“Our task is to face uncomplimentary facts head-on in the interest of serving the people,” he said.
“Yes, yes,” she said. “That is well-spoken. Chief Yezhov hints that you possess anti-socialist tendencies. Your statement just now belies Yezhov’s words. I have come to understand the steel of your spine. You eye intolerable facts with unwavering resolve. Perhaps a taint or two touches you and infests your thinking. But those are wounds gained in service to Social Unity.”
Hawthorne allowed himself a small twist of his lips.
“General, you should not belittle the importance that the other directors place on Social Unity theory. There are whispers that you attempt to sully the purity of the movement. Your monomaniacal insistence that all cybertanks and bionic soldiers remain under your command has led to strange rumors.”
Was this the thrust of her argument? Was she actually going to try to get him to relinquish command of the pillars of his power? If that was true, it meant she had become his enemy. Hawthorne felt tired then. He didn’t want to order her death. But he couldn’t allow her free rein if she worked this openly against him. Mentally, he began to cast about for her replacement.
“I’m not impugning the bionic soldiers,” she said. “Because of the Highborn, we need them. They are a lesser evil. For all their machinery, the bionic soldiers are still Homo sapiens. The Highborn are not Homo sapiens. They are like…”
“Wolves,” Hawthorne suggested.
Blanche-Aster gave him a blank look.
“You spoke about sheep before,” he said, “so I assumed you knew about wolves.”
“In my younger days, I worked in the farming habitat of Taping Five,” she said.
“It bred sheep?”
“Yes,” she said.
“Wolves were predatory animals like dogs that lived in the wild in the ancient times.”
“Ah,” she said. “I understand the allusion now. Yes, the Highborn are like the pit-fighting dogs that the slum dwellers breed.”
“Sheep and wolves can’t mingle without the wolves devouring the sheep,” Hawthorne said.
“As the Highborn try to devour us,” she said. “That is my point. We are engaged in a death struggle. Either we must exterminate the Highborn or they will replace humanity. Should they win, they won’t slaughter Homo sapiens immediately. But given several hundred years….” She paused as the color of the fluids in her tubes changed from blue to a reddish tinge. Then a clot of deeper red tumbled and wavered like jelly as it surged through the tube and disappeared into the chair.
“I’m not sure I completely agree with you,” Hawthorne said, keeping his face impassive. Her chair—he suppressed a shudder. “History shows that Master Races desire slaves or inferiors. I believe that Homo sapiens shall become a permanent slave race to the Highborn.”
“I have also studied the prehistoric files. What became of the Neanderthals?”
“I concede you your point,” Hawthorne said. “But is it all academic. Social Unity shall defeat the Highborn.”
“With bionic soldiers and cybertanks?” she asked.
A crease appeared in Hawthorne’s broad forehead. “Are you forgetting the cyborgs, Madam Director?”
Her eyes shined with a weird intensity as she leaned toward him.
General Hawthorne understood before she began to speak that here was the reason she’d wanted to meet with him. Here was why she’d left New Baghdad and crossed the ocean.
“I have not forgotten the cyborgs, sir. Consider what has occurred. Our eugenicists labored intensively for many years to mold the Highborn. They are biologically altered men. They were created to become a soldier race. Meanwhile, other scientists funded by us were hard at work in the Neptune System. They labored to create the perfect machine-man.” The Madam Director cackled. “I have taken to calling them Genus Cyborgus.”
“An apt name,” Hawthorne said.
“More apt than you realize,” she said. “As I was saying, our biological creation has rebelled against us. They captured the Doom Stars and with them seized control of the orbital space of Mercury, Venus, Earth and Mars.”
“They have retreated from Mars,” Hawthorne said.
“Please bear with me. The Highborn have also seized the Sun-Works Factory, the greatest industrial plant in the Solar System. They have conquered Antarctica and the islands of Earth and are in the process of conquering South America. Now we seek the help of the second creation, the machine men, to oust the biological error. But do we realize that the machine-men will be even worse than the altered biological men are? Instead of pit dogs among us, we will have automated killers.”
Hawthorne uncrossed his legs. “Madam, we already have machine men. The bionic soldiers.”
“No!” she said. “The bionic men are still human. The cyborgs are something completely different.”
“I have read the files. What you—”
“The files,” she sneered. “The files. Ha! Have you seen the cyborgs? Have you spoken with someone who lived through an encounter with them?”
“Have you?”
“Yes! Yes, I have. And I realize that we have sent for annihilation to save us from subjugation.”
Her fervor surprised Hawthorne. “Would you care to share this information with me?”
“May I use the holograph in the cube?” she asked.
“By all means,” he said.
The Madam Director pressed buttons on her armrest.
The top of the white cube between them flickered with life, projecting a holographic image. It showed a man-shaped being, bald, with plasti-flesh and dead, shark-like eyes. He moved with uncanny speed. It was a combat video, jerky, sometimes showing nothing but blasted buildings or falling men. There were occasional glimpses of the cyborg.
“Where did you get this?” Hawthorne asked.
The Madam Director twitched her withered fingers. “I have connections with PHC Outer Planets Intelligence.”
“Yezhov gave it to you?”
Madam Director Blanche-Aster gave another of her unnerving cackles. “No, no, Yezhov has no idea I have this. He awaits the cyborgs with great relish.”
“Why?”
The old woman bit her lower lip, and the grim vibrancy in her eyes become hooded, perhaps for the first time showing fear.
“Not all the experimentation occurred in the Neptune System,” she said. “Yezhov has access to the scientists who labored in secret here on Earth.”
“I’ve heard nothing of this.”
“No, no, I should have been surprised if you had. You know about Yezhov’s brain-wiped agents, the ones he plans to use to assassinate Highborn.”
“I’m familiar with the project.”
“General, there is a process….” She tapped a button and an arm extended from her medical unit with a small fan on the end. The fan whirred into life, gently blowing air into her perspiring face. “I debated a long time about this. For I’ve come to understand that your position is weaker than Chief Yezhov’s position. He waits for an unbeatable addition to his power base. He could use my secret help and it would cement my place in the new order. Even so, I have decided to risk everything and unreservedly throw in my lot with yours. Yezhov doesn’t understand the horror he wishes to use. All he knows is that he desires to rule Social Unity. The cyborgs have created an assembly line, a ghastly thing that tears down a human and recreates him or her into a cyborg.”
“Tears down? As Captain Mune has been torn down?”
“No,” Blanche-Aster whispered. “Can’t you understand what I’m trying to say? The Highborn have shattered Inner Planets. They have torn much of Earth from our control. They own Mercury. They have allowed the Planetary Union Rebels to regroup on Mars. Venus is under constant bombardment. The biologically altered Highborn have pushed us into a corner, but we’re battling hard to remain free. Imagine how much worse our situation will be once a true race of machine-men has escaped our control. The cyborgs have the means to expand like a virus among u
s. We cannot allow them to land on Earth. If that happens, our demise shall be swift.”
“Your holographic image was unsettling, but hardly—”
“I have another clone,” Blanche-Aster whispered.
Hawthorne sat very still, and he noticed movement on the farthest wall, a tiny spider slowly crawling toward the ceiling. For a moment, he wondered if it was a mechanical listening device, a new type of spy-stick. Another clone was news, and he realized how difficult it must have been for the Madam Director to tell him this.
“My second clone arrived from the Neptune System three weeks ago,” Blanche-Aster said. “The holovid was brought by her. I request that you speak with her.”
“…that can be arranged.”
“If you let the cyborgs land on Earth, General, we are doomed. I assure you that neither you nor your bionic men will be able to control them. They will quickly see that Yezhov will give them the freedom of operation they will want. They will help engineer Yezhov’s rise to power. That rise can only occur over your corpse.”
“What do you suggest I do?”
Madam Director Blanche-Aster grimaced. “What I would now do if I were in charge. Blast the cyborgs in their pods before they can unload.”
“Murder them?”
“Yes!”
“Because you fear them?”
“Because we’ve created our own aliens, General. Because they will supplant us in ways that would make the Highborn seem benevolent.”
Hawthorne stood up and strode to the window. The harsh lights showed the granite cracks in the tunnel. Water dripped there. They lived like moles because of the Highborn. Cyborgs—he recalled the bio-tanks. Programmed human brain mass ran the bio-tanks. Why should these cyborgs be any different? What was the real reason behind the Madam Director’s request?
“When can I speak with your second clone?” he asked.
“In an hour if you desire it. I brought her along with me to Central American Sector. She’s waiting in the city.”
Hawthorne regarded the Madam Director. “I’ll speak with Captain Mune. Let us say, two hours from now.”
“Wonderful.”
“You will remain my guest during that time. Hm. To make it easy, I’ll have you stay here on my bullet train.”
The Madam Director smiled grimly. “That you’re so suspicious raises my hopes that you’ll understand the danger. We must not compound our errors.”
General Hawthorne thought about that. Then he inclined his head and took his leave.
-5-
“I don’t recommend this, sir,” Captain Mune said.
General Hawthorne and the bionic soldier stood outside the cell where Blanche-Aster’s second clone waited. A vidscreen showed the clone sitting at a table. She was young, with short brunette hair, a thin face and a long, supple body. She wore the brown uniform of a habitat farm-worker. Unlike the Madam Director’s other clone who had been a bodyguard, this one had a fervent manner. She tried to maintain indifference, but her gaze slid about the cell. She seemed nervous. She either twitched fingers, her shoulders or blinked too rapidly.
“This clone is a PHC Outer Planet’s Intelligence operative,” Hawthorne said.
Captain Mune adjusted the controls of the vidscreen. It showed a modified x-ray image of her body. He zoomed to the base of her skull, to a tiny black dot there.
“It’s artificial,” Captain Mune said.
“Did the Madam Director send you the clone’s medical specs?”
Captain Mune nodded. “According to them, the implant was fused in her skull before she spaced out to Neptune. It’s a neural-charged explosive.”
Hawthorne recalled the neural inhibitor Ulrich had once stuck to him.
“Its purpose is what?” Hawthorne asked.
“The specs say the clone can will the device to explode. The Madam Director has gone to great lengths to ensure that no one can turn her clones against her.”
“Has the explosive been tampered with?” Hawthorne asked.
“We haven’t been able to establish that,” Captain Mune said.
“You think it has?”
“It’s my job to be paranoid, sir. I suggest you talk to her via vidscreen.”
“Would the explosive be enough to take out both of us?”
“No, sir.”
“Where is the danger then?”
“She could attack you physically, sir.”
“I am combat-trained,” Hawthorne said.
“Begging your pardon, sir, but you’re an older man.”
“And I am a man and she’s a woman.”
“If the Madam Director is correct concerning the devious nature of the cyborgs, who knows what other surprises have been modified into her.”
“Enhancement drugs?” asked Hawthorne.
“She may also have been trained in special fighting techniques.”
Hawthorne clasped his hands behind his back and scowled at the clone. For months now, he had awaited the cyborgs’ arrival. He desperately needed shock troops superior to the Highborn. The war in South America went against them in a slow and bitter grind of attrition.
Hawthorne unclipped his holster and withdrew his sidearm, a Gauss needler that fired heavy steel needles. It had a rubber-coated grip so it wouldn’t slip and felt good in his hand. He checked the gun, flipped the safety so it was ready for immediate fire and shoved it back into the holster.
“Even an old man can draw a needler,” Hawthorne said.
“Her reflexes may have been enhanced.”
“Paranoia is a good attribute in a bodyguard. For the Supreme Commander of Social Unity it can lead to paralysis. I must weigh the risks versus the benefits, play the odds and then strike boldly if that is called for. Deciding what to do with the cyborgs could be the most critical decision of my life. If she’s been tampered with so she’ll attack me, I want to know that. I suspect the only way to learn the truth is to present myself as a target.”
“If she makes it past your needler and is killing you, sir, do we have permission to gas the chamber?”
Hawthorne nodded curtly. Then he adjusted his holster and strode for the entrance to the cell.
* * *
Hawthorne sat across the table from the clone. He shook his head. The clone’s name was Rita Tan. It felt odd, because Rita Tan used the Madam Director’s voice and had many of her mannerisms. What Rita lacked was the Madam Director’s confidence.
Here was a person who had seen too many horrors up close. She acted like a person who believed the world was under imminent doom, and that no one else understood the nature of the peril. Rita Tan blinked much too rapidly. Her head jerked at the oddest moments and she had the annoying habit of smiling too much as if she feared Hawthorne would attack unless she pacified him. Rita Tan put her elbows on the table and leaned forward too far. Her facial skin was stretched and she spoke in a hushed tone.
“He showed me the assembly line, the process.” Rita shuddered. “It removed the skin and incinerated it. The stench was horrible. The saws, the artificial attachments—it removed the brain and put it in a sheathed braincase, and connected a new spinal column.”
“Why did this….”
“Toll Seven,” she whispered.
“Why did Toll Seven show you the assembly line?”
“They calculate their actions using logic parameters. The trouble is I had no idea of their ideal outcome and what weights they put to each action. I found their speech either incomprehensible or frighteningly naive.”
“Did Toll Seven or the others give any indication they planned—”
“I escaped that night,” whispered Rita. “I knew they planned to alter me, to strip away my flesh, my humanity, and implant my brain into a cyborg body. I used sleep enhancers and shot to Earth using full thrust. I had to beat them here. I had to warn my mother. You can stop them, can’t you? You can order their destruction? You have the authority, I hope?”
Hawthorne gave her a small nod.
Rita Tan sa
t back and sagged in her chair. “Then I’m not too late. Please tell me you have the authority to order the pods blasted out of space. I have to speak—”
“Calm yourself,” Hawthorne said, as below the table he secretly wrapped his hand on the butt of his needler. Rita Tan wanted too much assurance he had the authority.
She blinked rapidly.
“I am the Supreme Commander of Social Unity,” Hawthorne said. “All final authority rests with me. Yes, I will destroy the pods.”
Rita Tan’s head jerked to the left. She gave him a weird smile and she opened her mouth. Then she surged with manic speed, flinging the table at him.
Hawthorne had expected such an obvious tactic. Despite his age and lanky frame, he rolled out of the chair, and kept rolling as he drew the needler. The altered clone was fast, maybe even faster than what Captain Mune had suggested. Rita twitched her head with insect-like rapidity, pivoted even as she lunged the wrong way, and changed direction to fly at him.
The Gauss needler was a deadly weapon against unarmored opponents. It used a magnetic impulse to shoot a heavy steel needle, and it fired a great number of needles in a matter seconds.
Firing from the hip, Hawthorne sprayed needles at Rita Tan. The needler made its signature crackling noise. The first few missed. They smashed against the steel wall behind her and disintegrated, flinging sliver-like shards. From the floor, Hawthorne aimed. Rita Tan screamed wildly, a battle cry meant to frighten her opponent or to increase her chi as she attacked. The needles riddled her torso, ten in less than a second. Twitching in agony, she thudded onto Hawthorne and knocked the needler from his grasp. He shouted as the door swished open.
Hawthorne flung Rita Tan away as Captain Mune charged into the room, his gyroc pistol ready. She flopped onto the floor as Mune snapped off a single shot. Because of the short distance, the rocket-packet in his gyroc round never ignited. The rocket-bullet smashed against the middle of her back, however. With a grunt, she sagged to the floor. She had been rising to attack anew. She twisted her head to glare at Hawthorne. Her lips writhed. Hawthorne groped for his needler. Then the back of her head exploded and rained blood and bone.
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