Masters of Flux & Anchor

by Jack L. Chalker

  “You sure you’re O.K.?” Suzl pressed.

  She nodded. “I know he’s dead. I can accept that now. What of the children, though. Suzl?”

  “They’re O.K. A couple of Fluxwives up top took ‘em in. I’ve been checking on them when I could, but they’re in no more danger than we are, which is quite a lot.”

  “You—you’re running this place?”

  Quickly Suzl told her all the details to date. She nodded and sighed.

  “You sure you’re feeling all right?”

  “I’m tired, angry, frightened to death, and on top of that I’m horny as hell.”

  “Join the club, then,” Sondra called from her command chair.

  “We’re all about to break down and have a real cry, but we can’t afford to,” Suzl toJd her. “God! I just wish they’d throw the damned switches and get it over with!”

  Spirit eased over to Matson and whispered. “Look at them! Even Suzl! They’re still just a mass of emotions, wants, and desires.”

  Matson thought it over. “Yeah, it’s the bodies, the hormones, the glands, all that. But I’m not worried about it. It may sound crazy, but I wish I had Fluxgirls with guts in every control when the Enemy comes.”

  She stared at him. “Why?”

  “Suzl’s power came from you, remember. I heard about it when we were here trying to take this place back. Cass only held her own against Haldayne until she saw me fall. Don’t you see? The key to drawing full strength from that machine is emotion, not reason. You’ve been there yourself. It might just pay for you to get a little of that passion back yourself. You seem to have lost it the moment you stepped in here.”

  “I lost my innocence,” she responded. “I admit I’m keyed up and more than a little scared, but you have to remember—I saw them all before they were like this. I don’t like what’s become of them.”

  “Save your hate for the Enemy,” Matson told her. “There’s far too much hate in this world for the less important things now. Besides, as of now they’re only that way because that’s how they’ve been for a while and there’s an emergency. What they decide on after this is over will be what shapes their lives.”

  “Perhaps you’re right. You seem fairly confident that we will get through this.”

  “I’m always confident in a battle. It doesn’t make any practical sense to be otherwise until you lose. I think they’ll be sons of bitches, but I’m not sure the threat hasn’t been overblown. We’ve been held hostage and kept down on World for twenty-seven centuries because of them. I think we either free ourselves or we’ll live forever under this.”

  “You sound like one of the Seven,” she said.

  “They’re no better or worse than Mervyn and the Nine or a hundred Fluxlords, not really. They’re the only truly free people on World. Still, any enemy that can hold a grudge for all this time is something else again. Me, I’d prefer some enemy to our own people.”

  “What!”

  “Sure. I don’t think our relatives out there are gonna be all that happy to meet us.”

  “How can you say that?”

  “Twenty-seven hundred years ago, on some other planet called Earth which is all Anchor, they discovered Flux and how to use it, and they had their machines to make it jump through hoops. So instead of using it, they established at least fourteen colonies so far away that even they didn’t know where they all were. Why bother?”

  “Exploration? Crowding?”

  “Nope. There’s more profit in tyranny than in all this, and by number fourteen you’re colonizing, not exploring. Now, I read Haller’s journal and it’s pretty clear that the folks of his time had no idea that people and machines could get mixed up together. They used Flux only by machine to get from there to here, to do the cooking, that kind of thing. Their aim was to turn this whole planet into Anchor, not use the Flux to do anything but make it Anchor. Why import farmers and shepherds and machinists when Flux would make what they wanted?”

  “You tell me,” Spirit said wryly.

  “I think Flux is probably the most dangerous thing they ever had to deal with. My guess is there was some really nasty accident in the early days that frightened them to death.”

  “There’s nothing in the computer memory on it.”

  “There wouldn’t be, necessarily. Now they wanted what Flux could give ‘em, which was the power of a billion wizards, but they didn’t want it done close to home. The profits from it in an Anchor society would be tremendous, far more than the cost, but you don’t set up a colony and spend all that much to do it and have ‘em sit here and make Flux teacups and steaks or even buildings. You want it to do the big stuff, the stuff that costs more to do the hard way no matter what the set-up costs here. And you don’t make big stuff with the Flux we got on World. You make it out of the stuff you see out there, beyond the Hellgate.”

  “O.K.—but what happened?”

  “Maybe too much Flux was allowed onto World. Maybe they had new kinds of computers they never used before. Who knows? But all the defensive systems, which are impressive, are Anchor systems. There’s really no consideration for Flux power. There’s no sign that they used their Flux amplifiers to work individual spells, or programs, or whatever you want to call them. They were intended to work with the stuff in the modules that the computers furnished. They were both frightened and amazed when they discovered that human beings could manipulate Flux through those machines without another machine. It scared the shit out of the army, who went to a great deal of trouble to create those independent programs, the Soul Riders and the Guardians, to limit access to what the big computers had, and to keep the computers from running them. Even there they got it wrong through ignorance. The big programs developed independent identities, became thinking beings, because the Soul Riders lived inside humans. They became humans—vicariously, anyway.”

  “But the Guardians didn’t.”

  “No, but they poked into every Anchorite with Flux power because they knew they’d need one when push came to shove. They were limited by their programs, but they also started taking independent action above and beyond their own needs. The Soul Riders only knew that they were to keep the Gates closed, so they went after the Seven. The Guardian, too, got involved in human affairs when it helped us. More than we know, I think. The Guardian couldn’t exactly use the computer, but it had to keep the thing repaired—so it learned a lot and got a lot of information which it fed to the Soul Riders when and if needed. They needed humans to get the information, so the Guardian talked to the Soul Riders and the Soul Riders used the hosts.”

  Spirit nodded. “My Soul Rider was always convinced that it had an unseen master in Anchor. The master was the Guardian, then. It tapped the computer, sent the information needed to the Soul Rider, who then used it. The computers, you see, are nothing more than a collection of data in mathematical form. The Guardian and the Soul Rider are both required to actually get and use it, unless it’s in a program module. What you’re saying is that it was done that way to keep wizards from accessing the whole thing unaided.”

  “That’s about it. So, think about it a while. They still got it wrong. The machines still used people—but within limits. Now they’re a part of you, and Suzl, and fifty-four other people we don’t know, and the process is complete. You’re not human, Spirit. Nobody in this room is really human, not even me. We’re all part human and part machine. If you got the power, or know somebody that does, you can be ageless, nearly immortal, just about never get sick, grow back lost limbs, even, under certain circumstances, be brought back from the dead. We—all of us in the top five or ten percent—are the masters of Flux and Anchor. For most of history the people of Anchor were terrified of Flux and its people. Even after all these centuries, I bet our relatives still will be.”

  “I—” Spirit stopped suddenly. “My God! It’s nearly time!” She turned to the others. “Places, everybody! This is it!”

  On the screens overhead there appeared huge pictures. They weren’t
true pictures, but rather computer reconstructions of what was happening from its sensing abilities, but they looked real and were for all intents and purposes. Each showed an aerial view of a Hellgate, seven in all, with a small superimposed map of each cluster below with the pictured Gate flashing. All had substantial forces at or near the Gates, although the bulk would still be on the way. There was no way, short of asking specific questions, of telling the nature of those forces, or their origins.

  The women were now in chairs and at their posts. Suzl lit a cigar and examined the screens, although with her direct computer link she had far more information at her disposal than they showed. Matson withdrew towards the center of the round room to get an easy view of all screens. Spirit stood silent, eyes half-closed, as if in a trance; Suzl walked back and forth, chomping nervously on the cigar.

  Matson called to her. “You set upstairs?”

  “Yeah. I rang every damned communicator in the Anchor and told them just what do do—and I used Sligh’s voice for it. They’re bringing the stuff in now. I’ve got myself tied in to every damned wizard around the Gate including most of the Seven, would you believe? And I’ve got beauties and the beast here linked in with the district commanders in clusters three, four, six, and seven, and I can shift them if necessary.”

  A tremendous sound suddenly filled the chamber, causing all but Spirit and Suzl to jump. None had ever heard a klaxon horn before. It sounded three long blasts, blasts also sounded by the regulator at the Hellgates.

  “MASTER GATE LOCK SEQUENCE KEYED,” announced an eerie, unfamiliar female voice at a level that was almost as loud as the horn. “AUTOTRIP INTERLOCK TO INCOMING.”

  “That’s just the Gate computer altering the control room here,” Spirit assured them. “It’s the next message that’ll be the story.”

  “INCOMING, GATES TWO, FOUR, SIX,” announced the voice. “VERIFYING GATES CLEAR.”

  “Three of them!” Suzl yelled. “It’s not all seven!”

  “BLOCKAGE ON GATE FOUR. SAFETY CHECK. SAFETY CHECK COMPLETED. STAND BY TO PURGE. ALL PERSONNEL STAND CLEAR OF GATE AREAS.’”

  There was a second blast of the klaxon, this time one long and three short, which was repeated after a few seconds.

  “Get the word out that it’s north and south only!” Matson shouted. “Shift any between-cluster forces north, but keep everybody else on the other Gates. This may only be the welcoming committee, not the main force. Shift Sondra to Gate Two, Jeff to Gate Six. Candy, Crystal—you stand by!”

  “VERIFY INCOMING GATES CLEAR OF PERSONNEL. STAND BY FOR PURGE. PURGING. GATES PURGED. INCOMING IN TWO MINUTES, REPEAT, TWO MINUTES. RECEPTION AND SERVICE CREWS STAND BY.”

  Out at the Hellgate, the enormous crowd had moved back at the ghostly warning and watched as the Hellgate turned from its emerald green color to a brightness that was impossible to look at. The cable leading down glowed briefly, then faded into nothingness all the way to the edge of the Anchor apron.

  Sligh breathed a sigh of relief. “I guessed right in the connections after all. It didn’t blow.”

  Gifford Haldayne turned and stared at him. “You guessed?”

  “INCOMING, GATES TWO, FOUR. AND SIX, IN ONE MINUTE.”

  “Here we go,” Matson said in a whisper. He suddenly cursed, seeing that he’d bit clean through his cigar.

  “STAND BY GATE TWO. INCOMING IN TEN SECONDS … NINE … EIGHT … SEVEN … . SIX … . FIVE … FOUR … THREE … TWO … ONE … ACTIVATE MAIN REGULATOR. NOTE SHIP HAS PROPER RECOGNITION CODES BUT IS OF TYPE NOT IN MEMORY. LOGGED IN. TIME IN 14:01:41.”

  On the screen and at the Gate they watched as the great bowl-shaped depression that was the total Hellgate pulsed and throbbed with light and shook the ground nearby with regular vibrations in time to the pulsing.

  A fountain of pure Flux came out of the hole and rose high into the afternoon sky, perhaps twenty meters above the ground level. It steadied, then put forth streamers of energy that formed a skeletal framework, as if some giant hand were drawing a detailed blueprint in Flux. This was pure Flux, and could be seen by all, whether or not they had the power, and the sight was awesome.

  “It’s a program,“Suzl said wonderingly. “They change the whole damned thing into a Flux program, like the Guardian or the Soul Rider, then squirt themselves through on the strings! When it gets here, enough Flux is drawn out of the Gate to reform it into solids just like it was.”

  “Then our computers must be working that program!” Matson shouted. “Tell ‘em to turn it off!”

  “We tried that seconds ago,” Suzl told him, tense and excited now, as if “seconds” meant “years.” “It doesn’t work. It’s an overriding command, strictly automatic, as a safety feature!”

  The four equatorial Gates remained quiet, but at the two Gates to the north the scene in their own cluster was being repeated before an equally awed and extremely frightened horde who didn’t have the benefits of computer speed or access.

  The process was completing itself now, and in the three Gate bowls sat solid-looking objects of enormous size. To everyone they looked like metal versions of a child’s spinning top, although they had a bottom curving to more or less fit the bowl. As large as they were, though, it was clear that they had not been designed for these receiving depressions; the ships were angled and off-center, and had slowly pitched forward to rest on one rounded side a good five meters below the top of the depression, while rising five on the opposite side.

  “BERTHING COMPLETED. GATE RESET TO OUTGOING. GROUND CREWS STAND BY TO ASSIST PASSENGERS AND CREW.”

  “Well, they have smaller ships than we did,” Spirit sighed.

  “Yeah, well, that’s a fact,” Matson responded, “but it don’t mean anything. If they’re the size of cockroaches there could be a million of them.”

  “They’re not. They’re all in box-like containers. We saw it as the thing formed, and were able to count them.”

  “How many?”

  “Each box is a hundred and fifty-two point four centimeters long, ninety centimeters high, and ninety-two point seven centimeters across. There’s a space between each one, and fifty percent is cargo and machinery for the ship. The computer estimates that there are two thousand three hundred and forty-two such boxes, each containing a living organism.”

  “Well, that’s something,” he said. “The others the same?”

  “Exactly the same,” she responded, eyes shut.

  “O.K., we outnumber them but probably don’t outgun them. That means that either they think they have all the power they need or they’re only the first wave.”

  “The external area is being computer scanned in extreme detail,” she told him. “The nature and language of the scan are incomprehensible, but the actions are clear and deliberate.”

  “How far?”

  “Apparently to the horizon. The computer says that the top section is a separate machine with its own power source and can be detached. Because of its shape, it almost certainly flies. Our own scans indicate a capacity of no more than four box occupants.”

  “Scouting, then, not troop transport. That means the initial group is there to secure the landing site and scout out the terrain. They’re the leading wave, and that’s bad. Keep those forces at the equator. Is it safe for our boys to move?”

  “We’ve energized the two forward sections of the tunnel. The rest is safe.”

  “The temple access gates are open,” Suzl added. “Get ‘em started, I’d say. Nothing remotely alive as we know it is going to get down that tunnel from the ship right now.”

  “They’ll be alive as we know it,” Matson assured her. “Otherwise they wouldn’t be here.”

  “Power’s on in the ships.” Spirit announced. “We detected a slight trembling. It’s Flux power—they’re stepping down to normal Flux levels and drawing a string from the Gate itself. Harmless to humans, but enough for them. The computer believes that it is recharging its energy cells.”

  “That figures. We must
have done it the same way, and Haller and his people came back down through the tunnel and over to here.”

  “The computers agree. There is a ring of power collectors around a hatch of some directed at the tunnel. Because their ships weren’t designed for our Gates, but because it seems you have to do it just this way or it doesn’t work, they’ve sacrificed stability inside their ship to keep their collector over that tunnel entrance. The computer now agrees entirely with your speculation, you might like to know, except that they have a way to store it before use. Just cutting power won’t stop them.”

  “Sure it will, and they’ll know it. It’ll get ‘em out in the open.”

  “Sligh is trying a broadcast on every frequency known to him,” she told him. “The usual welcome and assurances of peace and friendship and all that. So far no response.”

  “Whoa!” Suzl called out, almost falling down. “There was a sudden big power surge there!”

  Out at the Gate, a huge and partly visible wall sprang up, looking like a giant inverted glass bowl. It covered the area around the Gate for a distance of more than five kilometers, trapping the welcoming committee and all nearby forces inside.

  “It’s a shield!“Cassie shouted. “It’s a wizard’s shield in Anchor!”

  “In Anchor, yes, but its source is Flux from the Gate itself,” Spirit told them.

  “They are the demons of Hell come now to keep us from finding the true path,” Cassie whispered so low that none of the others clearly heard.

  “The shield’s a good one,” Suzl reported. “About the only thing getting through it is air.”

  “Where’s its power coming from, though? The ship or the Gate?” Matson asked her.

  “Definitely the ship.”

  “That’s a hell of a lot of power to drain. Any way to find out just how much of a drain it is?”

  “We can figure the power required to maintain it, and it’s very close to the amount of power coming in from the Gate. We don’t know their storage capacity, though.”