Ash Ock

by Christopher Hinz

  “We’re not out of this yet,” he warned. “Watch your backs. There are two more tways.”

  He glanced at Martha, saw that she was walking stiffly, her eyes panning back and forth like a scanner, and Gillian knew that she was still sync-locked to the PAL box, still in combat mode.

  “The Lion is not going to like this,” lamented Buff. “And I have a feeling—”

  The hideous wail of a thruster—firing with impossible speed—chopped her off. Gillian whirled.

  Shooter.

  He was a hundred feet away, marching up the middle of the street, the peak of his front crescent web shining weirdly under Irrya’s intense noonday sun, clearly visible above the heads of the crowd. He was shoving his way through the crush, indiscriminately blasting pedestrians.

  Bastard! cursed Gillian, knowing that Shooter was killing people in the hopes of drawing out Gillian. And the tway’s energy screen should have been invisible under this sunlight, but Shooter must have juiced the web’s powerpak, forcing incandescence in the hope that Gillian would see, would counterattack.

  Screams filled the air. Gillian raised his thruster skyward and fired two blasts.

  Shooter changed direction, began marching toward them.

  Gillian ducked low. “Buff, get ready with that flame weapon of yours.”

  “I can’t!” she hissed. ‘There’re unprotected people out here. The salene will kill anyone not wearing a web!”

  The random movement of the crowd abruptly transmuted into a framework of order as survival instincts surfaced and people got out of the way. A rank opened between Shooter and Gillian. Both fired at the same instant.

  Modulated packets of energy—thruster blasts—hammered the front of Gillian’s web. He leaned forward, desperately trying to stay balanced against the pummeling blows, but with twenty blasts per second hitting his web, it was hopeless. Swept off his feet, he tumbled backward into Buff.

  Shooter kept marching forward, weapon wailing, and Gillian felt himself rolling along the street, almost totally out of control, a bowling pin propelled down an endless aisle by the unyielding force of the spray thruster. Twisting madly, he managed to keep his front crescent in line with the invisible blasts, desperately aware that the tactic would not save him for much longer.

  From Shooter’s left, Martha leaped out of the crowd, weapon arm perpendicular to her body—a steel shaft with hardwired armament—alternating thruster tubes discharging three blasts per second.

  Shooter’s web absorbed a couple of hits and then his own thruster arm whipped toward the new threat, firing into the crowd where Martha had emerged, knocking unprotected people off their feet, instantly killing many of them. Martha, battered by a series of direct hits, was catapulted back into the screaming conflux.

  Gillian, taking advantage of the brief distraction, managed to scramble upright and fire a solitary blast at the assassin before Shooter’s devastating weapon again turned upon him. But this time only a short spray compressed the front of Gillian’s crescent.

  Martha was on her feet again, marching forward, firing point-blank, ponytails whipping behind her, face burning with Costeau fury. This time, Shooter turned to unleash his full wrath upon her. His thruster wailed, pounding Martha under an impossibly intense deluge.

  “No!” shouted Buff, arm whipping over her head, releasing a slender knife, sending the blade toward its target. But the knife merely bounced harmlessly off Shooter’s web.

  Even as Martha tumbled across the pavement, she kept her arm outstretched, neuro-synchronized gun blasting away at Shooter’s leading crescent. But he just kept coming, brutally spraying her protective web until at last her body jerked sideways, exposing unshielded flesh.

  She made no outcry, at least none that Gillian could hear. She just closed her eyes and shuddered as Shooter’s energy cannon pulverized skin and bone.

  Buff shrieked—like a tway experiencing the deathshock of her other half—and then the black Costeau was racing up the street toward her partner. Something whizzed over Gillian’s head.

  Three miniature jets—E-Tech Security assault crafts—soared out of center-sky, zeroing in on the disturbance. The crowd stampeded wildly and the clear firefield between Gillian and Shooter abruptly disappeared in a morass of aimless humanity. Buff, still trying to reach Martha, was turned away by the thick wave of people.

  Gillian grabbed her arm. “Come on! We’ve got to get out of here!”

  “No!” Buff cried, tears streaming down her face. “I’ve got to help her—”

  “She’s gone. She’s dead.” He shook her, gently but firmly. “We have to save ourselves now.”

  Buff’s eyes pleaded. “I have to help her.”

  The jets descended, their red tracking lasers sweeping across the crowd, scanning for armed targets.

  “No more time,” Gillian hissed, dropping the thruster and yanking Buff toward the gleaming rectangular entrance of an exotic-vegetable retailer. “We’ve got to get out of sight before those trackers pick us up.”

  Buff came to her senses. She wiped her eyes with the back of her sleeve. “All right—go!”

  They ran into the store, ignoring startled clerks and customers, raced toward the back, toward the mandated fire exit. A deserted alley. Through a shipper’s entrance and into another building.

  “A few more blocks,” said Gillian, breathing hard. “That should get us far enough away from the primary search area.”

  Buff, grimacing with exertion, managed a nod.

  And even as Gillian ran, he sensed the patterns of Empedocles, pale distant shadows around a crackling fire, temporarily controlled, but waiting for another chance to come to the forefront. You won’t give up after one defeat, Gillian thought bitterly. Empedocles was not finished. He would continue to pursue any path that might ultimately lead them both to that hideous mélange of consciousnesses.

  “But not today,” Gillian whispered.

  O}o{O

  They were in the CPG boardroom, Colette and Ghandi arguing about the activation status of their profarming division, Calvin plopped at the opposite end of the table, his legs sprawled across a seat, loose khaki flak jacket unbuttoned at the collar. The maniac looked more bored than usual: one hand toyed with the Stars’n’Stripes emblem sewn on his right sleeve, while the other flip-flopped lazily across the pseudomahogany table.

  Ghandi responded to Colette’s latest question with a shrug. “We can start moving these megatons of hardware down to the surface with only three days’ notice. That includes practically everything—harvesters, planters, compost stations, atmospheric revivifiers, the works. Within six months, two hundred and fifty profarming communities can be in place. You know that.”

  Colette raised her eyebrows. “Then I fail to see what your objections are.”

  “There are distinct problems,” Ghandi reasoned. “First off, CPG does not have the support systems to back up such an enormous undertaking.”

  “Irrelevant,” said Colette. “When the Colonies are under Paratwa control, the support systems will be acquired. Next objection?”

  “Trained personnel. For your reseeding project to succeed in such a short time, I estimate that we’ll need over one hundred and twenty thousand profarmers. That’s almost double the number of existing workers in that specialty.”

  Colette paused. “Theophrastus will be bringing advanced training tools back to the Colonies—induction tutors and some very sophisticated mnemonic software which will drastically shorten training and apprenticeship periods. Also, many of the latest breeds of Paratwa are skilled in the complexities of proframing—the Ash Joella, in particular. And our human support units will also be able to share the burden.”

  Ghandi held back a frown. Human support units—the descendents of the original Star-Edge crews, who had been overwhelmed by the Paratwa centuries ago. He often wondered what they were like, these people who had lived their entire lives under Paratwa domain. Do they have any real freedoms, or are they more like the slaves of t
he ancient world? Colette mentioned them frequently, but never in much detail.

  “What else, my love?”

  Ghandi hesitated. The final problem cut to the heart of the matter. He broached his concerns slowly. “I don’t quite understand why this new generation of crops that your people are bringing back must be grown strictly on the Earth. Why not utilize at least some of the existing profarming colonies? If that were done, then the support unit and personnel inadequacies could be more readily solved.”

  “Intricate growth parameters,” replied Colette quickly, as if wanting to end the entire discussion. “These new crops require vast amounts of space for maximum yield. Their proliferation would be severely stunted within the artificial confines of the cylinders.”

  Calvin yawned.

  “All right,” said Ghandi, acquiescing. “I suppose that these profarming communities can be set up within the allotted time frame.”

  ‘They must be set up,” Colette clarified. “Within six months of the Irryan Council’s formal surrender, I expect to see the first harvest.”

  Ghandi said nothing. He still did not understand just what was so important about such a rapid reseeding of the Earth—“Ecospheric Turnaround” overnight, as it were. Colette’s vague explanation that Paratwa control over the colonial population could be more easily maintained by transferring the primary food sources to the planet made little sense.

  He sighed. What the Ash Ock wanted, the Ash Ock would get. Ghandi had no choice but to accept Colette’s latest dictates, and to regard them as just another puzzle in a long line of Paratwa mysteries. Eventually, he would gain enough knowledge of this profarming scheme to figure things out for himself.

  “What are the newest intercolonial figures on acceptance of planetary reinhabitation?” asked Colette.

  Ghandi checked his terminal. “Forty-three point two-eight-six percent of the population now favor an eventual return to the Earth. That’s another gain; up nearly half a point in the past four weeks.”

  Colette smiled. “Excellent. I wasn’t expecting a gain right now, not with all the turmoil. The announcement of Meridian’s return and the accelerated pace of the Birch murders were expected to function as negative elements in this regard. The mere fact that we’ve registered a gain indicates that CPG’s campaign is proving extremely effective.”

  Ghandi nodded, glanced at his terminal screen. “Yes, and in particular, the latest series of commercial spots—those espousing the values of a return to surface life—are generating strong ratings.”

  “Good. See if you can get our gut-ad department to expand on the theme, develop an even stronger line of pro-Earth commercials. But this time, we’ll simply market the motif itself. Let some of our hidden subsidiaries sell customized versions of the pro-Earth storyline to as many nonfamily corporations as possible. We don’t want it to appear that CPG has suddenly become promoter extraordinaire for a planetary homecoming. The Czar—and perhaps others—will likely analyze this latest trend. They might begin to wonder why CPG is so strongly in favor of a return to the planet.”

  “That’s wise,” agreed Ghandi, typing a note on his monitor. “Also, I think that CPG should . . .”

  He trailed off as Calvin abruptly rose from the table. The maniac’s cheeks withered into a tight scowl and he extended his arms in front of him, palms outthrust, as if he was preparing to push away some invisible object.

  Ghandi sighed. “Calvin, I suggest that you—”

  “Shh!” hissed Colette, gripping Ghandi’s arm.

  Calvin took one more, slow step backward, then suddenly let out a terrifying screech—anger interfused with unmitigated anguish. The maniac’s fingers compressed into fists. His eyes closed and his body slithered into a low crouch.

  He seemed to rock back and forth for a moment, and then his arms were whipping violently from side to side, spraying senseless arrays of green holotronic letters and numerals in the space above the boardroom table. Shrieks filled the conference room and Ghandi stared wordlessly at his wife, wondering what in the hell was going on.

  Colette remained perfectly still and something in her manner persuaded Ghandi to adopt a similar pose. With frozen fascination, he returned his attention to the bizarre performance.

  For a time, Calvin kept up the rhythmless rocking motion, looking like a C-ray ignore trying to learn to dance—body willing, but intellect too underdeveloped to coordinate sophisticated movements. And then the tway shuddered uncontrollably, and let loose another piercing scream that sent shivers up Ghandi’s spine.

  In motion now, marching two steps in one direction, pivoting, marching two steps back, boyish face crystallized in a raging grimace, expelling grunts as if he were some sort of shellshocked ape. And Ghandi finally began to comprehend. Something is happening to his other tways, Ky and Jy.

  The exhibition ended as abruptly as it had begun. Calvin leaned against the table, breathing heavily, a trail of clear spittle dripping from the corner of his mouth. Ghandi glanced at the wall clock.

  The tway had been pantomiming for close to five minutes.

  Colette rose from her seat. “Calvin, vocalize.”

  The tway whipped his left arm through the air, spraying another furious maelstrom of misshapen green letters the length of the boardroom. Ghandi could just make out fragments of a sentence:

  ATTACK . . . CLUSTER . . . KY . . . E-TECH . . . STREET . . .

  “Calvin!” snapped Colette. “Control the interlace.”

  The maniac gripped the edge of the table and squeezed so hard that Ghandi thought he would crush the grained plastic. Calvin seemed literally to be forcing the tension out of his body. At last, he released his viselike grip and straightened to his full six-foot stature. But his face remained locked in a murderous scowl.

  “We’re waiting,” urged Colette.

  Calvin jerked his left arm up, palm outward. Sharp-edged holotronic letters burned into focus.

  KY WAS ATTACKED IN HIS VENUS CLUSTER OFFICE BY A SINGLE MALE. PROBABILITY HIGH THAT THE ASSAILANT WAS GILLIAN. KY INJURED. JY ARRIVED MOMENTARILY AND ENGAGED IN STREET COMBAT WITH THE ASSAILANT AND TWO FEMALE COMPANIONS. ONE FEMALE KILLED. TRAITOR AND OTHER FEMALE ESCAPED. JY FORCED TO DISENGAGE FROM BATTLE FOLLOWING THE ARRIVAL OF STRONG E-TECH SECURITY CONTINGENT NUMEROUS CIVILIAN CASUALTIES.

  Ghandi’s mouth fell open in shock. He had fantasized about Gillian being set loose upon the maniac, but he had never believed it would actually happen.

  A delicate shiver raced through Colette and then she was gone. The cold alien light appeared in his wife’s eyes. Her voice dropped in timbre and pitch.

  “How badly is Ky injured?” demanded Sappho.

  Some of the fury seemed to depart from Calvin’s face as he recognized the presence of his monarch/mistress.

  A SEVERE BLOW TO THE CHEST. NO BROKEN RIBS BUT MASSIVE TISSUE DAMAGE. KY IS MOVING UNDER HIS OWN POWER AND HAS MANAGED TO EXIT THE BUILDING.

  “How long can you bear the pain?”

  Calvin’s cheeks withered into an expression that was almost a sneer. I CAN TOLERATE THE PAIN FOR AS LONG AS YOU WISH.

  “Good. I want Ky to avoid any of the immediate emergency treatment centers. E-Tech may place them under surveillance. Have Ky proceed directly to a private docking terminal—use CPG’s Retro-Gamma facility in the Central District.” She turned to Ghandi. “Corelli-Paul, please make the necessary arrangements to have Ky shuttled to one of our off-colony relaxation centers for treatment.”

  Ghandi accessed his terminal to carry out her commands, all the while thinking: Are we in immediate danger? Will CPG be paid a visit by Gillian and his cronies?

  Sappho continued her questioning. “Calvin, how certain are you that it was the traitor?”

  The maniac closed his eyes and threw his head back, and Ghandi knew that Calvin was reviewing the parameters of the attack, in that curious Ash Nar fashion. Finally:

  IT WAS DEFINITELY GILLIAN. MOTOR/MOTION CHARACTERISTICS FIT THE PROFILE THAT MERIDIAN TRAINED ME TO RECOGNIZ
E.

  “Did Gillian immediately recognize you as Paratwa?”

  DIFFICULT TO ASCERTAIN. HE WAS SUSPICIOUS, BUT I DON’T BELIEVE HE WAS CERTAIN UNTIL WE HAD ACTUALLY CONVERSED FOR SOME MOMENTS.

  “Why didn’t you utilize the needbreeder?” wondered Ghandi.

  Calvin glared at him. Sappho raised her eyebrows, urging the tway to respond.

  THERE WAS NO TIME. THE TRAITOR ATTACKED WITHOUT WARNING.

  Sappho nodded. “And it is quite possible that Gillian would be immune to needbreeders.” She turned to Ghandi. “What we’ve feared has occurred. The Czar must have identified Venus Cluster—and Ky’s alter ego, Cochise—as being connected to the Order of the Birch massacres. As of this moment, Venus Cluster is useless to us.” She turned back to Calvin.

  “I assume that Ky was able to activate the self-destruction module before he exited the premises.”

  YES. HIS OFFICE WILL BE DESTROYED MOMENTARILY. INVESTIGATORS WILL FIND NO TRACES OF THE NEEDBREEDER. UNFORTUNATELY, THREE SKYGENE MACHINES THAT KY CURRENTLY HAD STORED THERE WILL ALSO BE LOST.

  “Those can be replaced,” said Sappho. “Our main problem now is that the remainder of the skygene infections will have to be accomplished directly through the auspices of CPG. The next group of couriers must be brought here. We’ll utilize our own needbreeder, the one disguised in the entrance hall.”

  Ghandi frowned. “Is that wise? For all we know, Gillian and his people have already identified Venus Cluster as a CPG-owned subsidiary. Hypnotizing the couriers right outside our own boardroom will put us at an even greater risk—”

  “Do you have a better suggestion?”

  Ghandi shook his head, uncertain of just how far he could go in contradicting Colette’s monarch.

  Sappho reiterated: “The skygene infection program must continue on schedule. The risks must be assumed. We shall operate under the assumption that Gillian and the Czar have not yet connected Venus Cluster with CPG even though they may eventually do so. Nevertheless, the project cannot be stopped. Every colony must be infected by the time Meridian arrives.”