Masters of Flux & Anchor

by Jack L. Chalker

  They came to a blue string wound with great complexity, and from it he read its code which told where it went and where on it they were.

  “What’s that?“the girls asked.

  He was surprised. “You can see it?”

  “Sure. A funny blue line of fuzzy light. A bunch of them, sort of all twisted together.”

  “Most people can’t see it. It means you have the power.”

  That excited them. “You mean we can do magic like you said?”

  “Maybe. It depends on how much of it you have. When we get to New Pericles we’ll have Mervyn take a look at you, if he’s there.”

  Mervyn was there, and he was fascinated by the twins. “Just as a guess, they’re each at least at their mother’s potential, but the fact that they’re so closely linked mentally gives an enhancement possibility that staggers even me,” the wizard told Matson. “They have a Flux bond so strong that they are essentially one individual.”

  He nodded. “Yeah. Sometimes even they forget which one they are.”

  “With the proper training and education, it’s my guess that either one could summon the power of both, and this is magnified, not diminished, by their uninhibited, irrational emotionalism. Even now, if they were really angry at somebody or something, and had a specific goal and target in mind, they could probably defeat an amplifier. Unfortunately, they will remain untrained and untrainable. Coydt’s spell was based upon the math of the master program. It’s fixed, even in Flux. You can add to it but not subtract from it. Their inability to read and write and do more than a toddler’s counting is physical, not psychological. It gets scrambled in the brain somehow, and won’t process. Still, if they were emotional enough and really wanted something, they could still level a Fluxland. Remember Cassie back in Persellus? You don’t need training and math ability if you’re powerful and charged-up enough.”

  That was sobering news.

  Spirit was rather startled by the twins. Just as Jeff had never reconciled himself to his mother’s sexual activity, she had never thought of Matson in that way. Still, she could understand why he’d bent in this regard. Although they looked quite different, very attractive—hell, they were gorgeous—they still had a strong dose of Cassie inside, particularly in the face and eyes and the various small gestures they affected as well. More than even Mervyn, she could also see the enormous power potential in them.

  “That’s who your prime components should be.” she told the Soul Rider.

  For sheer power I would have to agree. Together those two could potentially break and defeat almost any wizard on World. They are unsuitable, however, for other reasons. They are far too young and inexperienced to make hard decisions, for one thing. For another, although they are quite intelligent, they are products of their culture and believe in its basics, quarrelling only with some specifics. This is not by coercion or spell, as with Cass, Suzl, and Sondra, but something they take utterly for granted. It would be fascinating to see just what sort of Fluxland they would create, but I assure you that you wouldn’t like it.

  She let it drop. More and more she was becoming aware that events were closing in on them, and that time was running out. She had never been that much aware of time before, but now she simply had the sense, through the Soul Rider, that things were soon to change forever, and that a crisis was imminent that even the Soul Rider was powerless to influence. She knew, however, what the Soul Rider’s overriding mission was, and its justification for all that it had done, because the Soul Rider itself was receiving more and more information daily from its controller.

  The Soul Riders were part of the defense of World, and that cause was so absolute that the rights and lives of individuals were of no consequence. For twenty-six hundred years they had managed to foil, confuse, or stave off any real attempts at opening the Hellgates, but now it was beyond their individual control. Individuals, and sometimes events, could be manipulated, but World was now too complex, too populated, and too diverse for the Soul Rider and its controller to deal with. They could only warn and, as always, prepare for the worst.

  Mervyn, for his part, was doing much the same. He had already seen the information Matson had gained through Sondra, and, in fact, had done an overflight himself in bird form. His sources were better than Matson’s.

  “There’s no question that Sligh is the newest member of the Seven, something I pretty well guessed long ago. Tilghman was too dedicated to his great vision, and Champion has limited Flux power—enough to form a pocket temporarily, or enslave an individual—but not enough to really matter. He has the right attitude, but not the inborn abilities the position requires. No, it had to be Sligh. I suspected that when I saw how much he was pouring into power studies and broadcast communications, and how he fought against and delayed for many years the implementation of the landscaping program, which made things a bit more difficult for him. He was with Coydt almost from the beginning, though, and well known to the others.”

  “I just don’t see how he could have gotten this far, though,” Matson said. “I mean, he’s still suckering everybody and he’s on top.”

  “The key was Champion, I suspect. The man’s brilliant, but he’s also ruthless, vicious, and petty. I think he has his own, far uglier vision for New Eden, and I think Sligh played on his ego. He’s never forgiven or forgotten his slave-boy origins, and he’s driven by blind hatred. Sligh has played on that, and on Champion’s feelings that Tilghman’s devolved into a silly dreamer and is of no more practical use to them. They needed the old boy’s organizational mastery to set it all up, but they don’t want what he wants for the new land. The only chance we may have is that Tilghman’s now tipped off to the plot and they will almost certainly have to rush their coup. That will mean civil war, and we have to pray that Tilghman can reach that tower before it is completed and blow it up.”

  “No chance of anything from the air, then? Cass and I, years ago, did a nice bombing job as big birds.”

  “With Flux right next to you, and with a small blockhouse as an objective. Consider how many you’d have to get in, and how far they have to fly—and do you think that the amount of explosives a large bird could carry could knock down that thing, solid steel anchored in tons of concrete? Not to mention the fact that when Tilghman moves, or even before, they’ll have all sorts of defenses set up in no time. Those ray projectors of theirs could knock everything living from the sky for ten kilometers.”

  “Anything on the other Gates?”

  “Plenty. In separate but well-timed incidents, Krupe, MacDonna, and Hjistoliran have all been assassinated in Anchor, all by people they believed friends, allies, or loyal priestesses. Various attempts have been made on others of the Nine in Flux by members of the Seven and affiliated wizards, many using amplifiers. The devices Sligh created are heavily booby-trapped and tied directly into the regulator circuitry. Our experts have said that without the circuit diagrams and top engineers and a lot of time we couldn’t hope to deactivate and disconnect any of them, and if they blow they’ll take the regulator with them. Our experts claim that this would cause an unrestrained release of massive quantities of raw, uncontrolled Flux that would make at least that cluster a horrible wasteland in which nothing could live.”

  “After so long they make it look so effortless, so easy.”

  “No, it’s complex. Not only did they have to gain hidden political control of the clusters and maintain it indefinitely, they had to wait for the mechanisms to be developed. That was Coydt’s job. It took him a century to break through anything at all—the amplifiers, and the codes for access to the Hellgates, for starters—and to be confident enough to test and use them. That’s why he needed Anchor Logh to get any further. He needed a large area where scientific testing and research could be undertaken under constant physical laws. To do that he needed to totally control an Anchor, and that was the source of the New Eden movement. Sligh continued the work, but found he hadn’t the resources or industrial capacity to properly develop and
test what he discovered, which was why he fed the weapons research and the expansionist aims of Tilghman. Now Tilghman’s in the way of the last great experiment and must be disposed of.”

  Matson sat back in his chair and shook his head sadly. “How could we have let this happen? How could we have sat back so complacently and let them do it?”

  “We did try it another way. When it was clear how pervasive the Seven’s influence was growing, we created the Reformed Church movement and the Empire. However, speed was essential before they could regroup, and that meant we had to have a physical center to unite the peoples of Flux and Anchor for war. She was their motive force.”

  “Cassie.”

  “Exactly. And we were winning! They were beaten back, unable to cope with such devotion and fanaticism. That’s why Coydt kidnapped Spirit, then chose Anchor Logh particularly for his new research laboratory. He had to hurt Cassie, divert her, and draw her in where he was certain he could finish her off. And, even in death, he did just that. He removed the Empire’s heart, and its momentum collapsed. Because of that disarray, we of the Nine actually accelerated the Seven’s takeover process. The half of World still under their influence easily picked up the shattered pieces of the Empire in disarray. It’s all over, Matson. Everyone on World is now waking up to that fact, with the discovery of the timing mechanisms, but it’s too late. They’ve won. Our only hope, and this is the irony of ironies, rests with Adam Tilghman.”

  “I wouldn’t underestimate the old boy, but I wouldn’t sit here and sulk, either. Get out the word. Fly around World as you never have before. The stringers will help you, too. Mass every damned army you can muster. Keep a well-armed and fortified twenty percent in Anchor and block those temple accesses. Through everything else, everything and everybody, to the Hellgates. Put a million damned troops in the field! Let the invaders shoot their cannon into a horde of a million fanatical cockroaches who must either win or die! Give it to ‘em! It’ll cost ten, maybe even a hundred, for every one of them, but we can take them! Believe it!”

  “I don’t know if I can,” Mervyn sighed. “I’m suddenly feeling very old and very stupid. But I’ll do it. If it can be done, we’ll do it.”

  They both stood up, and shook hands. “Where do you go now?” the wizard asked the stringer.

  “Back. If I can expose Sligh, I can turn the army. If I can’t, and get away, I can still organize my own band of cockroaches.”

  The two men looked straight into each other’s eyes, and in them was the understanding that they would probably not meet again. Finally Mervyn asked, “If they want to surrender? Make a deal?”

  Matson smiled. “Tell ‘em—tell ‘em to remember Anchor Logh.”

  Sondra took the small key from the parlor dresser and crept into her husband’s study. The previous evening she had seen him going over a whole new batch of aerial photographs, and she was determined to have a look at them. The house was pretty well deserted today. She’d sent the older kids to a sitter’s and the youngest was asleep in his crib. Lev had been awakened in the wee hours of the morning and had rushed out without an explanation. She didn’t know when he’d be back, but she suspected it might not be for days.

  She turned the key and slid open the drawer, then removed the photos. They were worse then she’d dreamed. The tower was nearly completed, and lacked only a preassembled top section that was clearly on the ground nearby. Judging from the tiny size of the people, buildings, and equipment below it was obvious that the height of the thing was enormous, taller than anything ever seen before on World. She’d been a stringer and she’d had the full range of Signal Corps training. There was no question in her mind as to what the tower was for, and it was obvious that the thing could be topped off in a day or two. That would leave only the power and electrical connections and some guidewire support to go. If these pictures were recent, it was a matter of days. If older, it could be any moment.

  “I knew it was you,” said a man’s voice behind her. “It had to be.”

  She whirled and found herself facing Gunderson Champion himself. She mustered up all her courage. “What are you doing in my house?” she asked him, giving up all pretense at servility.

  “Catching a spy. I don’t know for who—Mervyn, your father, or old man Tilghman—but I don’t really care. I just led a high-level group to Tilghman’s house to place him under protective arrest, and you know what I found? Nothing! But I suspect you already do know that, don’t you? No Judge, no wives, no brats. I suspected something about you from the moment the old man married you off to Lev, but he was so certain and you were so good you even convinced me—for a while.”

  “How long have you been here?”

  “Not very long. I didn’t really expect to catch you in the act.” He reached out for her, and she resisted, pounding on him, but all he did was laugh and tighten his grip. “You want to see the project? Come on I’ll take you to the project.”

  She stopped fighting, realizing it was no use. Even if she got by him, somehow, there’d be others. “The baby—my children… . ”

  “They’ll be well taken care of, as long as you behave yourself and don’t try anything funny. Anything, even the slightest resistance or disagreement, and your daughter dies. Anything beyond that, and we’ll start work on the others.”

  “Lev would kill you if you did that!”

  “Lev isn’t in any position to do that. Right now he’s out chasing down our missing ex-leader. If he succeeds, he may be lucky enough to be only a sergeant bossing a mining detail somewhere when this is over. If he fails, he’ll die.”

  “You seem to have it all figured out, except for one thing. Your precious project is really to open the Hellgates. Once they’re open, nothing after will mean a thing.”

  They went outside and she allowed herself to be assisted onto a horse. They rode along in a procession of troopers. Champion at her side. He had her, and she knew it. Her usefulness was over now in any event, and the only thing left of importance was saving the children.

  “You know, you and your group may be wrong about this Gate business,” Champion said to her. “They might not be enemies at all. Or there might be nothing there after all these years. Sligh doesn’t think there will be. He just thinks we’ll have them open, so our relatives can visit and give him all the power he needs to do things no wizard ever dreamed of doing. Me, I don’t care. If they’re there and friends, I win. If they’re not there, then we will have such power as none have dreamed of. If they’re there and the Enemy, whatever they are, it’ll be an interesting challenge to see if your papa’s right. If we can beat ‘em, we’ll have the means to go back along those big strings ourselves.”

  “And if you can’t?”

  “It is a soldier’s duty to fight and die if necessary,” he responded calmly, and she felt a chill as she realized he meant absolutely every word of it.

  Matson and the twins were gone, much to Spirit’s dismay. She felt, rather than having to have the Soul Rider tell her, that her father was saying farewell to her, and perhaps to life. She wished she understood exactly what was going on.

  Mervyn, too, had gone, with that same feeling in his eyes and manner. She felt alone, helpless, frightened, and confused.

  Spirit—it is time.

  “Huh? What? Time for what?”

  I have received key elements of the master defense program. It is now more than certain that the Hellgates will open. The probability is better than eighty percent, which triggers a sequence of moves.

  She knew she should have felt great fear, but instead the news calmed her, yet excited her as well. It had been her mother’s time, and her father’s time, and Suzl’s time, and Mervyn’s time.

  Now it was her time.

  “What do you want me to do?”

  First, call Jeff.

  “Jeff! But—”

  Call him. Call him with all your will and all your might. Call him with your mind. Summon him to you, through Flux. Do it, and he will come.

/>   She wanted to see him, no matter what he’d turned into. She very much did, and now she gathered up all her will, all her concentration, and called to him.

  “JEFF! COME TO ME! COME TO ME IN FLUX!”

  She could visibly see a string shoot from her, so quickly that no eye could follow it, going out and curving off to the southeast.

  “Now what?”

  We wait. It will not be long. One of my own kind has arranged to keep him very near Flux. He will come almost at the speed of light once he reaches Flux.

  “But—why? Why now?”

  For six years he has been in the New Eden army. He has become a weapons and ordinance specialist. It was thought this would be—useful.

  With forty minutes he was there. She felt him come before he arrived, and watched as the great string reversed itself, and burst in front of her, reforming into the shape of a man.

  He had changed, even from the last time they’d seen each other. He had a full, thick beard, which partially masked an ugly facial scar. His skin was hard, rough, and weather-beaten, and his hair was actually going gray. He looked, for the moment, totally confused. Then he spotted her, frowned, then brightened for a moment, and that insane look came into his eyes and expression once more. He advanced towards her confidently, menacingly.

  She was pissed off. When he got close enough, she threw the meanest and most powerful uppercut she’d ever managed and connected with his jaw. It snapped shut and he fell backwards onto the ground, face up. He picked himself up slowly, and felt his jaw in wonder, but before he could get up again the Soul Rider had taken control of her.

  She leaped upon him, her unnaturally powerful body pinning him down and holding him. He was confused and frightened by this turn, but found he couldn’t struggle, couldn’t, in fact, move a muscle. She reached into him through her mind and contacted his Flux power.