“I can make them restore Kotran and turn command over to me.”
Natrol managed not to laugh.
The component was waiting for them, gray-uniformed with a major’s rank pips and starship-and-sun on his collar, slim Imperial-class blaster on his hip, gleaming black boots and holster. Archives would have shown he was an Imperial Marine captain, Third Dynasty. A medscan would have shown he had no brain. “Welcome to Alpha Prime,” it said, saluting. Its voice was warm, its smile pleasant and its eyes dead. “Follow me.”
They were led from the salvage hold down a corridor to where an open ground car waited. Motioning them into the rear seat, the component slid into the front seat and activated the car. Rising silently, it turned, rose and moved quickly from the side corridor into one of the mindslaver’s main thoroughfares, a broad, well-lit avenue of gray battlesteel. There was no other traffic.
“Atir,” said Natrol softly, eyes on the component, “tell me you don’t have a secret code sequence from the First Dynasty that will bend this ship to your will.” He saw her start, half turning to look at him.
“How did you … ?”
The engineer closed his eyes for a moment, pained. “I have a bridge to sell you,” he said.
“A bridge?” she asked, even more confused.
“Terra. New York.” He said no more, eyes ahead, ignoring her uneasy look.
The car flitted past a series of intersections, then up a broad circular ramp. Decelerating, it turned a corner and came to rest before a shimmering archway.
“You’ve been here before,” said Natrol as the car settled to the deck.
Atir nodded. “Alpha Prime’s bridge. Last time I saw Kotran, that forcefield”—her eyes traced the curtain of energy to the archway’s distant top—“had just closed behind him. Bloody fool was going to take over the ship.”
“You’re no less a fool to think this abomination will do your bidding.”
Something in his tone turned her toward him, a question on her lips.
“This way,” said the component, stepping out.
As the trio approached, the force field lifted, lowering behind as they advanced down a wide corridor, lined by what had been Imperial Marines.
Every third component fell in behind, blastrifles at port arms, twelve soldiers of Ractol forming a column of twos that marched in perfect step into the multitiered bridge, following the humans and their officer up the ramp to the command tier. Halting just before the railing, the components took station and waited along the ramp, expressionless acolytes to That Which Waited.
Seven black flight chairs fronted the curving console filling Alpha Prime’s topmost command tier—seven chairs with a clear view of space through the armorglass bubble capping the great bridge. Natrol found his eyes following the seemingly endless hull to where it merged into a single distant point.
“The Seven trust you’re impressed,” said a pleasant voice.
“And what are you, and where?” asked Atir, walking to the center chair from which the voice had apparently come. With a quick motion, she spun the flight chair around. Empty.
“I’m the ship’s Overmind,” said the voice.
“A Ractolian?” asked Natrol, trying to understand the purpose of the console. Lights winked on and off, but the written language was as alien as the engineering.
“Please sit.” The center chair and the one to its immediate left swung silently to face the two humans. They hesitated, exchanging glances.
“You can be killed as quickly there as in the chairs.”
They sat.
“What happened to the dead whispering promises of doom?” asked Natrol.
“We wanted to speak with you in as unintimidating a way as possible, so the Seven have elected me. I’ve more of my original humanity left than the rest. Be assured, though,” it said flatly, “I speak for Ractol.”
“And will Ractol keep its pledge?” asked the engineer. “To stand against the AIs in return for my commodore’s bearing your request?”
“The time for alliance has passed. The Fleet of the One is now penetrating the Rift. Your pitiful Confederation is in disarray, paralyzed by Combine Telan and the aftershocks of the Biofab War. It has no power to grant concessions, nothing to give us we can’t take.”
“Then why are you here, in harm’s way?” said Natrol. “The AIs won’t bother to distinguish between you and humans—any organic-related life form will be wiped.”
“Correct,” said the Overmind. “And here comes the instrument of our mutual destruction.” The space view dimmed, replaced by a swirling ocher eye flecked with silver.
“The Rift,” said the Overmind. “Now at its widest dilation—a perfect tunnel from the AIs’—and starfaring man’s—home universe.”
“How near?” asked Natrol, leaning forward.
“About eight light years,” said the Overmind. “The scan’s from the forward pickets set by the Imperial Cyborg POCSYM Six, millennia ago. The silver bits you see are AI battleglobes. Clearing the Rift, they’ll regroup and jump—here. We stand between them and a number of juicy Confederation targets.”
“We?” said Atir.
The pickup shifted to a tacscan—nineteen red blips fronting an oncoming tide of silver ones.
“You can’t possibly stop them,” said Natrol. “What are they, a hundred thousand battleglobes?”
“Merely the vanguard of their main fleet,” said the Overmind.
“And your strategy?” asked Natrol.
“Enough.” Atir stood. “You will reassemble Captain Kotran, mind and body restored to the condition he was in when you took him. You will let us leave this ship and let us withdraw from this sector aboard Implacable.”
There was a brief silence, Natrol watching Atir as he might an interesting bug.
“Why?” asked the Overmind. “Kotran’s a tactical genius, corsair. It’s unlikely we’d ever let him go. Certainly not now.”
“You will do as I say,” said Atir.
“Really,” said the Overmind. “Is this where you threaten us?”
“Or I will take command of this ship,” she said.
“That’s where Captain Kotran ended just before he was brainstripped. The geniuses that designed this ship would never have been so stupid as to place in it the tool of their own undoing.”
“Would you be one of them?” asked Natrol.
“I am.”
“J’Yay k’antal a’ktay,” said Atir defiantly, hand to her sidearm.
The Overmind laughed. Natrol buried his head in his hands.
“What?” said a confused Atir, looking at Natrol as the laughter died.
The engineer raised his head. “You just ordered a creamed vegetable casserole in a very old, dead language. Did you buy your magic spell in a bar?”
“I bribed an archivist on Kronar,” she said, turning to look at the rampway and the components. Too many.
“I hope you all enjoyed that,” said Natrol.
“We did,” chuckled the Overmind. “We certainly did. Humor’s rare here.”
“I imagine. How about answering my question?”
“Our strategy?”
“Yes.”
“Simple,” said the Overmind. “We’ll briefly battle the AIs—we always keep our word. Then we’ll jump through the Rift and make themselves at home in the AI universe.”
“And how will you prevent the AIs from following and vaporizing your smug selves?”
“We’ll seal the Rift behind us—we have the means. The AIs and humanity can battle here till the stars die, while we convert the AI worlds to our needs.”
Atir looked at Natrol. “Can they do that?”
He nodded, looking through the armorglass. “Yes. Alpha Prime’s original cybernetics were salvaged from ships’ computers left in the care of the Imperial governor on D’Lin—parts of the Founding Fleet that brought our ancestors to this universe, fleeing the AIs, about a hundred thousand years ago.” He looked at her. “You know about Shelia Racto
l?”
“Everyone knows about Ractol and her biofabs.”
Twelve thousand years ago, geneticist Shelia Ractol had used her family’s influence to be appointed Imperial governor of Quadrant Blue 9, out on the fringes of the Imperium. Taking advantage of her rank, her all but absolute authority and the relative isolation of her post, Ractol had conducted illegal experiments in the life sciences—experiments culminating in the creation of a race of psychotic geniuses, the Ractolian Biofabs—biological fabrications. Quickly disposing of Ractol’s forces, the biofabs had gone on to build a fleet of mindslavers that took an unsuspecting Empire in the rear and almost toppled it. Only when the Empire had built its own mindslavers in overwhelming numbers were the Ractolians defeated. Seeking the immortality of their brainpods, the last seven Ractolians had put their surviving ships in stasis and retreated to the depths of Blue 9, biding their time.
“They can do it,” continued Natrol. “The Seven will transit the Rift and close it after them like turning off a light. That can’t be allowed.”
Natrol stood, facing the deep-shadowed bridge and a hundred empty stations. “You will keep your word,” he said. “You will fight.”
“Only briefly. We concur that you are both very foolish and will be brainstripped. The question arises, though, Engineer …”
“Yes?”
“How do you know the Old Tongue? How do you know about this ship’s cybernetics? Only the AIs remember those things, and bioscan shows you’re not an AI.”
“What does the bioscan show of my genes?”
“What are you doing, Natrol?” demanded Atir, breaking a long silence.
“Empire and Destiny, witch,” he said, more to himself than to her. “The pieces of a failed vision may save us yet.”
Natrol stood and walked to the tier’s edge, looking down on the great empty cavern of the slaver’s bridge. “Seven of Ractol, show yourselves!” he commanded. Only the faint hum of equipment answered him. Loud, clear and strong, Natrol’s voice rang from the battlesteel. “Undead monsters! Murderers! You know me. My word is absolute. I call you. Appear!”
Something stirred behind him. Natrol turned as Atir said softly, “Now you’ve done it.” She stepped slowly back, stopping next to the engineer as nine brainpods rose from inside the command console and waited, hovering above the console’s open access hatch. Seven brainpods were full, with each transparent globe filled by the furrowed gray mass of a human brain. The two empty ones held Atir’s attention.
“You’ve impressed the ship’s cybernetics, usurper—we are not impressed.” It was the same desiccated whisper that had greeted them aboard Implacable. “No son of a failed House can command us.”
“And yet,” said Natrol, eyes moving from sphere to sphere, “you came. Having trouble with your computers?”
“You’ll join us now,” said the whisper. As it spoke, the two empty brainpods separated into halves, the halves moving quickly toward the two humans—though not as quickly as Atir’s blaster. Four red bolts flicked out, touching off four sharp explosions. Molten duraplast rained down on console, chairs and deck, congealing as Natrol cried, “Empire and Destiny!”
“Components!” shrieked the Overmind. “Kill them!”
Natrol whirled, drawing his sidearm, firing and diving behind a comm terminal as the components rushed the tier. From behind him came the whine of Atir’s blaster and more explosions.
The brainless body of an Imperial Marine sergeant was destroyed as it reached the command tier, a bolt from Natrol’s pistol ripping through its heart. Blaster fire exploded into the comm terminal as more components charged onto the command tier. A second stream of blaster bolts joined Natrol’s, briefly clearing the top of the ramp. Dashing the length of the command tier, Atir joined Natrol. “Got all but one of the Ractolians,” said the corsair, slipping a fresh chargpak into her weapon. “What now? Damper field?”
Natrol risked a look over the top of the comm terminal. “Yes. And finish us with bayonets.” The sound of many booted feet came from the ramp—a deliberate, measured pace.
Atir pointed her sidearm high and pulled the trigger. A faint click replied. “Damper field,” she confirmed.
The two stood. Holstering their weapons, they moved to the top of the ramp.
The components were advancing, light glinting dully from a hundred bayonets, a long column snaking up from the main deck.
An arm’s span between them, the two humans blocked the ramp. “Not what I had in mind,” said Natrol, drawing the broad-bladed commando knife from his boot sheath.
“Nothing else in you trick pouch?” said Atir, pulling her own blade as below the nearest components brought their rifles to the assault and broke into a charge.
“You’ve seen everything in my pouch. Luck to you, corsair,” he said as the assault hit. Sidestepping the first bayonet, he seized the component’s rifle, jerking his attacker off balance and stabbing up into the chest with his knife. Natrol stepped back as the component fell, trying to wrest the rifle from it as three more components reached him. Too late, Natrol freed the rifle. He saw the bayonets coming, but never felt them as the components crumpled to the deck, rifles clattering around them.
“Empire and Destiny,” said a new voice—a computer’s voice. “Alpha Prime and her sister ships are restored to your service, My Lord. All components are deactivated.”
“Identify,” ordered Natrol.
“Master computers of the Founding Fleet, awaiting your command, My Lord.”
“Took you long enough,” he said, turning to Atir. She was struggling from beneath two large male components, cheek bleeding from a cut.
“There was trouble with the Overmind,” said the computers.
“And the last Ractolian?” asked Natrol, helping Atir to her feet.
“S’Hdag escaped, My Lord. A jump-enabled scout craft.”
“Are you free of Ractolian influence?”
“Would we say if we weren’t, My Lord?”
“The Ractolians wouldn’t. They were devoid of humor, other than the occasional sadistic chuckle.”
“Unfair, My Lord. They delighted in the brainstripping prisoners and vivisecting them for spare parts. They feasted on the agony, jacked into their victims’ central nervous systems. The hilarity! They could use us for their filthy ends, they could subordinate our programming to their will, but your presence abrogated all their commands.”
“What the hell are you, Natrol?” said Atir, regarding him warily. “If you’re a demigod, you hide it well.”
“Just another human, a little different than most—a human who needs your help. We’re going to use these ships—crew them with men and women returned to life after centuries of darkness. And then we’re going to throw a lot of those lives away, into the teeth of those silver specks coming our way through the Rift.”
“I think,” said Atir slowly, seeing Natrol with new eyes, “there’s only one thing you could be. But even if you are, you know the price of my help.”
“I don’t need your help. But I need Kotran’s. And it’s the right thing to do. Master computers.”
“Lord?”
“Reassemble and restore all components on all mindslavers to life, beginning with the corsair Kotran.”
“That will somewhat degrade the tactical and weapons advantages we enjoy, My Lord.”
“So be it,” said Natrol. “No evil in a good cause—if it can be avoided.”
Terra Two. Be careful. Its similarities to Terra One suggest commonality. True to a point. Then it gets ugly.
Jaquel Detrelna
Diary
Chapter 15
In Leadville they found gold—a big strike bringing legions of Italian and Welsh miners to Colorado to dig for the yellow stuff. A few valleys away silver had been king, with the old Syrian mine the richest and the biggest—two hundred men a shift, chipping away at the rock by the flickering light of candles pounded into rough-hewn walls.
The Crash of ‘94 had closed the
mine, the miners moving on to California and Oregon. World War I and the Great Depression had come and gone. Only long after the ruinous peace of the Second War had men come again to dig in the Syrian. Explosives and machinery had resculpted old tunnels and galleries into a rough-but-serviceable installation strung with power cables and hung with lights. Then the auburn-haired woman and her people arrived, roughed-in some partitions, installed their equipment and set to work.
“Major Hargrove,” said the redhead, looking across her gray metal desk at the other person in the office, “Our security sucks. What can we do about it?”
“Work faster, Dr. MacKenzie,” said the big man in an easy Southern drawl. “It’s not going get any better.” He leaned forward on the too small chair, the kind they unfolded at overflow meetings. “Complete the mission and get out of here. A Russki or Kraut satellite will eventually pick us up. Won’t matter which. Russia’s swarming with German agents. Then your cute little nuke nursery will be filled with Schwarzekommando.” His accent changed from bourbon-and-branch water to German without slipping a vowel. “The tunnel’s mined and my Rangers can buy us some destruct and bailout time. But if there is an attack, Uncle’s not gonna help us—we’ll be a write-off—rogue elements, terrible embarrassment and apologies to Berlin.”
“You’re government,” she said, knowing he was right. Speed was their only defense. “So are your men.”
“There’s no evidence. Does this look GI Joe?” He patted his denim jacket. “Or that?” He pointed to the Shmeisser minimac on MacKenzie’s desk. The lights glinted dully off the machine pistol’s steel-blue barrel. Is our first shipment still Tuesday?”
Heather nodded. “Fifteen ten-megatonners. Small commercial planes with Army Air Corps’ pilots.”
“Know where they’re going?” Hargrove lit one of his foul-smelling Cuban cigars.
“No. And I don’t want to,” said the physicist as the thick ring of blue smoke wafted across her desk. “How can you stand that awful thing?” she asked, waving her hand.
“People come and go, but a good cigar’s a good cigar, to quote Freud,” he said, rising.
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