“Britain must bow to a superior culture,” Father said. “Must bow to a superior culture. Must bow to a superior culture.”
What had they done to him? Not only was he brainwashed, but he repeated himself as if he were a stuck record.
Father stopped talking, and his head lolled to one side.
He was dead.
“No.” Nigel held his father’s head to his chest, weeping. He remembered that day long ago when he had stayed alone on his birthday, hurt that Father was not there. But now that he was in trouble, Father had come and given his life for him.
The door whooshed open, and Visitors began to pour into the room. Nigel turned and fired, dropping the first one at the doorway. The second fell over the gasping body, and Nigel burned a hole in the head of the third.
“You bloody reptiles!” he shouted. “You call yourselves a superior race! You’re nothing but a
lot of filthy barbarians!”
He fired as he screamed at them, making every shot count. The Visitors outside the cell couldn’t see him to get a clear shot, and the bodies piling up on the threshold prevented them from entering quickly. Nigel had plenty of time to shoot before they could get inside and get their bearings.
The Visitors drew back, leaving the young man with the corpse of what he thought to be his father. They had intended to destroy any strength he had left. Instead, they had brought it forth.
“Come on!” Nigel shouted. “Come on and take what’s coming to you, you vile lizards!”
None of them were eager to take up his challenge.
Chapter 37
“What do they think they’re doing?” Medea shrieked. She and the rest of the Mother Ship’s officers watched through a two-way transparency while they dined. From where they sat, Nigel’s back was to them, and the door to his cell was almost at a right angle. They watched the bodies pile up and cursed the guards for the cowards they were.
“Even drugged, he’s more than a match for them.” Medea fairly spat the words. “Perhaps we can pump some other gas into that cell —something to knock him out.”
Beverly clapped her greasy hands. She chewed on an appetizer. The main course had just been brought out when the tables had turned on the guards beating the Lord Smythe-Walmsley clone. Robert Walters looked quite enticing with an apple in his mouth.
An alarm sounded through the ship. It was the general alarm, a sound none of them had heard since their training. It meant the Mother Ship was being attacked!
Beverly sighed, wondering if they would ever get a chance to sample Robert Walters in a white-wine sauce. She glanced at Ian, who had been forced to sit at the banquet by Medea in an effort to teach him his place. The former resistance leader looked very frightened, as well he might. For all he knew, he might end up as tomorrow’s dinner.
But what was this nonsense about the ship being attacked? It was absurd. The Earth had no facilities for such a reprisal. Most likely, it was only a terrorist who had stowed away by flying into the Mother Ship aboard a skyfighter, as the infamous Mike Donovan had done in America on more than one occasion. He would be dealt with quickly, Beverly was sure.
Klaxons were blaring throughout the ship now. Soldiers ran in every direction, lasers at the ready. Even those outside Nigel Smythe-Walmsley’s cell had joined the repellent force that hurried towards the docking bay where the skyfighter must have come in. Medea was gone, overseeing the soldiers massing against the intruder. Well, perhaps she should join in the fun, too. Medea might make an issue of it if she didn’t.
As she started moving towards the nearest
corridor, she heard Ian calling to her.
“What about me?” he said.
“What about you?”
“You can’t leave me alone without a weapon. Nigel is armed in there. He might come out and kill me.”
“Nonsense. He’s still drugged. He’ll stay in there mewling over that clone until we get back. ”
With that, a door slid shut behind her, and she was gone.
Ian was left alone in the banquet room. It wasn’t really a banquet room, of course. They had brought the food in so they could watch Nigel agonize over the killing of his father, the sadistic bastards. He could stay in here and watch Nigel, who couldn’t see him through the transparency. Nigel would never even know he was aboard the Mother Ship.
Nigel was kneeling over the body of the clone, looking so shattered that Ian almost wished that he could tell him it wasn’t really his father at all. But no, he might get shot if he tried to be charitable at this late date.
He had better stay put.
Now Nigel seemed to be looking straight at him. The rage and despair in his face was disheartening. He would not think twice of shooting Ian if he had any idea of who had sold him out. But he might not know, Ian reminded himself. It was entirely possible that Nigel didn’t have any idea of how the aliens had got hold of him.
Ian could swear that Nigel was staring at him through the glass, his sweating face grimly set. Ian backed away from the transparency, wondering if Medea had been mistaken. Perhaps Nigel could see him after all.
He stumbled into something behind him. Turning, Ian saw what it was in horror.
His hand was on the banquet table where a huge silver platter rested. There, under glass, was the cooked body of Robert, floating in a white sauce.
Ian gasped. He backed away as if he faced death himself. The sight of Robert with an apple in his mouth was the most ghastly thing he had ever seen in his entire life. Was this the fate that was in store for him, too? Good God, he had to get out of here. Ian wasn’t half so terrifying as this. How could he have helped these monsters? He held his hand over his mouth to prevent himself from gagging.
“I’ve got to get out of here.” He turned towards the door. Perhaps he could join the intruders, whoever they were. Nobody had known about his allegiance to the Visitors except Robert, and look where Robert was now.
How would he explain his presence aboard the Mother Ship to them? Of course, he would say he had been captured along with Nigel. No, that was no good. Nigel would tell them otherwise.
He had been captured by the tractor beam during the demonstration at Westminster, just as it had really happened.
Yes, the closer his story was to the truth, the more convincing it would sound. Now to get out of this dreadful place and join the rebels.
He ran to the door, expecting it to whoosh open. Nothing happened. He almost collided with the unmoving portal.
There must be something to open it with, a latch or lock or ... or something. He searched frantically for that something, but the door and the wall around it were featureless.
Perhaps there was something on the console. He went to it and ran his hands over it frantically, but nothing happened. He tried different combinations of the brightly lit rectangular buttons, but still nothing happened. He tried everything he could think of, but ail he heard were the sounds of fighting coming from behind the walls.
He slammed his fist down on the console in despair. Beverly had locked him in. He felt Robert’s dead eyes fixed on him and he turned away from the table.
Nigel stared through the transparent wall.
Spinning around, holding his head in his hands, Ian screamed until he thought his lungs would burst. And then he screamed again . . . and again . . . and again . . .
Chapter 38
Gabriella knelt behind an enormous liquid fuel hose, firing a laser pistol at the surging mass of crimson uniforms. The Visitors had responded much more quickly than they had expected, but they had ill chosen their plan of attack in their haste.
They were bottlenecked at the entrances to the skyfighter docking bay. There were three entrances in all, and there were ten resistance fighters firing at those coming through each entrance. Not a single Visitor had made it into the bay alive. There were a lot more lizards than there were humans, however. They would drop back soon and devise another plan.
Alhazred fought beside her, actually wea
ring a burnoose. He squeezed his shots methodically into the cowering Visitors at the central entrance to the docking bay. Blue firebolts criss-
crossed the empty space between the skyfighters and the passageways, the smell of burning plastic in the air.
“Cover me,” the Arab said.
Gabriella was amazed, but she did as she was told as Alhazred suddenly leaped from behind cover and dashed towards the enemy. He held his laser pistol in one hand and an explosive in the other.
Laser beams focused on his darting figure, but Alhazred kept moving. He seemed to fear nothing. Perhaps he thought of this as jihad, the Muslim holy war. He would be with Allah if he died here today.
Incredibly, none of the laser fire hit him. He ran straight at the Visitors and hurled the bomb at them. They stared at the device at their feet, tongues lashing as they hissed in fear.
“Allah Akbar!” Alhazred shouted. He turned and ran back towards cover.
The Visitors were so confused they didn’t shoot for a moment. When they lifted their lasers to fire, the bomb exploded, orange fire obscuring them for an instant before their bodies began to fly in all directions.
Alhazred sprinted across the open area, still shouting to Allah, when a blue beam from one of the other passageways began to follow him.
“Alhazred!” Gabriella cried, trying to warn him.
She was looking right into his bearded face when the beam found him, burning through the purity of his white robe. His face was composed, but he stopped running and looked down at the smoking hole in his burnoose.
“Allah ...” he said, and keeled over.
For a moment, the volume of laser fire decreased on the side of the resistance. Smoke wafted over the body of Alhazred as if in benediction.
“Come on, lads!” Kelly bellowed. He stood and fired, running towards the central passageway.
Thirty men and women followed him. In seconds they were across the docking bay and at the mouth of the central passageway, driving the enemy back.
Gabriella knew that there was a warren of such passageways throughout the ship. Hundreds of miles in which to bedevil the Visitors with guerrilla acts. She fired into the retreating red-clad soldiers ahead of her, seeing one fall after another before the IRA’s onslaught.
The IRA continued to toss bombs ahead of them, the fire burning some of the lizards alive, while the smoke made their human attackers into invisible targets. Nevertheless, a few resistance fighters were hit. Their agonized cries rose out of the smoke and fire like the voices of the damned in hell.
Subhash was at her side. “Behind you, Gabriella,” he said.
She turned to see red-uniformed attackers rushing in behind them. They would have to be dealt with now, for the resistance fighters had not yet come to a junction of corridors where they would be able to split up. There were aliens on either side of them.
Subhash fired at them, as did another four or five IRA men. It wasn’t enough, and the Visitors behind them were drawing fire that could be directed at the force ahead of them.
“Quick, a bomb!” Gabriella cried.
Kelly turned, an incendiary device in his hand. Suddenly he looked startled. Clutching his belly, he dropped the bomb and fell to the floor, writhing horribly. A smouldering hole showed in his jacket.
Subhash dived after the bomb as it slid across the corridor. Blue beams sought him, but they missed. Subhash propped himself up on one elbow and tossed the bomb.
It landed in the midst of the Visitors, exploding instantly in a brilliant orange flower of fire.
The explosion gave them the extra time they needed. En masse, the resistance force charged ahead, easily reaching a junction of corridors. They ran in both directions, turning to fire at the pursuing aliens as they sprinted into the bowels of the ship.
When they came to another branching corridor, they divided their forces again. And at the next, yet again. At last Gabriella and Subhash found themselves alone, running down one of
the ship’s interminable corridors.
“Watch out for stragglers,” Gabriella said.
“Right.” As he ran, Subhash pointed, indicating that they should turn right at the next junction. They did so, and were confronted with a lone Visitor, just as Gabriella had anticipated.
It was a bloated female alien wearing no human disguise. Her tongue flicked in and out in rage as she was confronted by the two humans.
“Throw down your weapon,” Subhash commanded her.
The alien’s right claw was on her laser, but it was still in its holster.
“I wouldn’t try anything if I were you,” Gabriella warned, pointing her laser at the monster’s breast.
The alien drew her pistol out slowly and let it drop to the floor, where it clattered noisily.
“Now kick it towards me,” Gabriella said.
Sighing, Beverly did as she was told.
Chapter 39
“She looks like a pretty high-ranking officer,” Gabriella said. “She’ll make a useful prisoner.”
“Yes,” Subhash agreed. “A fine bargaining chip if we need one.”
“You’re Gabriella,” the lizardwoman rasped. “Yes, and you’re dead if you make one false move,” Gabriella assured her.
“I will take you to Nigel Smythe-Walmsley,” Beverly said, “if you will let me go.”
“What kind of trick are you trying to play?” Gabriella demanded angrily. “Nigel is dead.” “No, no. ” Beverly held out her hands in supplication as Gabriella’s gun barrel waved menacingly in her face. “It was only a clone. Medea used an informer in the resistance to capture him.”
“Ian,” said Subhash.
“Yes, Ian. I’ll turn him over to you, too, if you’ll just let me go.”
“Take us to them.”
Beverly led them to the door of Nigel’s cell in minutes. “The last time I saw him he was in there.”
Subhash held a laser on Beverly while Gabriella climbed over a heap of Visitor bodies and looked inside.
Nigel lay on the floor, cradling a dead man in his arms. She could not see the corpse’s face.
“Nigel,” she said in disbelief.
Slowly, the man she loved turned his head. His eyes were bloodshot, and he seemed confused, but recognition gradually dawned.
“Gabby,” he said. “Can it be?”
“Oh, darling.” She went to him, and it was only then that she saw the dead man’s face.
“It’s my father,” Nigel said. “They killed him.”
“Oh, Nigel, I’m so sorry.” She embraced him, hot tears rolling down her cheeks and dampening his collar.
“Subhash is here,” Gabriella said after a moment.
“Subhash ... I didn’t know you two were acquainted.”
“Yes, we are,” Subhash said from the doorway. For just a second, he took his eyes off Beverly. At that moment she spat at him, venom striking him full in the face.
Subhash gagged and dropped his laser. He fell to the floor gasping as Beverly ran her claws across the analyser on the outside of the door. As the door slid open, she leaped inside and closed it behind her. Only an authorized clawprint could open that door. She was safe in here.
Outside the banquet chamber, Subhash breathed his last with Gabriella and Nigel bending over him.
“She poisoned him,” Nigel said. “I’ve seen it before.”
Gabriella wept. “He was my friend,” she said.
“And mine,” said Nigel. “A braver man I’ve never known.”
They both stood over Subhash’s body and leveled their lasers at the door.
Things were going very badly, Medea realized. How could this have happened? A handful of rebels from Earth were turning her ship inside out. It didn’t seem possible and yet it was happening.
It looked as if she would be forced to abandon ship if this kept up. After all, her life was more important than a mere ship’s existence. Let the rebels have it if they must; she was going to get out of here.
Chaos was all ro
und her. Smoke roiled through the Mother Ship’s passageways as she searched for a way to the skyfighter docking bay without running into any hostile rebels. She knew a way that passed through the life-support system. If she could get to a vent without being apprehended, there was a chance.
She turned a comer and nearly ran into two Irishmen carrying Uzis. With a single sweep of her laser, she dispatched both of them before either could get off a shot. A moment later she crawled inside a vent and was making her way towards the docking bay. They would never find her in here. Now, if she could just get into a skyfighter without being seen, she had a chance. The fighting and commotion were on her side. Nobody would expect a lone Visitor to fly out in a skyfighter.
Twin laser beams burned through the metal of the banquet chamber door. Sparks flew and molten steel dripped as the seams grew white hot. In a moment nothing would stand between Gabriella and Nigel and the Visitor who had killed Subhash.
The door fell from its jambs with a resounding crash. Gabriella and Nigel stepped over it and went inside the smoke-filled room.
A figure emerged from the smoke. Gabriella pointed her laser at it, but as it drew closer she saw that it was not Beverly. It was human.
“Ian!” Nigel said.
Strangely, Ian did not reply. He didn’t even look at Nigel. Instead, he cackled hideously. In his hand was a strangely shaped knife, covered with blood.
“He betrayed you,” Gabriella said. “I think he and Robert Walters were in it together.”
“Robert,” said Ian. His eyes grew wide.
“What about Robert?” Nigel asked.
Ian turned and pointed through the smoke at a table that could be half seen through the haze. Nigel and Gabriella approached it, nearly stumbling over something on the floor.
It was Beverly’s dead body.
“She shouldn’t have left me alone,” Ian said. “Not here.”
They saw then what was on the table.
“It’s Robert,” Gabriella said. “They’ve made a meal of him.”
“Yes,” said Ian, holding up the bloody carving knife, “but he got cold when they all went off to fight. Beverly never should have left me alone with him.”
V 13 - To Conquer the Throne Page 12
