“Earth did not fare as well. Contact was lost between the planets, and the survivors of the once-teeming billions here fought a dreadful battle for survival. There are no written records of that period, thousands of years long, but the results are clear enough. This single large continent remained above the sea, as well as some island chains to mark earlier mountain ranges. And madness rules mankind. When we were able, we rebuilt the ancient spaceships and brought what help we could. Our help was not appreciated. The survivors kill strangers on sight and take great pleasure in it. And all men are strangers. The almost-unshielded solar radiation here produced mutants of all kinds among man, plants and animals. Most mutations died off quickly, but the survivors are deadly to a universal degree. So we helped where we could but really did very little. The earthmen were a continuing danger to each other but not to Mars. That is not until He united them some hundreds of years ago.”
“Has he really lived all that time?”
“It appears that he has. His mind is as bent as theirs, but he can communicate with them. They follow him. They actually work together, building that city you have seen, building a society of sorts. He is certainly a genius, albeit a warped one, and they have factories going and a rudimentary technology. The first thing they did was ask for more aid from Mars and would not believe us when we said that they were getting the maximum already. Their mad demands would not have bothered us had they not unearthed rockets armed with atomic bombs that could be directed at our planet. It was after the first of these arrived that this expedition was organized. On Mars we survived by cooperating, there was no other way, so we are not a warlike people. But we have made weapons and will reluctantly use them to ensure our own survival. He is the key to all the troubles, and we must capture or kill him. If we must kill others to accomplish this, we will do that as well. Thousands are dead at home and radioactivity is increasing in the Martian atmosphere.”
“Then our aims are identical,” I told him. “He has launched a time attack against our people with equally disastrous results. You have summed up our retaliatory plans quite neatly.”
“How do we go about it?” Diyan asked eagerly.
“I’m not sure,” I answered gloomily.
“We have a little over ten standards hours left to operate in,” Angelina said, precisely. Like all women, she was a true pragmatist. While we wasted time nattering about the past, she faced the fact that the decision would have to be made in the future and tackled that, the real problem. I yearned to demonstrate my affection for her but decided that would have to wait for a more appropriate time, if more time did exist at all.
“An all-out attack,” I said. “We have weapons we can add to yours. Attack on all fronts, find a weak spot, concentrate our forces, blast through to victory. Do you have any large weapons left?”
“No.”
“Well . . . we can get around that. How about crashlanding one of your spacers inside the castle up there, get a fighting force behind their backs that way?”
“All of them were destroyed by saboteurs, suicidal ones. Others are coming from Mars but will arrive too late. We are not really very good at war and killing while they have always lived with it.”
“Not to give up hope yet, ha-ha.” I laughed, but it had a very hollow ring to it. The dark gloom was so thick in the air you could have cut chunks of it out.
“The grav-chute,” Angelina said quietly so only I heard her.
“We will use the grav-chute,” I said loudly so all could hear. A good general depends on able staff-work. The complete plan was now clear, written in letters of fire before my eyes.
“This is a go-for-broke operation. Angelina and I are going to drain the charges from all our unessential equipment to put a full charge into the grav-chute. Then we will rig a multiple harness for this. I’ll do the exact computations later, but I would guess that it will lift five or six people up over those walls and inside before it burns out. Angelina and I are two, the rest will be your best people. . . .”
“A woman, no, this is not work for a woman,” Diyan protested. I patted his arm understandingly.
“Have no fear. Sweet and demure as she is, she can outfight any ten men in this tent. And everyone is needed. Because the troops outside will be launching a very realistic attack that might break through. General at first, then concentrating on one flank. When the noise is at its highest, the commando squad will lift over the opposite wall and bore in. Now let’s get things organized.”
We got things organized. Or rather Angelina and I did because these peaceful Martian plowboys knew but nothing about scientific slaughter and were only too happy to turn the responsibilities of leadership over to us. Once things were under way I lay down for a quick sleep—I had been awake or clubbed unconscious something like two full days and 20,000 years, so was understandably tired. The three hours I grabbed were certainly not enough, and I awoke chomping and blinking and chewed a stimtab to make up the difference. It was dark outside the tent and still just as hot.
“Are we ready to roll?” I asked.
“Any minute now,” Angelina said, cool and relaxed and showing no signs of her labors; she must have been at the stimtabs, too. “We have about four hours to dawn, and we will need most of that to get into position. The attack begins at first light.”
“Do the guides know the way?”
“They have been fighting in and around this position for almost a year now, so they should.”
This was the showdown. The men were all aware of it. It was there in the set of their faces and the brace of their shoulders. There could be only one winner this day. Perhaps they weren’t born fighters, but they were learning fast. If you are going to fight, you fight to win. Diyan came up leading three more of his men who carried the jury-rigged metal harness with the grav-chute built into the center of it.
“We are ready,” he said.
“Everyone knows what he is to do?”
“Perfectly. We have already said our good-byes and the first attack units have moved out.”
“Then we’ll get going, too.”
Diyan led the way, though how he found it in that steam-heated darkness I have no idea. We stumbled along behind him, sweating and cursing under the burden of the clumsy harness, and the less said about the following hours, the better. Dawn found us collapsed under the far wall, the highest and apparently the strongest, that was our target. As it appeared out of the haze above us, black and grim, it did not look at all attractive. I squeezed Angelina’s hand to show her I was fearless and to cheer her up. She squeezed mine back to show that she knew I was just as frightened as the rest of them.
“We’ll do it, Jim,” she said. “You know that.”
“Oh, we’ll do it all right; the continuing existence of our particular hunk of the future proves that. But it doesn’t indicate how many are going to die today—or which of us will live on into the foreseeable future.”
“We’re immortal,” she said with such surety that I had to laugh and my morale soared up to its usual egotistical heights, and I kissed her soundly and well for the aid.
Explosions sounded suddenly in the distance, rumbling and rolling like thunder from the rock walls. The attack had begun. The clock was running and everything was timed from here on in. I helped everyone strap in and kept an eye on my watch at the same time. As our scheduled hop-off drew close, I buckled in as well and touched the grav-chute controls.
“Brace yourselves,” I said, watching the numbers flutter by. “And be ready to cut free when we hit at the other end.”
I hit the button, and with a metallic groan from the harness my little force of six rose into the air to the attack.
21
WE DRIFTED UP the black face of the rock like a slow elevator, sitting ducks for anyone with a good gun and a keen eye. It was uncomfortable to say the least. I had to lift off gradually so our harness wouldn’t buckle, but I speeded up as fast as I could until we were on maximum lift. A visible aura of heat began to r
adiate from the grav-chute as it struggled against all our dead weight. It would be highly uncomfortable if it failed now.
Then deep-cut windows flashed by, happily unoccupied, and the black stone changed to dark wall and the crenellated top of the parapet was ahead. I angled toward it and cut the power completely just before we reached the edge. Our acceleration carried us up and over in a high arc, and after that, things happened at an incredibly rapid pace.
There were two guards on the wall, both surprised, angry, armed, about to fire. But Angelina and I fired first. We were using the needle guns now in order to remain undetected as long as possible. The guards crumpled in silence, their faces and necks suddenly bristly as pincushions, and I hit the power on for the landing.
Landing! There was no courtyard or solid roof below! We were coming down on a domed and transparent cover over a large workship, a canopy made of what appeared to be glass panels held in a tangled web of rusty metal braces. We looked at it, horrified, as we rushed toward it, and I had the power on to the last stop. We groaned at the sudden acceleration, and the harness groaned as well and creaked and bent. The dome was too close, and we were just not going to stop in time.
It was lovely. A silent, secret attack, flitting gray ghosts in the dawn. Six pairs of boots hit at the same instant, and about five thousand square meters of glass were kicked out. The supporting framework twanged and bent, and some of the rusty supports snapped free. For one shuddering instant I thought we were going to follow all the glass that was now crashing and clashing into the chamber below with a hideously loud cacophony. Then the grav-chute gave its all with one shuddering last blaze of energy, halting our forward motion, then burst into flame as well.
“Grab the supports!” I shouted, tearing at the buckles that held the grav-chute to our harness. It resisted, searing my hand, then finally dropped free. Straight down into the hall with its screaming occupants below, where it promptly exploded. I sighed and dropped some smoke and flare bombs as well to add to the confusion.
“Our presence is now known,” I said, inching back toward safety. “I suggest we get off this precarious jungle gym and back on the job.”
Moving carefully, sending more glass crashing down as our weight bent the frame out of place and the panes slipped free, we crept back to the safety of the parapet.
“Get on the radio,” I told Diyan as he climbed up next to me. “Tell your troops to pull back their attack if they haven’t broken in but to keep up the firing.”
“They have been repulsed on all sides.”
“Then tell them to cut their losses. We’ll do the blitz from the inside.”
We moved out. Angelina and I on the point where we could blast any resistance that appeared, while the others protected our flanks and rear. Forward at a sweaty trot. We had to move fast, sow discord as we went—and find He. The first door opened onto a great circular staircase that seemed to spiral down to infinity. I didn’t like the looks of it, so I rolled some concussion grenades down it, and we pressed on across the roof.
“Where to?” Angelina asked.
“That tangle of turrets and buildings up ahead seems to be larger and more functional than most of this place. As good a guess as any.” Something exploded on the tiles nearby, and Angelina picked the sniper out of a window above with a single snap shot from the waist. We ran a bit faster, then pressed against the wall above a straight drop to the valley below while I blew out a locked door. Then we were in.
The place had been designed by a madman. I know that is literally true, but you didn’t have to know He to get the message. Corridors and stairs, twisted chambers, angled walls, even one spot where we had to crawl on our hands and knees under the low ceiling. This was where we had our first casualty. Five of us were clear of this room before the ceiling silently and swiftly descended and crushed the rear guard before he could even make a sound. We all were sweating harder. The enemy we met were not armed for the most part and either fled or were dropped by our needle guns. It was speed and silence now, and we moved as fast as we could between the bizarrely decorated walls, finding it easy to avoid looking at the incredible paintings that seemed to cover every square meter of available space.
“Just one moment,” Angelina panted, pulling me to a stop as we came through a high archway to a staircase that spiraled out of sight below, each stone step being a different height from the others. “Do you know where we are going?”
“Not exactly,” I panted in return. “Just penetrating the establishment to get ahead of the fighting, while spreading a bit of confusion.”
“I thought we had bigger ambitions. Like finding He.”
“Any suggestions how we might go about that?” I am forced to admit that I snapped a bit as I said that. Angelina responded with saccharine sweetness.
“Why, yes. You might try turning on the time energy detector you have slung around your neck. I believe that is the reason we brought it.”
“Just what I was going to do anyway,” I said, lying to conceal the fact that I had forgotten completely about it in the white heat of the rampaging attack.
The needle swung about and pointed with exact precision to the floor beneath our feet.
“Down and down we go,” I ordered. “Where the time-helix coils there will be found the He whom I am about to make into mincemeat.” I meant it too since this was the third and last try. I had constructed a special bomb on which I had painted his name. It was a hellish mixture of a curdler—guaranteed to coagulate all protein within five meters—an explosive charge, a load of poisoned shrapnel, and a thermite bomb theoretically to cook the curdled, coagulated, poisoned body of He.
After this the fighting picked up. Some sort of flamethrower below sent a wave of roiling smoke and fire up the stairs toward us that we could not pass. Singed and smoking, we went out through a hole I blasted in the wall and dropped into a laboratory of sorts. Row after row of bubbling retorts stretched away in all directions, hooked to a maze of crystal plumbing. Dark liquids dripped, and valves hissed foul-smelling steam. The workers here weren’t armed, and they dropped before us. We were trotting slower now and gasping for breath.
“Uggh!” Angelina said, making a twisted face. “Have you seen just what is in those jars?”
“No, and I don’t want to. Press on.” Anything that could bother the ice-cool Angelina was something I had no desire to see at all. I was glad when we left this area behind and found another stairwell.
We were getting close. Resistance kept firming up, and we had to battle most of the way now. Only the fact that the defenders were haphazardly armed allowed us to get through at all. Apparently most of the weapons were at use on the walls because these people came at us with knives, axes, lengths of metal, anything and everything. Including their bare hands if that was all they had. Screaming and frothing, they rushed to the attack and slowed us just by the weight of their numbers. We had our next casualty when a man with a metal spike dropped from some cranny above and stabbed one of the Martians before I could shoot him. They died together, and all we could do was leave them and push on. I took a quick look at my watch and broke into a tired trot again. We were running out of time.
“Wait!” Diyan called out hoarsely. “The needle, it no longer points.”
I waved everyone to a stop in a wide passage we were traversing, and they dropped, covering the flanks. I looked at the time energy detector that Diyan had been carrying.
“Which way was it pointing when you looked at it last?”
“Straight ahead, down the corridor. And there was no angle to the needle at all, as though this machine it points to were on this level.”
“It only works when the time-helix is operating. It must be off now.”
“Could He have gone?” Angelina asked, speaking aloud the words I was trying to keep out of my thoughts.
“Probably not,” I said with mock sincerity. “In any case we have to push on as long as we can. One last effort now, dead ahead.”
We pu
shed. And had another casualty when we attempted to cross a layer of writhing branches that were covered with thorns. Tipped with poison. I finally had to burn the stuff with our last thermite grenade. Ammunition and grenades were running very short. There was a brisk fire fight at the next corridor junction that emptied my needle gun. I tossed it aside and kicked the heavy door that barred any more progress in this direction. It would have to be blown open, and my grenades were exhausted. I turned to Angelina just as a communication plate next to the door lit up.
“You have lost, the final time,” He said, grinning wickedly at me from the screen.
“I’m always willing to talk,” I said, then spoke to Angelina in a language I was sure He did not speak. “Any concussion grenades left?”
“I am talking, you will listen,” He said.
“One,” Angelina told me.
“I’m all ears,” I said to him. “Take that door out,” I said to her.
“I have dispatched all the people I need to a safe place in the past where we will never be found. I have sent the machines we will need, I have sent everything that will be needed to build a time-helix as well. I am the last to go, and when I leave, the time machinery will be destroyed behind me.”
The grenade exploded, but the door was thick and remained stuck in the frame. Angelina sprayed it with explosive bullets. He talked on as though this weren’t happening.
“I know who you are, little man from the future, and I know where you come from. Therefore I shall destroy you before you have a chance to be born. I will destroy you, my only enemy; then the past and the future and all eternity will be mine, mine, mine!”
He was screaming and slavering before he finished, and the door went down, and I was the first one through.
My bullets were exploding in the delicate machinery of the time-helix as my He-bomb arced through the air.
The Stainless Steel Rat Saves The World Page 14
