Lilith: A Snake in the Grass flotd-1

by Jack L. Chalker

  Of the others who had come with us I saw nothing. About two weeks into the training I was informed that the witches had gone, returning to their strange village, but Father Bronz was said to be involved in some project of his own at the Institute, something that required the use of their massive handwritten library scrolls and some of their lab facilities. I wondered idly whether he, now seeing that it was possible, was trying to crack the O’Higgins secret.

  I made easy progress in the use of the power itself, but I began to realize that things would still be very slow, since, as Ti’s example had so graphically pointed out, just having the power to do something wasn’t enough. You needed the knowledge to apply it properly, and that could take years.

  Still, a lot could be done in general terms, and it became absurdly easy for me to do so. Weaving patterns, duplicating patterns as I had with the chair, were sun-pie as long as we were talking inanimate objects. O’Higgins had likened the Warden organism to some sort of alien organic computer, and that was a pretty good analogy. But not a lot of little computers, all components in a single, massively pre-programmed organism.

  ’Think of them,” one of my instructors said, “as cells of Mother Lilith. Your own cells all contain DNA spirals encoded with your entire genetic makeup. Also, one part of that complex code tells that particular cell how to behave, how to form and grow and act and react as part of the whole. The Warden cells, as we call them, are like those in your own body. They are pre-programmed with an impossibly complex picture of how this planet should be, and each one knows its own place or part in that whole; What we do is slightly mutate the Warden cell. Essentially, we feed it false data and fool it into doing what we want instead of what it wants. Because our action is extremely localized when compared to the whole of Lilith, and because we can concentrate our willpower on such a tiny spot, we are able to do so. Not on a large scale, of course, but on a relatively localized scale.”

  I looked around at the sumptuous surroundings of the Institute. “Localized?”

  My instructor just nodded. “Consider the mass of the planet. Consider the number of molecules that go into its composition. A colony of Wardens for every molecule. Now, do you think this is more than a tiny aberration, a benign cancer, as it were?”

  I saw the point.

  The more I practiced, the easier everything became. Although I was a little put off when I discovered that most of the silky cloth I’d seen was made from worm spit, I soon dismissed that as another cultural prejudice and had my own clothing with the option and ability to make more. Burning holes in rock and shaping those holes to suit my design also proved very easy: you just told the Wardens governing the molecules to disengage. Unfortunately, the skill aspect again came into play here, and I decided that I was cut out to be neither an engineer nor an architect. What I had done to Kronlon, the Institute considered an abuse of power, since what it seemed to amount to was an overloading of the Warden input circuits. They burned themselves out in some manner.

  Classes in combat emphasized defense, but took a lot of the mystery out of what I’d seen. Knowing the proper points in an opponent’s nervous system was as important in the mental combat of Warden cells as in physical stuff like judo. The trick was to keep total control over your own Wardens while knocking out those of your opponent, a really nasty task requiring not only that you have more willpower and self-control than your opponent but also that you have an enormous ability to concentrate on several things at once.

  I learned as much as I could learn, and although I felt elated when they no longer gave me the potion and I grew stronger still, I realized that only experience could fine-tune my skills. The key test of my power was when they brought two small steel rods from Medusa, which, though containing Warden organisms as well, was a thing alien to our Lilith parent strain and beyond my ability to communicate with.

  I was aware, though, that Warden cells were already attacking the alien matter, much as antibodies attacked a virus in the bloodstream, trying to break it down, even eat it, in some mysterious way.

  Here there was no pattern to solve or imitate. I somehow had to work out a form of protection, some sort of message that would keep this metal from corroding to dust under the Warden cell onslaught. I failed miserably time after time. There seemed nothing to grab on to, nothing I could even reprogram to protect the alien matter, which even to me had a somewhat dark, dead appearance in Contrast to all of the Warden-alive matter around me.

  After two days the stuff crumbled into dust.

  I was discouraged, feeling somehow inadequate. To have come so far and not to go the last little bit to rank me near the top in potential on this world was tremendously depressing. If I could not solve this last problem, I knew I would be no match for the Dukes, let alone for Marek Kreegan.

  Ti tried to console me. But, living here at the Institute at a higher level than she’d ever dreamed of or known was possible, she had a more limited ambition than I. Her own lessons had helped somewhat; as both Sumiko O’Higgins and Dr. Pohn had intimated, the •power was at least latent in everyone. But even with all the training, her power was limited more to the Supervisor level, although she certainly could use it more discriminatingly and effectively than the Supervisors I’d known. The only thing they could offer beyond that was something of the witch methods: if she were truly consumed with emotion toward something, her power could be multiplied; but to make it controlled and effective she’d need temporary augmentation from the potion. Even then it would be only a destructive power and very limited.

  This aspect worried me a bit at first, since she was highly emotional and I was more than a little concerned that lovemaking would cause problems. Occasionally it did, but not anything serious, since she would never aim anything destructive, even subconsciously, at me. If ever we had a falling out, I was strong enough on reflex alone to protect myself. Still, occasionally when we did make love and her power ran a bit wild, the earth really did move.

  Her powers, particularly with my help, allowed her to create her own clothes, which was particularly important to one brought up in the pawn world of the Keeps, where clothing was status. Still, she had enough of an understanding of the Warden power to understand my problem and my frustration, and did think of it. In fact she came up with part of the solution.

  “Look,” she said to me one day, “the problem is that Warden cells ridin’ dust and everything else in the air just rush in to eat this metal stuff, right?”

  I nodded glumly. “And I can’t stop it because that metal stuff, as you call it, doesn’t have anything I can talk to, let alone control.”

  “Why not talk to the attacking stuff, then?” she wanted to know. “Why not talk them out of it?”

  I was about to respond that that was a ridiculous idea when I suddenly realized it wasn’t crazy at all. Not in the way she meant, of course, but suddenly I saw the key; it was so ridiculously simple I didn’t know why I hadn’t thought of it before.

  Talk to the attacking cells… Sure. But since the attack was continuous and from all quarters, just protecting something the size of a nail would be a full-time job. But if the metal was coated in some Lilith substance and the Warden cells in that coating were told not to attack… Accomplishing that would not be all that easy. In fact, the process was hideously complex, but it was the right answer. When you extended the concept to a really complex piece of machinery, it became a nightmare, clearly, a lot of practice and hard thought was needed.

  The Institute people were pleased, and so was I, though. Few were ever able to master the stabilization of metals on any scale, and I felt as if the Confederacy had certainly made its point about me. I knew now that what they’d done was feed Marek Kreegan’s entire file into their computers, and that alone was why I had been selected. My life, profession, outlook, you name it, had most paralleled his —therefore I was most likely to attain the potential of Lord.

  I had learned, though, that I was not the only one with that power and potential be
sides Kreegan. A number of people, as many as forty or fifty, would qualify. Kreegan simply embodied not only the greatest single power on the planet but also the greatest single power who had the will and capacity to rule and the skills to pull it off. And that, of course, was what it all boiled down to—not power, but skill. The question was brought home to me by one of my most advanced instructors when she asked, “Well, now that you have joined the circle of the elect, what will you do with your powers?”

  It was a good question. I now had the power, all right, all of it. I didn’t have to fear this planet and its petty leadership any longer, and I had a good deal to live for, embodied in Ti and my hopes for a comfortable future.

  But just what were our skills? Ti was trained mostly to run a nursery, to look after small children, and I certainly intended her to exercise that skill with our own children. But what could I do? What was I trained to do? Kill people efficiently. Solve sophisticated technological crimes—here on a planet where the technology was not at issue. In point of fact, the only jobs on a world like this I was in any way qualified for were ones like Artur’s, but the challenge of fighting for the sport of my employers didn’t appeal to me. In defense of employers or for a cause, yes, but not just to let out aggressions and give the violent folks something to do.

  It was the same problem that had faced Marek Kreegan at this stage in his own life, I reflected, and his own conclusion was the only one that I, too, could reach. We were more alike -than even I had realized, and our fates somehow seemed bound up together. What in fact did he have that I did not? Experience, of course. He’d worked his way up. I was already a Master, although a Master of nothing in particular. The next step, administratively speaking, was Knight. From Knight to Duke. And finally, with all that experience behind me, from Duke to Lord.

  For the first tune I understood a bit of Marek Kreegan. He hadn’t necessarily come to Lilith to take over and run it. He had become the Lord of Lilith, one of the Four Lords of the Diamond, simply because he wasn’t qualified to do anything else. It was absurd, but there it was. Kronlon’s own words came echoing back once more. None of us has any choice.

  It had been twelve weeks since we’d come to Moab Keep, and I was beginning to realize there was nothing more they could teach me here. The next step was up to me, and my own destiny lay elsewhere. So far I’d learned a great deal about myself but almost nothing that I’d been sent here for. I knew nothing at all about the aliens, nor did I even know what Marek Kreegan looked like these days. To go further I would have to take a knighthood, and to do that I’d need an army and some advisors closer to the scene of things.

  Once again I sought out Father Bronz.

  The priest looked fit and well-rested and seemed happy to see me. We shook hands and then embraced warmly. I realized that, although he’d kept his distance from me, he nonetheless had kept careful track of my progress.

  “So—a Master now, with the potential of a Lord!” he laughed. “I told you I wanted to be remembered when you took over!”

  I returned the laughter. “But that’s a long way off,” I responded. “Marek Kreegan must be getting old now, so he might not even be around by the time I feel confident enough to take him on. Still, I have to take the first step, and for that I’ll need help.”

  “You’re going to try for a knighthood, then,” he said matter-of-factly. “I could have guessed as much. But your normal channel is denied you. You can’t’ apprentice yourself to some Knight as a Master and bide your time. Nobody’s going to take you on.”

  “I thought of that,” I told him. “No, I’ll have to go for it in one stroke. I’ll have to take on a force, defeat it, and then face down the Knight.”

  “A good trick,” Bronz admitted. “And where are you going to get the fighting force to get in the front door?”

  “I’ve thought about that. It seems to me that I’ve, only got one avenue to take there, and I’ll need your help. You and I watched, many long weeks ago, a relatively small and unarmed force take on and defeat an elite corps. I think the whole bunch of them could take an army.”

  “Perhaps,” he replied thoughtfully, “but she’d never go for it. Her whole force to take a Keep so a man could rule? You saw Sumiko.”

  “I saw her. Saw her and studied her. I think she’s itching for a fight. I think that’s why she came here, to perfect her methods. I think she’d welcome such a test.”

  “At random, yes,” he said. “Just for the hell of it, or to prove her theories. But not for you, Cal me boy. Not for you.”

  “H her test is Zeis Keep?”

  He stood there, dumbstruck at the idea. Finally he said, “You don’t want to take the easy way out, do you? Zeis isn’t a small, weak nothing of a Keep—it’s one of the big ones. Important enough to be designated a shuttle landing point, which is why all the bigwigs pass through there. And you’ve got Artur fighting defense on his home ground. Remember the geography of that place?”

  “I remember,” I told him. “Still, it has to be Zeis. I think Dr. Pohn is the one individual object of her hatred that would tempt her, don’t you? And from the point of view of location, it’s close enough for her without a lot of logistical problems.”

  He considered the proposal. “She might buy it,” he admitted, “but are you sure you can take her? Once she fights for Zeis and wins, if she can take it, do you think she’s going to hand the place over to you?”

  “I don’t know,” I responded honestly. “I don’t even know if I can take Boss Tiel. I’ve never even met him. But I think I have to try.”

  “I think you do,” Bronz concluded, more to himself than to me. “I don’t know. I’ll send out some feelers to Sumiko and see if shell buy it, or at least agree to talk about it. And I think I can reach Duke Klisorn, at least. Talk him into letting you try.”

  “But what about Marek Kreegan? Will he stay out of it? After all, he’s the man who put the price on my head to begin with.”

  “Oh, I’m sure Kreegan will keep hands off,” Father Bronz told me confidently. “He’ll want to see just what you can do at this stage, in order to evaluate the true threat to himself and his own power. But if we talk Sumiko into this, and if you or she beats Tiel, and if you can beat her, then you will have to worry about Kreegan. You sure you want to start this? That’s a lot of ifs, and once you start, you aren’t going to be able to stop. You’ll be the initiator, and responsible.”

  “You think I’m nuts, don’t you?” I asked him. “You think I should just settle down here and read all the books and raise a family and say to hell with it, don’t you?”

  “/ didn’t say that,” Bronz replied in a tone that implied exactly that.

  “I can’t,” I told him. “I’m just not made that way.”

  “We’ll see.” Father Bronz sighed deeply. “I’ll start the wheels in motion. May God have mercy on your soul.”

  Chapter Twenty

  Council of War

  It all came together so easily and quickly that I was almost suspicious about it.

  The witch’s village seemed to have changed not at all from the last time I’d been there, although now I was far more sensitized to the entire Warden environment and everything looked a little new and different I felt a mild, discomforting dizziness that I couldn’t really put my finger on. Father Bronz explained to me that he’d felt it from the first visit, an after-effect of the process by which Sumiko O’Higgins stayed hidden from the outside world.

  “They take turns,” he told me. “One of them at Master grade and a coven of twelve others, all satiated with Sumiko’s juice, standing ever vigilant. Nothing short of a planetary satellite photo would be able to see what’s down here, and even that doesn’t seem to work—the place is well camouflaged from the air, and a couple of distorting inversion layers add to the effect. That’s why she chose the place.”

  She’d been confident that Artur would not be able to return and find it after his defeat, and she’d been right. Basically, it was a message se
nt by that particular guardian pack of thirteen to all around simply not to notice the place. It was neither invisibility nor any form of telepathy, but it was a formidable mental barrier all the same.

  From what Father Bronz was able to tell me, O’Higgins seemed more than delighted with the idea. She said something about needing a “test piece” anyway. Furthermore, she held particular grudges against Zeis Keep not only because Dr. Pohn was there but also because Artur had killed two of her witches in the attack.

  But even though she had replaced the two dead ones, there was still a strong numerical problem in going against Zeis. Many of her procedures were far more effective defensively than offensively, since techniques such as the circle, which I’d seen in operation, and the “mind clouding” were not really much use to a mobile, advancing force. They would be able to take out some of Artur’s forces, but not all; in close quarters her pawns, even amplified slightly, would be no match for Artur’s trained and experienced Supervisors and Masters. Their strength was a group strength. Artur now knew this, having been bloodied, and would take measures to counter it. With perhaps a thousand witches Sumiko was invulnerable, but with a hundred and sixty-nine she needed support.

  Again it was Father Bronz, showing a most interesting bent for Machiavellian political manoeuvring, to the rescue. At our final meeting were not only the priest, the witches, and myself but also three strange women wearing colorful, flowing garb. Except for their manners and dress they looked rather ordinary, with common backgrounds of the civilized worlds in their features. Nonetheless, the immediate impression was that these were no ordinary inhabitants of Lilith, not even Masters. They were… something else.

  As we sat around eating small, tasty pastries and drinking mild local wine, Father Bronz made the introductions. First Sumiko, then me; then he turned to the three strange women.