by John Rankine
Down below, the android was in a state of smash. It had fallen on a flagged terrace and its own weight had settled the business. The head had rolled clear of the trunk and one leg was broken off at the knee. Instead of blood, it had spilled out a spreading pool of black oil and a litter of small gear.
The face of the building beside the observation window was arranged in courses, with projecting bands every metre, to gladden a rock-climber’s heart. It was easy.
The building itself was set in another valley feature surrounded by hills. Below the terrace was what had once been an ornamental garden, now overgrown and neglected. A short scramble beyond the end of the garden, there was an old surface road which had been cut into the flank of the mountain and followed the curve of the valley out of sight in either direction.
Koenig said, ‘This is our way. Over the hill. Keep it moving.’
The android had taken out most of the glass and Koenig kicked away enough for a clear path to the stonework. Each step down was double the interval of the grabs in the conduit, but the ledges were almost ten centimetres deep. He went down smoothly without a check and watched Helena Russell’s neat, economical action as she followed.
Bergman was slower, but came down steadily. Paul Morrow was having trouble with Sandra. She was saying, ‘I know I didn’t bother in that tunnel, but it was different. There was a wall all round. I’m not good about heights.’
‘Get on or I’ll throw you over the edge.’
‘Commander Koenig wouldn’t say that.’
‘By this time, he’d have thrown you over the edge.’ Neurotic as a flea, she forced herself half a metre from the sill and stopped.
‘Now what?’
‘I can’t move. I’ve gone rigid.’
Morrow followed her, held on with one hand and one foot and swung himself round her until her body was between him and the wall. Shifting a swath of black hair with his nose, he licked the back of her neck. ‘Did I ever tell you, you have skin like that monumental alabaster.’
‘Probably, and I want it in one piece.’
‘You can’t fall.’
‘Now we can both fall.’
‘Left hand down. Then your right foot.’
It was slow, but it was progress. Koenig climbed back to meet them and they talked her down. At ground level, eyes almost all pupil, she was full of apologies. ‘I’m sorry. That height bit was the one piece of space training I had a problem with. Given a little time I can think myself into it, but coming unexpectedly, I get thrown.’
Koenig said, ‘Not to worry. Everybody has some hang-up. Let’s go.’
They were not too soon. As they reached the edge of the terrace, a section of a ground-floor patio door sliced open and a couple of androids thumped, flat-footed, into the sunlight. They were new models, coal black, with one arm adapted as a kind of carbine. There was the hornet whine of an old-fashioned shell going overhead and the splat of another hitting the stone baluster and digging itself a pit.
There was good cover in the garden and the Alphans used it, zigzagging in and out of mazelike paths towards the boundary. Another half dozen androids had lumbered out onto the terrace. Two stayed at the balustrade, the rest began to climb over to join the two who had already reached ground level in the garden.
From the first minute, when he had begun the move, Koenig had seen that the difficult bit would be where cover ran out. Seen close, the rock-strewn slope to the road above was maybe fifty metres long. Climbing it, they would be staked out for target practice.
The androids were strung out like a line of beaters, taking it slow and steady. Overhead, the two on the terrace were firing at intervals, kicking up spurts of dust and rock chippings from the hillside. Koenig’s voice left no leeway for argument. He said, ‘Victor, Helena, Sandra, make for the road. Weave about, Paul, with me.’
He did not wait to see them move off. Stooping to get cover from an ornamental wall, he was running for a half-ruined gazebo back up the track. It had six square columns supporting a pagoda roof and was overfull of bright purple vegetation.
Morrow was a half pace behind him as Koenig vaulted the enclosing rail. They took a pillar each and could command a view up the garden to the terrace.
Koenig rested his laser on the crook of his arm and made a marksman’s job of it. The range was on the limit for effective fire. But the bright thread seared away and licked into the centre of the left-hand android’s ovoid head. For a brief count, there was no change and the android sent another two rounds from its carbine arm to whine overhead.
Paul Morrow started navel high on the right-hand marker and slowly shifted the beam to the column of the throat. The searchers were twenty-five metres off, black shadows behind fronds of leaf and creeper.
It was time to go. Koenig took one more shot, picking the chest cavity and the area where a man would have his heart. At ground level, an android broke cover, nearer than he expected and swinging its carbine for a target. Movement at the pillar caught its sensors and a shot thudded into the stonework starting a long fissure.
Morrow took it from the angle, irradiating its head in a white glare. It missed its stride, stopped with one knee raised and rocked wildly as one stabiliser fought to balance the weight.
Koenig signalled for out and they ran back the way they had come.
The party on the hill were scrabbling on all fours in sliding scree. Shots from the terrace had stopped. Koenig shoved his laser in its clip and went up at a run, arms out like a high-wire artist.
Helena was over the rim and leaned out to give Bergman a hand. He was almost done, face a mask of sweat, breathing hard and laboured. Morrow caught up with Sandra, hooked his fingers in her belt and fairly heaved her up the last five metres like a comely sack.
Koenig, last across, took a racing scan over the set and yelled ‘Flat down!’ He threw himself beside Helena, one arm across her shoulders and sorted out what he had seen from memory.
The two on the terrace had gone spare. One was folded over the balustrade and the other was jigging up and down on its springs. The other five had reached journey’s end and had a clear view up the hill. It was all Lombard Street to a china orange that they hadn’t a hope of climbing it. But they could rake the road with fire and even as Koenig worked it out, a ragged fusillade rattled overhead and brought down a shower of fragmented rock and bright slivers of metal from the hillside.
Koenig whispered to Helena, ‘Keep flat and make like a snake. We can’t stay here.’
Shots were still coming, but only from two carbines. There was the scuff and slide of rubble as the rest of the posse tried to climb. Classic tactics. Fire, cover and movement. They had been programmed from some military textbook.
Koenig crawled fifty metres, forcing himself along until every bone ached with the hammering of the rough road. The others came up and stopped, faces streaked with sweat and dust. The sun was almost vertical overhead and the rock surface was hot to the touch. He edged over to the low coping stone that made a continuous rim and cautiously lifted his head.
The black androids were still trying to beat a path up the hill. Over on the terrace, two shining steel androids were looking out over the garden. Top management had come to take charge. Koenig looked at his time disc. There was no saying what snags lay ahead. They should push on. He said, ‘On your feet and as fast as you like for two minutes.’
They could have beaten a drum or played a bagpipe. Nobody seemed to take any notice. When they stopped to lean on the hillside and draw breath, the distant terrace was empty. The failed cliff climbers could be seen moving in single file through the garden. Gregor had called off the chase.
Victor Bergman, when he could speak, said, ‘I don’t like it, John. I didn’t believe they would give up so easy. What will they do?’
It was a good question and there were no good answers about. Koenig zipped out of his tunic top, batted a cloud of white dust out of it and hung it over one shoulder. He said, ‘I’ll feel better when I get inside Ea
gle Nine. Try Alan again, Sandra.’
Sandra was already stripped down to a lime-green leotard that could have been sprayed on with a paint gun. She dug her commlock out of her bundle of gear and went through the routine as if she had been sitting at her communications desk in Main Mission. ‘Commander to Eagle Nine. Come in Eagle Nine.’
The small screen was hatched with silver rain. There was no answer.
‘Commander to Eagle Nine. Do you read me? Come in Eagle Nine.’
She looked miserable. ‘I am sorry, Commander. There is no answer. But there will be heavy screening here. I have noticed that the mountain is veined with a metallic ore. We are very much enclosed by it.’
‘Leave it then. Let’s get on.’
It was a good half hour by the clock before they rounded a bluff that took them out of sight of Gregor’s towering admin silo. Ahead of them, the road rose slowly to cross a high ridge through a saddle. Much of the way, there was a sheer drop on the left and, in parts, the road was suspended on cantilever beams socketed in the living rock. It was impressive engineering and another facet to the character of the pleasure-seeking Copreons, if they indeed had built it.
Whoever had built it had not used it for some decades. No routine maintenance had been carried on. They went in single file over a twenty-metre stretch where the roadway was reduced to a metre wide ledge littered with small rocks. Surprisingly, Sandra took it in her stride. She had seen it coming and had talked herself into a positive mental set. Further on, there was another one, this time more serious. Koenig had his party out in a line, holding hands and edging along four fingers of ledge with their faces flat to the rock.
When they were across, he knelt on the jagged edge of the road and looked at the break. Bergman joined him. ‘Are you thinking what I’m thinking, John?’
‘No accident?’
‘That’s right. Too even. It was cut across at right angles and then cut away a section at a time. You can see the tool marks.’
The others were taking a spell with their backs to the hillside. Paul Morrow said, ‘So Gregor knew what he was doing. He calculated we’d pass this point before his goons could catch up. They wouldn’t get across there with their flat feet. He hasn’t given up, he’s gone another way to work.’
It was only too likely. Koenig could see a task force going through the mountain to attack Eagle Nine. He said shortly, ‘Time is against us. Push up the pace.’
If they had come to it fresh, it would have been a gruelling trek. It had been designed for power transports which would have ground up the pass in low gear. On foot, in a baking heat that was knocking forty Celsius and already low on physical reserves, they were turning in longer times for every hundred metres.
Victor Bergman was flagging. Face pale and mouth set like a trap he was driving himself on, but Helena was not deceived. She caught up with Koenig who had gotten ten paces ahead of the column. She said quietly, ‘John, I’m worried about Victor. You know what he’s like. He won’t complain. He’ll just go on until he drops.’
Tired himself, Koenig had to kick his brain into making a decision. He had programmed himself to go on until he ran out of road or blundered into the Eagle. He could split the party or hold together and go slow. Finally he said, ‘All right. Take a spell. Five minutes. I’m hoping when we reach the saddle, it’ll be easier.’
They lay stretched out flat, getting maximum rest. Nobody spoke. Many stops like that and Koenig knew there would be one when he would never get them on their feet. He timed it to the second and stood up.
Paul Morrow stirred Sandra with the toe of his boot. ‘On your feet, Pavlova.’
‘No.’
‘Get up or I’ll kick your ribs in.’
‘You would, too. You’re sadistic.’
‘Think of ice clinking in a glass on Eagle Nine.’ She was on her feet with an heroic spurt of energy. ‘There you see. A carrot is better than a whip.’
‘For a donkey.’
Ignoring him, she walked on to join Helena. Within minutes, it was as though they had never stopped and they were stupid with the never-ending chore of setting one foot after another in a mind-bending haze of heat and pain.
Koenig was a hundred metres ahead when he crested the last steep rise and met level ground. Ahead, through a short defile, there was a bright V of sky and a sense that they had reached the roof of the world.
Stubbornly, he pushed himself on. There was nothing to see until he was at the very end of the pass. Then he looked down at a change of scene that was almost too much to take in. The road curved down along two sides of an oblong box canyon. Towards ground level the cliff sides were honeycombed with black openings that could have been natural caves or primitive mine workings. The floor of the valley was a mass of vegetation, towering cycads, ferns, regular patches that could be under cultivation. At the far end was a clear, flat area of grey rock that would serve as a landing ground.
Koenig unclipped his commlock, dialled the Eagle command frequency and talked to it, his tongue feeling thick and awkward in his mouth. ‘Commander to Eagle Nine. Do you read me? Come in Eagle Nine.’
When Alan Carter’s face appeared clear and precise on the miniature screen, he could hardly believe he had it.
‘Alan?’
‘Commander? You had me worried. Where are you?’
‘Any contact with Alpha?’
‘Not a whisper. There’s a radio blanket on.’
‘We can’t be far away. I’d guess over the hill you can see dead ahead. But I’ll put up a homing signal. There’s a lush looking valley and a strip you can land on. We’ll make towards it and expect to see you. All right?’
‘Check, Commander. No problem. I’ll be on my way in under a minute.’
‘See you. Out.’
Gaunt and functional, Eagle Nine could make no claim to beauty, but when her bulbous cone lifted over the rocky sky line, she was as welcome as a bird of paradise in full colour. They were making better time down the long side with only a dog leg to the home straight.
Alan Carter came in with a roar that reverberated through the valley and set her down on her jacks in the centre of the pad.
Helena Russell grabbed Koenig’s arm and pointed. ‘Look, John, by that clump of purple bushes.’
The noise had brought a small herd out of cover, startled and racing in a compact bunch to get farther away from the point of origin. They were dappled grey and red, about the size of an okapi. Within seconds they were gone, melding into the multicoloured backdrop. But it was a sign of life. Pelorus seemed less sterile.
Carter had lowered a landing ramp and walked down it, looking towards them and raising a fist in what could be a thumbs-up signal.
Koenig had a moment’s doubt. If he had been playing it, he would have held fast in the pilot seat, ranging round with his scanner and one hand on the firing handle of the lasers. But there was no other sign of movement. Except for the disappearing herd, they had the valley to themselves.
Koenig called his chief pilot, buzzing him on the commlock link and could see Garter stop in his tracks to answer.
‘Commander to Eagle Nine.’
‘Commander?’
‘What did you see coming in?’
‘Nothing new, Commander. It’s a double range, in fact, between here and where we first landed. All bare rock. Nothing stirring.’
‘Anything at the tower site?’
‘Some gnomes fixed the glass. I could see you follow the first one out. As I pulled out there was some action. Black android types making towards the window.’
‘Hatchet men. If any show, blast them first and ask questions later.’
‘Check, Commander.’
Koenig shoved his commlock back in its clip. Down below, Carter climbed the ramp, swung himself up the superstructure and heaved himself to the top rib where he stood looking round the set. There was still a good half hour of sweat and aching effort before the Alphans could leave the road and make the last sliding scramble to sta
nd on the landing strip and know they were home and dry.
Carter came to meet them and only then realised the state they were in. Concerned, he began, ‘Commander . . .’ and stopped with his hand going to his head. It was the familiar pounding signal bringing vertigo and he was half a minute bringing it under control with the rheostat setting.
Already stupid with fatigue, the others were clumsy and took longer. When Koenig cleared his eyes of double vision, he believed that Bergman’s degaussers had met their Waterloo and he was still out of sync with the real world.
The set had filled up as though a chorus of seminude villagers had nipped smartly in from the wings. It had been a silent, barefoot rush from the edge of the vegetation and there was no doubt that the new arrivals had been playing a waiting game. Either they knew the effect was due and had been waiting for it, or they had fixed it as soon as the Alphans reached the clearing.
Helena, quicker off the mark with interpretation, said, ‘Copreons! Just like the picture.’
There were some differences. The mob that had surged between the Alphans and Eagle Nine were small in stature, well made and athletico-somatic. Mainly men with a scattering of women. Dark haired, grey-green eyes, dressed alike in pleated green kilts of a kind of metal cloth. Every last one had a broad metal band round the temples. They looked tougher and more determined than their ancestors. Fighting for survival had sloughed off some of the fat.
Alan Carter knew for a truth he should have stayed in the Eagle until the stragglers were home. Laser in hand, he was prepared to cut himself a path. But Koenig forestalled him. ‘Hold it, Alan!’
The Copreons had arrived on silent feet and were still silent and stock still. It was like a passive-resistance demo. Nearest to the Alphans, a man and a woman stepped forward together, palms open and stretched out in the universal mime of peace and good will.
