answered. There was a slight, sad smile on his lips.
"Thank you, Targon," Jean said.
Ramir said, as if the young man had not thanked him, "But it's already too late for all of us."
"Yes."
Ramir nodded toward the outside view. "It would have been a beautiful place someday."
"It still will be," Sneaden said.
"But not for us."
Sneaden was silent.
For a moment the two men stood, not talking, but listening to the increasingly violent sounds of a battle raging in the rooms behind them. Soon, they knew, the defenses of the Piton would be breached, and their own battle would be over.
"I want you to negotiate with Cornelian," Sneaden said.
"He hasn't answered any of your communications, has he?"
"Then what makes you think he wants to negotiate at all?"
"Perhaps he'll listen to you."
After a moment's pause, during which there were loud exclamations behind them, Targon said, "I'll do what I can. Perhaps we can save the civilians, at least."
Sneaden said, "Cornelian's light-soldiers have been killing everyone but the children."
"The children, then."
"That's what I had in mind."
Ramir looked at Sneaden with comprehension. "You have a daughter, don't you?"
"I'll do what I can."
There was a great rush and blast of light behind them; Sneaden and Targon Ramir turned to see plasma soldiers rushing into the opened doorway at the back of the Piton, their forms still and then flashing in quick movement as they cut down the remaining technicians and Screen monitors in the room.
"My God—" said Targon.
There was the slight punch of air being displaced, a whiff of ozone; and then Jean Sneaden gave a small cry at Targon's side and was cut down where he stood.
Ramir waited as the last technician was slaughtered, and a ring of plasma soldiers now stood vigil around him.
Oddly, the engineer in him wanted to reach out and touch one of them, to test their corporeality; but he stayed his hand.
Targon took a deep breath and put his mind at peace.
But the end did not come. Rather, there came a loud noise at the rear of the Piton, as someone bustled into the room, followed by more plasma soldiers in formation.
Targon Ramir now knew who had engineered the break in Venus' shields, allowing Prime Cornelian to bea
m his plasma troopers to the surface.
"Hello, Carter," Ramir said.
With quick strides, Carter Frolich strode toward Targon. The ring of plasma soldiers broke to let the two men face one another.
For a moment the two men's eyes met, and Ramir saw the madness swimming in Carter's mind.
Then Carter said, loud enough for anyone else in the room to hear, if anyone had been alive, "Now Venus belongs to me!"
Chapter 27
Dalin was beginning to fancy the life of a pirate.
It beat working—or running a planet. The hours were flexible; and if one didn't feel like working, one didn't work.
Which encompassed most of Ralf and Enry's philosophy. Dalin could not recall ever meeting a more slothful pair of men in his life. Even his Earthly ministers couldn't compare for lack of initiative. It turned out, in fact, that the scavenging expedition which had brought Dalin into their circle had been the first real work the two had done in months.
"Mostly we drift," Enry explained, days after Dalin's arrival—and after their gargantuan drinking jag, which had finally rendered Dalin unconscious and ultimately all three of them with epic hangovers. The two pirates, in fact, had all but turned the running of the ship over to their protégé, whom they now termed a full partner.
Which gave Dalin one-third of... what?
For it turned out that the acres of stored goods in the ship's hold had been there for months and that there was little chance of moving any of it anytime soon—or making a profit.
"These things 'appen, they does," Enry continued, explaining their situation from the bow of the freighter, where Enry and Ralf sat nursing their latest hangover. Dalin had learned from his first ..experience with Titanian champagne that it was powerful and stealthy stuff: a froth of bubbles with a kick like an Afrasian elephant. He had since all but refrained—though he had to make a good show of keeping his glass filled, just to be sociable.
The maximum glare shielding was down over the fore windows, making the stars dull blue points; this was a necessity, to spare Ralf and Enry's latest headaches.
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