“Tell your people not to try anything else or I shall order my guards to kill everyone in the room,” Varda said coldly, still with her back to Koenig.
Koenig’s jaws tightened. He let himself fall slowly back into his chair. The rest of the personnel in the Center did the same thing. For the moment there was nothing else they could do.
Varda’s eyes had never strayed off Maya since she had first caught sight of her, and now she prepared again to raise the implement she held in her hand.
The maddened, indignant glint in Maya’s eyes abruptly intensified. With a strength Verdeschi had never felt in her before, except in one of her transformations, she shook off his hold and whipped around him, withdrawing his gun from behind. Using his body as cover she quickly set its dial on Kill and thrust its blunt nose at her temple.
“Maya!” Koenig screamed out, aghast. He leaped from his seat and advanced toward her, stopped only by the evil-looking guards. “While there’s life, there’s hope,” he pleaded. “Throw the gun away.”
Some element of concern, of love, in his spontaneous reaction to her attempt at suicide managed to percolate through to her. While the room waited tensely, speculating on the next stage of the drama, she gradually lowered the gun and let it drop to the floor.
Varda, whose features had frozen again at the thought of losing her prey, imperceptibly breathed a sigh of relief. She smiled once more. “Thank you, Commander. You have rendered us a service of immense value. We have what we want. Now you and your people may depart in peace.”
She motioned to her guards to take the Psychon. They complied, still back to back, still pointing their guns at all and sundry. Verdeschi strained toward them, face contorted with anger, balled fists clamped by his sides. The three invaders and their captive were soon standing together. Before anything else could go wrong for them, Varda quickly made an adjustment to a control on her belt.
The group shimmered as the meson light began emanating around them. The light grew in intensity, eventually becoming the fierce globe of whiteness once more. It pulsated briefly, then faded away, leaving only the charred remains of the Dorcon guard lying bent on the floor and the acrid, sweet smoke that his burning body had produced.
In the after-glare of the light still pounding in their reeling minds the Alphans who were left in the Command Center did not immediately realize that their Commander’s seat was empty, and that he was not to be found in the room.
“Commander!” Varda exclaimed in horrified surprise as Koenig materialized alongside her and her party inside the Dorcon ship’s operations area.
Grimly, Koenig launched himself forward, firing at one of the shocked guards. He crumpled and fell, stunned. The other guard let go of Maya and spun around, skillfully catching Koenig in the chest with a blast from his gun. He, too, fell.
“John!” Maya screamed out. She rushed toward him and knelt by his inert body, feeling to see whether it was still alive.
“Get her!” Varda hissed to the remaining guard. Expressionlessly the guard stepped forward and hauled Maya off the body. He forced her upright and pressed his gun into her back.
“Consul Varda!” A crooning, aged voice drifted across the room. Varda looked up to see Archon smiling and nodding graciously. “Is this the Psychon?” Varda nodded, and he tottered laboriously to Maya and inspected her as a slaughterer would inspect his death stock. “I am well pleased, I am well pleased.” He turned to the guard and with a cold, wizened face of authority said, “Prepare her for immediate transfer surgery.” As the guard dragged the unwilling Maya away, he said to Varda, “The alien commander—kill him.”
Varda nodded. “I shall, Archon. The moment the converter coils have recharged.”
A pool of violet, irradiated light coldly bathed Maya where she lay. She had been paralyzed like a helpless insect, pinned to an operating couch by the invisible weights of a drug that left her mind active and her body leaden. The violet light, she knew, was a sterilizing ray, and the mad figures leaning over her were preparing to operate.
She knew they were triumphant in their actions. Over the years they had prepared painstakingly for this moment. Many times before they had tried to capture a Psychon and failed. Except for one case, long before she had been born, their instruments of surgery had never been put to the operation they had been designed for. Imprisoned, her raging eyes stared out at them accusingly as she vainly wished to herself that she had killed herself in the Command Center while she had the chance. She felt that she had let down the whole of her vanquished race of Psychons. Because of her action of folly it seemed as though they had died in vain.
“Don’t worry, Psychon,” Varda told her, a strange uncharacteristic gentleness now on her face. “A brief moment of pain and it will be over.” She turned to her surgeons. “You’re sure she can’t transform?”
“Not while the paralyzing drug is active,” they assured her.
“Inform me the moment you are ready to transfer,” she told them, turning to leave.
“Yes, Consul,” they said, obediently.
As she left the room the surgeons activated the apparatus they were going to use, and Maya watched in terror as a large transparent hood was slowly lowered over her head. She felt a moment of pain as thin beams of colored light sprang from electrodes inside it then blackness.
The dim outlines of the giant meson transporter swam into Koenig’s consciousness as he came around from the numbing effects of the Dorcon stun-gun. Standing in front of him was the guard he had failed to hit; but between him and the guard was a window of some kind.
It was a cubicle and, he slowly realized, he was imprisoned inside it. The guard noticed that he had awakened and raised his gun to let Koenig see that he would use it if he had to. Koenig understood. Slowly, he let his head fall back into his hands an attitude of despair.
He waited.
After what seemed an age, Varda entered. Koenig sprang to his feet inside his confined prison. At a nod from Varda, the guard opened a door in its side and let him out.
“Where is she, Varda?”
“Forget the Psychon, Commander,” she told him harshly, and, he thought, a trifle guiltily. He frowned.
“What have you done to her?” he asked.
“Surgical transfer required preparation...”
“She’s still alive?”
“Yes.” She looked impassive.
“You’re a civilized being,” he pleaded with her. “How could you permit this butchery?”
“She won’t suffer...” she stated uncomfortably. She said this as though more to convince herself, he felt.
He was about to press her further when a technician who had been working on the transporter called over to her. “Consul, we’re almost ready to transport.”
“Your time’s up, Commander.” Varda turned back to him. “We’re sending you back to your own people.”
He looked wildly around for some way of stalling. But there was none.
“Invading your base temporarily drained the transporter’s power,” Varda explained to him. Distractedly, he listened. He said the first words that came into his head in order to delay the procedure.
“A meson converter... a machine that transmits matter. I’m impressed, Consul,” he said as convincingly as he could.
A beam of light began forming above the machine as he spoke.
“Antimatter coils recharged,” the technician called. “Sixty seconds to full transporter power.”
The guard prodded him toward it.
“Antimatter?” Koenig queried. Now he was genuinely impressed—and more than interested.
“The source of its power, Commander,” the Consul explained. “Nature’s own demon caged.” She added, “If unleashed, it could tear space itself apart.”
A console monitor bleeped and the face of one of the surgeons appeared on its screen. Chillingly, it announced the inevitable. “We’re ready for transfer surgery, Consul.”
“Excellent.” Varda hesitated, havin
g hoped to see Koenig off first. She had been instructed to kill him but had seen no reason in the old Archon’s demand. The way events were turning, the reality and the morality of what they were doing were beginning to worry her. One killing was enough.
She turned on the guard. “You. Stay and see that he returns the moment the beam is functional.” To Koenig, she said, “Goodbye, Commander.” She wheeled about and left the room.
“Ready to transport,” the technician informed the guard almost as soon as she had gone. As expressionlessly as ever, the guard motioned to Koenig. Like a wooden puppet, stiffened by the conflicting impulses that raged inside him, Koenig moved step by step toward the machine.
He had hardly reached the entrance when an abrupt gasp of pain sounded from behind him, followed by a loud thud.
He turned—and stared unbelievingly at Malic, who was waving to him to stand aside.
“You’re free, alien,” the youthful Dorcon, whom Koenig was unable to recognize, told him. There was a bitter twistedness in his eyes and Koenig hesitated, suspecting treachery.
“I said you’re free!” the Dorcon shouted angrily. “Go!”
Koenig moved warily to the doorway and rushed through it and out into the corridor, watched by a weirdly smiling Malic.
CHAPTER
ELEVEN
“Archon...”
A soft, urgent voice cut through his sleeping. His weary mind protested; his ailing flesh craved release, to be allowed to sink again into the sanctuary of sleep.
“It is time...” A gentle hand shook him.
“So! I dream an old man’s dream of death,” he whispered back to the voice he knew to be Varda’s, “and find you here to arrange my immortality.”
He opened his eyes and struggled to rise. She moved to support him and guide him off the dais and into his small, motorized runaround.
They moved quickly along the corridors to the operating area.
Maya was unconscious, bathed in the colored light. Her skin was wan and smooth as in death. Aided by Varda and the surgeons, Archon’s frail body was gently lowered beside her on a separate couch. His eyes had closed again and he felt at peace at last—the peace of knowing that his struggles, the humiliations of his worthless body, were over, that a new life and a new lease of power were to be his.
The doors to the room burst open and a guard ran in, shattering his tranquillity with loud, uncouth words. “Consul, the alien Commander has escaped!”
His body tensed again, and he groaned. Once more he pulled himself together, wondering whether he would be able to stand the strain. “Find him,” he wheezed to Varda. “My Medical Officer will do what is necessary here.”
Varda’s face drained of its color. She trembled. To a waiting guard she said, “Come with me.”
Still uncertain of the Dorcon’s intentions, Koenig fled on down the corridors. He wasn’t stopping just yet to discover why he had been released. The ship’s inside was much vaster than he had suspected, though, and he wasn’t making much progress.
Till now he had managed to evade guards and other Dorcon personnel by hiding in rooms and flattening hirnself into convenient recesses. But now, suddenly, more guards were appearing, and they seemed to be looking for him. Someone had raised the alarm.
He reached the blind end of a corridor, trapped. In desperation he looked around him, noticing at last a ventilation duct in the ceiling. It was covered with a sturdy-looking grill to which he reached, hooking his fingers through the holes. Growing shouts and the quickening clatter of feet from behind him made him tug at the grill with far greater strength than he would normally have done. Hands gashed and bloodied, he eventually managed to wrench the obstruction from its place and, by angling it edge on, push it through the aperture. Then he jumped up and pressed himself through with his straining arms. He just had sufficient time to crawl exhaustedly inside and replace the grill from the inside when Varda and a party of guards appeared below. He withdrew hastily from sight.
The duct, at this point, was spacious. It curved away from him into the distance and it struck him that it would make a far safer and more convenient avenue of travel than the corridors. As he had no true idea of the ship’s layout, it wouldn’t make much difference from that respect, either... to whether he managed to find Maya in time or not.
He set out on all fours, crawling and slipping along against a warm headwind of circulating air.
In the confusion, Malic’s blood surged triumphantly as he arrived at the door leading into the operating area.
When the two pasty-faced guards who had been posted outside saw him they stepped in his path and levelled their guns.
“I’m sorry, Excellency,” one of the guards told him.
“You refuse me, your commander, entry to the Archon?” He feigned rage.
“Consul Varda’s orders, Excellency.”
He turned as though to storm angrily away. Then, swiftly, he spun around, revealing his gun bencath his dress and firing its crippling ray pointblank at them. None the wiser, they collapsed to the floor, allowing him to enter.
Inside, the operating area was quiet. Gowned figures, Archon’s own Medical Officer amongst them, were gathered over the twin couches where the two corpse-like patients lay.
“Has the transfer taken place?” he called softly.
The Medical Officer turned around. “Not yet, Excellency.”
“Thank you.” Malic smiled ambiguously. He walked forward, then again drew his gun. He blasted the man down before he could speak.
Likewise, he dealt with the others. Then he came and stood over the unconscious forms.
“It’s all over, Uncle,” he breathed, his body thrilling so that he could scarcely get the trembling words out. “For you... For me it’s just beginning.”
He had thought of waking the old ruler before killing him, to have the satisfaction of letting him know that he had outwitted him. But there was no time. Deftly, he reached toward the medical apparatus that was keeping Archon alive. He depressed a button and the twinkling lights on its console ceased—as did the shallow heaving of the old man.
Now, Dorcon and all her Federations and peoples were his.
He turned his attention to Maya. She would have to be guarded well until such time as he was ready to receive her brain stem. He was about to disconnect her and have her moved to a more secretive place when a loud crash sounded behind him. He whirled around.
The air-conditioning grill had been burst open and there, poised in front of the gaping duct, was the Alphan Commander whom he had allowed to escape as part of his take-over plan. With a snarl of rage, mainly at his own stupidity for not having taken more stringent precautions, he reached for his gun. But Koenig was upon him before he could draw it.
A heavy blow landed on the sido of his neck, and he felt himself reeling across the room, the gun slipping from his grasp. He crashed into the cabinet containing the priceless State Treasures, sending them, clattering and rolling about the floor. Through darkened vision he saw the determined Commander running toward him, and he struggled weakly to rise. A second, mind-shattcring blow landed somewhere on his anatomy, and he lost consciousness altogether.
When he awoke, both the Psychon and the Alphan had gone. There was only the grim air of death.
Groggily, he climbed to his feet and reeled over to the communicator. Blood pounding madly in his head for vengeance, he stabbed at its controls and spat out an announcement of hatred.
“Dorcons, attention... attention! The Archon is dead. Killed... murdered by the alien and his Psychon accomplice. As heir to the throne, I, Malic, now assume command.”
“Find the aliens and kill them. Kill them on sight! Long live Archon!” The words crackled and echoed hollowly through the corridors as Koenig and Maya, now revived, ran for their lives.
From behind them as they ran they could hear the chilling shouts of the guards shouting, “Long live Malic!” as they began their hunt.
“The transporter—we must find it,�
�� Koenig panted. “But where?”
“I think I know,” Maya gasped, fighting to get her breath back after the effects of the paralyzing drug. She felt sick and wasted. Her skin had no feeling in it.
She took the route that she vaguely remembered being marched along when the guard had first takcn her from the operations to the operating Area. The corridors were now thick with guards and it was doubly difficult to move at all. Whenever they had to, they shot the robot-like figures down with Malic’s gun. At length they were rewarded by the sight of the access doors leading to the operations area.
They rushed headlong inside, smashing open the doors, but they were brought face to face with Varda and two more guards. The guards were armed with larger, rifle-like guns, and were aiming them directly at them as though they had been expecting them.
Varda’s face had lost much of its health and looks and was no longer smiling. “Drop it!” she advised Koenig harshly when she saw him raise his weapon.
Koenig hesitated.
“Drop it!” she shrieked, her body turning rigid with anger and fear. Koenig had no alternative but to comply. He tossed the gun at the guard’s feet.
“Murdering, primitive scum!” she accused them, trembling.
“You’re wrong—” Koenig began, but she cut him off with another shriek.
“Silence!”
The meson matter transporter was now glowing, surrounded by a pule aura of golden light, indicating that its cells were charged. Varda and the two guards were positioned in front of it, cutting off the Alphans’ only route of escape.
Koenig boldly took another step forward. “You’re wrong, Varda!”
“You lie!” she still trembled.
“Get on with it, Consul,” another, softer voice came from the open doorway behind them. It was soft, like oil, and equally slippery in tone. Without having to turn, Koenig knew who it was.
Space 1999 - The Edge of the Infinite Page 11
