Code Of The Lifemaker

by Hogan, James

  Below, the Kroaxian crowd was in pandemonium. All had seen the miracle of the

  heavenly beast descending to preserve the Enlightener as the Cliff of Judgment

  delivered its verdict, and the false priests who had condemned him being smitten

  to the ground by the Lifemaker's wrath. Once before had the Enlightener preached

  the true Word to the people in the marketplace, and the people had ridiculed

  him; but such was his wisdom and forebearance that in place of anger or

  retribution, he had chosen this way to open their eyes to the light, and to

  demonstrate the powerlessness of the priests before him. This time the people

  would listen and be grateful for the mercy that had been shown them.

  "Indeed the Enlightener teaches the true Word of the Lifemaker!" they cried. "We

  shall not kill. We shall not enslave. We shall not be enslaved."

  "Down with the false priests who teach hatred!"

  "Down with the King and his ministers who wage war!"

  The roaring of the voices was swollen even louder as the first contingent of the

  returning Kroaxian army came round the hill and joined in.

  "We have returned to unseat the tyrant! We shall not kill!"

  "All Carthogians are our brothers!"

  "See, the Enlightener awaits us and has converted the citizens of Pergassos as

  he promised! Praise the Enlightener!"

  The citizens howled louder, and the crowd began closing in around the

  dignitaries' enclosure.

  "Our soldiers have returned from the Meracasine. Indeed has the Enlightener

  spoken truly!"

  "Out with Eskenderom!"

  "Out with Frennelech!"

  "No more shall we cringe beneath the heels of tyrants!"

  "No more shall we tremble at the words of charlatans!"

  "Out with them! Out with them!"

  In the canopied enclosure, all was chaos as priests and courtiers, officials and

  dignitaries, counselors and ministers dashed backward, forward, and in circles

  shouting for guards to close ranks and for servants to fetch mounts. In the

  middle of the panic, Eskenderom and Frennelech collided. "Traitor!" Eskenderom

  screamed into the High Priest's face. "Thou holy vermin! Sump sludge! What

  bargain didst thou conclude with thy aliens that they should cheat me thus?"

  "I?" Frennelech howled, outraged. "I?—thou royal emetic! Thou pox-blistered

  discharge vent! It is through thy contract with the sky-devils that they have

  defrauded met"

  "What sayest thou? Is this spectacle not thy final triumph that shall take away

  my crown and remove me from my realm?"

  "Nay. What gibberish dost thou prattle? Is it not the fruitful consummation of

  thy design to promote this imposter, thy creation, before the people and thence

  to subordinate to royal command all authority hitherto invested in my office?"

  Eskenderom shook his head. "Would I, by my orders to my handpicked agent,

  command the disintegration of my own army? What kind of priest's babbling is

  this?"

  Eskenderom stared at Frennelech; Frennelech stared at Eskenderom. Both arrived

  at the same conclusion at the same instant.

  "Zounds! Egad! Forsooth!" Eskenderom shrieked. "I see it now—the aliens have

  outwitted us both! We have been betrayed!" He raised his fists high in the air.

  "Arghh! The leaching-tank scum! The drain-filter dregs! I'll have at them! I'll

  smear their jelly bodies across the valley of Gornod. Mormorel, rally the guard

  and let us ride now to the camp of the alien deceivers. All who value honor and

  dignity, follow me! And if we be blasted to rivets and strewn across the

  deserts, then at least it will be said that we were dismantled gloriously. To

  Gornod!"

  "Have the equerry fetch the mounts," Frennelech called to Jaskillion. "Muster

  the Palace Guard and tell them we will ride with the King to the valley of

  Gornod to avenge this alien treachery. If the nation of Kroaxia is to be rent

  asunder by outworlders' stratagem, its final episode of glory shall not be

  Eskenderom's alone. To Gornod!"

  Then the voices of the crowd rose to a crescendo. "Angels! See, angels are

  descending! Shining angels descend from the heavens!"

  Above, two figures were lowering toward the Enlightener, who had returned to the

  execution ledge after casting himself forth and allowing his fall to be

  miraculously intercepted, and was now giving thanks at the sacred tree opposite

  the top of the stairway. The creature from heaven was watching down over them

  protectively, and at the far end of the ledge, the guard commander seemed to be

  trying to reorganize his cringing soldiers.

  "How is he?" Zambendorf barked, struggling to maintain equilibrium on the wildly

  swinging line. The Taloids on the ledge had scattered from the falling cable

  when Drew West cut the line to the net from above, and seemed to be keeping

  their distance.

  "Can't tell," Fellburg answered. "He seems out of it. The net's all caught up in

  this junk. We'll have to cut him out."

  Zambendorf worked frantically to draw in the magnetic clamp on another line

  while Fellburg hacked into the net with a pair of long-handled cutters. "What's

  the score?" West's voice said over the intercom from the flyer.

  "All a mess—Joe's cutting Moses out," Zambendorf answered breathlessly. "Is the

  generator hooked up yet, Drew?"

  "Ready when you are."

  "Hurry it up down there," Abaquaan's voice said on the circuit.

  "Watch out behind you," Clarissa warned.

  Zambendorf looked round and saw that some of the Taloids seemed to have

  recovered and were coming across the ledge, brandishing objects that looked like

  weapons. "Get a move on, Joe," he shouted, and braced himself against the

  girders with his legs and one arm while helping to pull pieces of netting away

  with the other.

  "That's it," Fellburg called.

  "Hit the switch, Drew!" Zambendorf shouted. "Clarissa, take it up! Take it up!"

  Current flowed through the cable, and the flyer rose to take up the slack. At

  the same time Zambendorf and Fellburg were lifted away as West began to haul in

  the lines. Just as Moses swung clear of the girders, the other Taloids rushed

  forward and were instantly caught by the magnetic field to form a daisy-chain of

  six or seven figures joined head-to-toe, head-to-toe in a string extending to

  the ground. They hung convulsing helplessly as the field passing through their

  skins played havoc with their internal circuitry.

  "Oh shit," Fellburg moaned miserably.

  "Hold it, hold it!" Zambendorf shouted in his helmet, "They're stuck."

  "I can't cut the current," West called down. "We'd lose Moses. Jeez, what a

  screw-up!"

  "Let us down again. Drew, about ten feet," Zambendorf ordered. "Joe, we'll have

  to grab him and hope we can hold on."

  They came back down, and a few seconds later Fellburg's voice said, "I've got

  one arm. Are you okay there on the other side, Karl?"

  "Okay," Zambendorf yelled. "We've got him! Cut it now, Drew." West threw a

  switch to deactivate the magnet, and the chain of Taloids fell apart into bodies

  dropping all over the ledge among their terrified colleagues.

  "We've got him!" Fellburg shouted. "Clarissa, let's get the hell outta here." As

&
nbsp; the flyer at last lifted away, a wrench that had almost been dislodged from a

  loop in Fellburg's tool belt fell away into the darkness beneath.

  Far below, the crowd had seen the High Priest's Palace Guards snatched up into

  the air and scattered like playthings, and the Enlightener being borne away

  triumphantly by the angels. As he departed to join the Lifemaker, he sent

  something tumbling down to the multitude gathered at the bottom of the cliff.

  Figures rushed forward frenziedly to pick up the sacred symbol and hold it high

  for all the faithful to see. "A sign! A sign! We have been given a sign! Behold

  the form that has been given us to mark the Day of Miracles!"

  "Behold the sign! Behold the sign!"

  "We are saved! We are saved!"

  From one side of the dignitaries' enclosure, most of which had by now been

  overrun, a ragged body of riders comprising the King, the High Priest, and a

  couple of hundred or so of their loyal followers and guards broke through the

  crowd and departed at full gallop amid jeers, catcalls, and a barrage of rocks

  and assorted other missiles.

  Meanwhile, high above the craggy ridge rising behind the cliff, the flyer came

  out of the top of the cloudbank and streaked for the safety of the distant

  mountains.

  37

  A TENSE ATMOSPHERE HUNG OVER THE EMERGENCY MEETING THAT had been called in the

  Directors' Conference Room on the top floor of the NASO Building in Washington,

  D.C. Samuel Dulaney, the NASO president, was sitting in the center on one side

  of the long, polished-mahogany table, with Walter Conlon and Warren Taylor from

  the North American Division on one side of him, and two European representatives

  on the other; facing them were Burton Ramelson and Gregory Buhl from GSEC,

  Robert Fairley—Ramelson's nephew from the GSEC affiliate New York Merchant Bank,

  and two of the consultants who had been involved in negotiating the funding for

  the Orion mission. Phillip Berness, the U.S. secretary of state and Julius

  Gorsche from his department were sitting clustered around one end of the table

  with Kevin Whaley, the presidential aide, and an advisor on international

  relations from the European Parliament.

  Walter Conlon held up the sheet of paper that constituted one of his most

  damning pieces of evidence, copies of which he had already circulated, and

  stabbed at it with a finger of his other hand. It was a reproduction of a

  document that had been faked on instructions from Caspar Lang for Thelma's

  benefit; but Gerold Massey hadn't known it was a fake when he prepared an urgent

  communication for transmission from the Orion, and neither did Conlon. "It says

  right here in black and white, item five—'Antiaircraft missile, short-range,

  actively guided, infantry-launched. Model ILAAM-27 /F, Mark 4, "Banshee."

  Quantity: 24 . . .' And items six and seven call for twelve dummy warheads,

  normally used for training, and twelve live ones." Conlon lowered the paper and

  sent a challenging look round the table. "What could be clearer than that? Those

  weapons were shipped down to the Paduans at a time when it was known full well

  that Earthpeople were at large in a purloined surface lander, and likely to show

  up in the very area where those weapons would be deployed. The implications

  don't have to be spelled out. This amounts to nothing less than attempted

  murder."

  Buhl looked along the table at Berness. "Something like this couldn't have been

  agreed without Dan Leaherney knowing about it," he insisted. "What in God's name

  could have possessed him? I can't afford to see GSEC's name linked to this kind

  of thing if it ever becomes public knowledge." In other words, the mission was

  technically under political direction, and the corporation men were already

  preparing themselves fireproof boxes to jump into.

  Berness shook his head. "I can't explain it, Greg. It goes beyond all the

  guidelines. I don't know what in hell's been going on out there."

  "You, er . . . you still haven't told us how you come to have this document in

  your possession," Robert Fairley said, hoping to ease the strain by

  sidetracking.

  "How I got it doesn't make any difference," Conlon replied tightly. "It's a

  reproduction of part of a loading manifest for one of the shuttles sent down to

  Padua base from the Orion. Why we should be shipping weapons down there to

  enable the Taloids to kill each other more effectively is a big enough question

  in itself, but the only purpose of the particular ones I've just indicated can

  be to kill people—our people."

  Dulaney, the NASO chief, gnawed at his knuckle for a few seconds longer,

  straightened up in his chair, then pushed himself back, looked up at the others,

  and shook his head decisively. "I thought we were just giving token support to

  the ruler of a small country that's having insurgency problems." He shook his

  head again and pointed at the sheet of paper still in Conlon's hand. "But

  that?—That's enough to start a war! I mean, what in hell are our people there

  playing at? I can't let NASO even be suspected of condoning anything like that.

  Our involvement covers getting the Orion to Saturn and back, and the scientific

  research programs that we're committed to. We're not responsible for the

  mission's diplomatic and economic policies, and I can't promise to be supportive

  of them in any official capacity or public statement." What he meant was that if

  he didn't back Conlon on this one, Conlon would go straight to the media and to

  hell with the consequences.

  One of the European NASO representatives next to Dulaney nodded. "That would

  have to be our position also."

  "But what kind of policy are Leaherney's people trying to carry out?" another

  European asked from the far end. "From what Conlon said it sounded as if they

  were equipping a full-scale Taloid invasion. That's not token support. It's

  blatant power-politicking—meddling in alien affairs. Who sanctioned anything

  like that?"

  "Does it matter?" Julius Gorsche asked. "It seems they managed to turn the whole

  thing into a fiasco anyway."

  "It matters to me that the name of our government stands to be associated with

  whatever their next antic might be," the European replied coldly.

  Bemess spread his hands. "I don't know. Maybe the strain of being in charge of a

  mission that big, for that long a time, that far from Earth, is greater than

  anyone thought," he said. "But I can assure you, gentlemen, that the events that

  have been described are not compatible with any policy of the United States

  government. They must be a result either of some aberration involving the

  personnel delegated operational authority at Titan, or of a misinterpretation of

  our instructions. It goes without saying that further investigation of the

  matter will be initiated immediately."

  Lies, Burton Ramelson thought to himself as he listened. You knew what the

  policies were, and you allowed your tacit approval to be understood, just like

  the rest of us. Typically, everyone was surreptitiously sharpening the hatchets

  in anticipation of a possible bloodletting, and at the same time trying their

  rubber gloves for size to show all c
lean hands afterward. But Ramelson hadn't

  yet been panicked into losing sight of the magnitude of what was at stake. He

  wondered if there might yet be a way of repairing the damage done and getting

  everything back on course. If so, it would best serve his purpose to see the

  Orion's management exonerated and their reputability preserved, for despite

  whatever had gone wrong with the plan to assert Terran influence by aiding the

  Paduans—and Ramelson had suspicions that a lot more than met the eye could have

  been behind that—they were all loyal and capable, and would not be easily

  replaced. Ramelson needed more time to collect the facts on what had really

  happened at Titan, and was reluctant to commit himself to a hasty judgment. His

  response for now would therefore be neutral, he decided, but the circumstances

  would not allow any more bungling. One more miscalculation in the handling of

  the Paduan situation would be enough to lead him to conclude that Leaherney's

  team was beyond redemption, and to embark on whatever course of action would

  best protect his own interests and keep his reputation intact.

  Having clarified his thoughts on the matter, he began, "I have to agree that on

  the face of it, these are alarming allegations. But they are, when all is said

  and done, just that and no more—allegations. Before we allow ourselves to be

  stampeded into a witch-hunt, I would like to propose that—" At that moment a

  tone sounded from the chairman's console recessed into the table before Dulaney.

  "Excuse me, Burton," Dulaney said. "Calls aren't supposed to be put through

  unless extremely urgent. I'd better take this." He looked down and touched a

  button below the level of the table. "Yes, Bob?"

  "Sorry to interrupt, Sam, but we've just had something through from Titan that I

  thought you'd want to hear about since it concerns the meeting. It came through

  from General Vantz about ten minutes ago, via his Communications Officer."

  "What is it, Bob?" Dulaney asked. He turned a knob to increase the volume, and

  the others in the room sat forward in their chairs to listen.

  "There's been some kind of god-awful commotion down in Padua city that

  culminated in Henry and a couple of hundred other Taloids' getting so screaming

  mad that they went galloping off to take out the Terran base there with their

  bare hands. Nobody on the ship ever saw anything like it before."