The croissants had been served, Vanden Hoyt was enjoying his enormously and Bass was working on still another glass of Katzenwasser ’36, when the lights suddenly went out. At first there was shocked silence in the dining hall as the 150 guests contemplated sitting in the pitch-darkness, then a few nervous laughs and someone shouted, “Who didn’t pay the light bill this month?” followed by more laughter.
Vanden Hoyt leaped from his seat onto the table, scattering food and tableware as he went, and jumped down between Ambassador Wellington-Humphreys and Degs Momyer. He put his arms around the startled woman and dragged her away from the table before she could even scream. “Dean! Mac! To me! To me!” he shouted. The two enlisted men, orienting themselves on the sound of Vanden Hoyt’s voice, followed their officer noisily across the table top. Vanden Hoyt whispered into Wellington-Humphreys’s ear, “Don’t make a sound, Madame! This is a kidnapping attempt. We’re going to get you out of here.” Vanden Hoyt silently prayed that he was right, otherwise he’d probably be spending the rest of his career counting rations on a supply ship.
A few other people around the huge table had produced glowballs and there was now a dim light in the hall, just enough illumination to see the outlines of people’s figures.
“Remember how to get out of here?” Vanden Hoyt asked the two enlisted men.
“Sure,” MacIlargie said.
“Then you and Dean run interference for me, because we’re getting this lady the hell out of here.”
“Just a moment,” Degs Momyer said, laying a restraining hand on Vanden Hoyt’s shoulder. Vanden Hoyt threw a punch in the direction of Momyer’s voice. His fist connected solidly and sent Momyer thudding to the floor, incidentally saving the Minister of Finance’s life. At that very moment, the wall a few meters down from where they were standing suddenly blew inward with a brilliant flash. Someone had detonated an implosion device, so the tremendous force of the blast was not accompanied by much noise, which left the survivors able to hear. Debris followed by a terrific blast wave swept into the hall, tossing body parts across the table and into the people sitting on the opposite side. Armed men dressed in black charged through the gaping hole the blast had left, coming straight at the Ambassador’s little group, firing blasters up and down the table as they went.
Bass lay in the debris underneath the table. He felt around and armed himself with the only weapon he could find, a metal serving tray still smeared with a sweet chocolatey substance. He skittered out from under the table and began swinging.
Dragging and pushing the Ambassador, Vanden Hoyt and the two enlisted men ran through the semidarkness of the dining hall. Hell reigned behind them as the attackers, evidently frustrated when they found the ambassador’s position at the table empty and unable to spot her in the pandemonium, began firing aimlessly into the crowd. Plasma bolts cracked and hissed throughout the great hall. Dignitaries, reduced to terrorized animals, trampled one another in an effort to escape the blaster bolts.
MacIlargie led them into a corridor off the main hall. It was pitch-dark. Cautiously they felt their way along the walls. “What’s going on?” Wellington-Humphreys asked.
“St. Cyr’s attempting to kidnap you, ma’am,” Vanden Hoyt answered. “Looks like they knew just where you’d be sitting and came through the wall to get you. They set the charge far enough down the outside of the building so it wouldn’t kill you when it went off.” He stopped to get his breath.
“Who the hell are you?” Vanden Hoyt asked suddenly as a figure came sliding into the corridor.
“Benjamin,” the figure wheezed.
“The professor?” Vanden Hoyt exclaimed.
“Yes. I just followed you. I figured you knew how to get out of here.”
“Okay, Professor. Just stay calm and follow us.” They walked cautiously down the corridor.
“Door,” Dean whispered ahead of them. He shoved it gently. “It’s locked or jammed, sir.” MacIlargie joined Dean and they put their shoulders to the door and pushed.
Vanden Hoyt added his own weight. “What the fuck?” he muttered, and then, “Oh, excuse me, ma’am.”
“Those were my sentiments exactly, Lieutenant Vanderman,” the Ambassador replied dryly.
“Ensign Vanden Hoyt, not Lieutenant, ma’am.”
“We could stay in here until help comes,” Wellington-Humphreys suggested.
Vanden Hoyt thought about that possibility for a moment. His mind was made up by a blaster bolt that caromed off the ceiling and slagged the marble behind them. “On three, we all hit the door as hard as we can,” he said. “One, two, three!” The Marines slammed into the door with all their weight. It shook but still held. “Again!” They assaulted the door a second time. It still held.
“Goddamnit!” MacIlargie shouted, braced himself on one leg and slammed the other into the door.
Cool night air engulfed them as the door came off the frame and hung by its hinges.
“Good thing you had me along, eh, Mr. Vee?” MacIlargie said. He held the broken door aside as he went through, and the others followed him down the steps into the darkness outside.
“Good thing this is one of those old-fashioned doors and not a pneumatic one,” Dean muttered as he followed the others.
Suddenly, brilliant light illuminated the quintet, freezing them on the stairway like feral animals caught in the hunter’s sights. Marston St. Cyr, surrounded by dozens of heavily armed men, stood smiling in the street outside, a tiny radio-tracking device held in one hand.
“ ‘Welcome to my lair,’ said the spider to the flies.” St. Cyr smirked.
Chapter 29
The foothills of the Chrystoberyl mountain range began their gentle rise from the Pryhrotite salt flats some thirty kilometers north of New Kimberly. Some of the peaks reached in excess of four thousand meters, and the residents of New Kimberly were treated to spectacular sunrises over their perpetually snow-capped tops every morning. But that mountain range was far more to the people of New Kimberly and Diamunde than a beautiful example of the planet’s ancient tectonic activity.
Generations of miners had made their living exploiting the mineral deposits that lay under the mountains, and Diamunde had become wealthy on the ores and gems they brought out of the rock down there. The range was honeycombed with shafts, chambers, and thousands of kilometers of tunnels. So extensive and so deep had the excavations gone over the centuries that no one really knew anymore where they all led. Once a vein or deposit was used up, it was sealed off and the miners moved on. Over the years, as companies went out of business or were absorbed in mergers, many site maps and plans were misplaced or deleted from databases, and when operations moved on from one sector to another, nobody spent the money or the time needed to go back and remap the excavated areas.
So the chambers, some of them hundreds of meters high, lay dark, silent and unknown, forever hidden from the sunlight. Rumors and legends grew up around the abandoned works: they were haunted by miners’ ghosts; strange creatures native to Diamunde and never seen by humans had taken up their abode down there. The rumors were handed down from one generation to the next, each embellishing the stories as they passed them on, and they had become so wild over time that eventually no one gave them any credence—while aboveground, that is.
But Diamundean miners never ventured far from their current operations; miners’ lives in the active excavations were dangerous enough without them taking risks wandering around in the abandoned diggings. To most of Diamunde’s hard-working people, the abandoned mines became places of mystery and potential danger, and no one cared to go into them anymore. Until Marston St. Cyr came along, that is.
Completely immobilized, unable even to speak, the hostages were aware only of constant motion that seemed now to have been going on for hours. Dean tried to calculate the passage of time and the direction in which they were being taken, but that proved impossible. In the first few minutes of their capture, just after they were injected with immobilizing drugs, he had
thought they were being taken north. Now he had no idea where they were. The way the engine noise seemed to echo around him, it seemed most of the trip was in a tunnel.
And then the vehicle stopped and Dean lay in total darkness, listening. He heard men dismount, then loud metallic noises as doors slammed somewhere. All was quiet for a moment, and then it seemed the bottom of the world fell out from under him as he plunged rapidly downward. After a moment of panic, he assumed the vehicle had been loaded into a high-speed elevator of some kind. After what he judged was a good two minutes, it began to slow and then stopped. More doors clanged, and then he could hear men talking and walking very near where he lay. He was lifted into the air, and from the way the body pod in which he was encased moved, he knew he was being carried somewhere.
Wham! He was dropped on a solid surface. Wham! Someone else was dropped onto a solid surface. Wham! Wham! Wham! The chamber in which they were being unloaded echoed loudly as each hostage’s pod was unceremoniously deposited on the floor.
The men who unloaded the hostages walked off. All was total silence for a long time. Dean lay there in the darkness, working on his vocal cords, but no sound would come out of them; he could only get a sibilant wheezing noise to emerge from his lips. A tingling sensation in his left little finger indicated that the immobilizing drug was beginning to wear off.
“M-Mac...” Dean croaked. He could feel his feet now. He tried again, “M-Mac...!” He coughed. “MacIlargie!” he rasped He could move his left leg a little now. He kicked the container lid weakly.
“Dean! MacIlargie! It’s wearing off! Can you hear me?” Ensign Vanden Hoyt whispered hoarsely.
Dean still had not recovered enough to answer fully, so he kicked the lid several times again instead.
“Madame Ambassador?” Vanden Hoyt said, his voice stronger now. “Madame Wellington-Humphreys? Are you all right?” No answer. “Professor—er, uh...” A muffled response from one of the pods was all he got.
“I’m gonna kick somebody’s ass when I get out of here!” MacIlargie shouted in an almost normal voice. Dean smiled despite himself. Hey! He had the use of his facial muscles!
“Lieutenant—Lieutenant Vanderpool...?” It was Madame Wellington-Humphreys.
“Vanden Hoyt, ma’am, Ensign Vanden Hoyt. How are you?”
“It’s Benjamin, Ensign,” Professor Benjamin said.
“Sorry, sir. Good to know you’re okay, ma’am. Good to know you’re okay too, Professor.”
“Call me Jere, Ensign.”
After a few more minutes the five were carrying on a spirited conversation.
“Silence!” a powerful voice roared. They could hear many men moving about around them now. The fastenings on their pods were unsnapped and bright artificial light flooded in upon them as the lids were torn off. The hostages blinked in the light as strong arms lifted them out of the pods.
They were in a large cavern. Several corridors led off in different directions. In one wall was the elevator. Its doors were closed. They were surrounded by at least two dozen armed men in battle-dress uniforms.
Still too weak to stand or move by themselves, they were held up as someone applied manacles to their wrists. Black hoods were then placed over their heads and they were carried and shoved in different directions. Dean and MacIlargie were taken down one corridor, Vanden Hoyt another, the Ambassador and Professor Benjamin a third.
The two enlisted men were taken to a chamber just off the elevator shaft, and as they stood before an iron door set into the solid rock, their hoods and manacles were removed. Their escort shoved them roughly through the door and it was locked behind them. They found themselves in a room three meters wide by about four deep. The ceiling was perhaps five meters above them. It was lighted indirectly from an undetermined source. Bunks lined the walls, which had been faced with wood, and crude toilet facilities occupied one corner. Judging from the lockers and cabinets built into the walls, the place evidently had been someone’s living quarters at one time.
MacIlargie collapsed on one of the bunks. To his surprise, he found it comfortable. He was still too weak to move about much. Dean flopped on the other bunk. “I am gonna kick some ass when we get out of here,” MacIlargie growled.
“Silence!” a loud voice boomed from somewhere up near the ceiling. The two Marines were surprised at first, and then MacIlargie broke forth in a stream of profanity.
“Eavesdropping on us, you son of a bitch?” MacIlargie shouted. “I’ll give you an earful, you shitduk!”
The voice demanded silence again. Both MacIlargie and Dean cursed back at it. The lights went out suddenly. In total darkness they screamed obscenities at the voice until they ran out of fresh insults. Eventually the lights came back on, but the voice did not bother them again.
“How are my guests?” St. Cyr asked as Stauffer entered his well-appointed office suite. While he had never anticipated he would be defeated so soundly when he grabbed power on Diamunde, Marston St. Cyr always had a fallback position. This complex and the hostages were his tickets to freedom.
“They are fine, sir. The Ambassador is outraged; the professor is curious; the ensign is threatening us; and the two enlisted Marines, well, they are acting like enlisted men.” He shrugged.
“Fine, fine. Pour yourself some refreshment.” He waved to a well-stocked bar in a corner. “Come, sit down with me, Clouse, and we will discuss our future.” The Woo that had been crouching in one corner got up and limped after Stauffer, hoping perhaps to get a handout from the bar. It was limping because St. Cyr had broken one of its feet in a rage the night before.
“Back to your place!” St. Cyr shouted. Clouse jumped involuntarily and the Woo scuttled back to its corner. St. Cyr grinned. The Woo trembled in fear. “Throw the damned thing a cracker,” St. Cyr commanded. Stauffer selected a heavily salted cracker from a basket on the bar and tossed it to the Woo. The creature snatched it adroitly in the two fingerlike talons at the end of its only arm and stuffed it into the slot in its torso that served as a mouth. It stared back at Stauffer with its large, round, wet eyes as if offering thanks for the cracker, then folded its five good legs under itself and turned a glistening brown, the sign that it was digesting, its pain and fear apparently forgotten for the moment.
The Woo was the highest life-form humans had ever found on Diamunde. The early colonists, surrounded by packs of Woos bobbing, weaving, murmuring, and staring at the newcomers and gesticulating menacingly with the talons on the ends of their arms, had killed them by the thousands, thinking they were some form of predator that took a while to make up its mind to attack. Eventually the colonists recognized the creatures’ seemingly natural affinity for the company of humans, and in time the Woos began attaching themselves to anyone who would have them. Since they reproduced by sporing, the early decline of the Woo population was soon made up.
They were moderately intelligent creatures. In time, most could understand enough English to respond to simple commands. How intelligent they really were, compared for instance with Terran canines, was a matter of debate, however. But for the majority of Diamundeans who owned one, the creatures were affectionate, obedient, and useful animal companions.
As a boy, Stauffer had owned several Woos—their normal life span was only about five human years—and he had lavished affection on the strange little things. But since becoming St. Cyr’s man, he had never owned another. Stauffer treated St. Cyr’s Woos with a compassion he never felt for his master’s human victims. You could, often should, hate humans, Stauffer rationalized, but Woos, after all, are only animals. Now, with everything lost in this ruinous war, and as a hunted man hiding underground, Clouse Stauffer began to realize what it must be like to be a Woo under the feet of Marston St. Cyr.
“My dear boy,” St. Cyr said as Stauffer took a seat beside his desk, “you think all is over with us, don’t you?”
“Uh, well, sir, things look mighty grim from where I’m sitting.”
“They’ll look up again, and s
oon, Clouse. These hostages are our ticket to freedom and ease for the rest of our lives. We lost the big prize, Clouse, but we’re not finished yet, not by a long shot.”
“Sir, something I don’t understand...” Stauffer hesitated but when St. Cyr nodded he rushed on. “Well, why didn’t you accept the offer to negotiate with the Confederation? Then we could have avoided, well, this...” He gestured helplessly at the living rock that surrounded them.
St. Cyr smiled. “That is not my ‘style,’ as they say. As you know, Clouse, we have many friends in the Confederation Council. Why otherwise did the Confederation stop short of annihilating us?” He laughed bitterly. “Many of the delegates themselves are shareholders in our company. They fought against this war in the first place, and of course they didn’t want us destroyed. But you know what the Confederation was going to offer me? A comfortable exile somewhere out of the way, in exchange for my giving up all the power I worked so hard to achieve here. No! I’m going out on my own terms, Clouse, not like a Woo with its legs dragging behind it. No, no, no! I commanded armies larger and more powerful than any Napoleon ever led. I ruled a planet, Clouse, a whole world! Nobody’s going to exile me to some deep-space Elba.”
“Sir, do you think that’s what the Council would’ve done, had you negotiated with Wellington-Humphreys?”
St. Cyr shrugged. “Same thing, Clouse. Clipped my wings. Now I have the upper hand, and you, my boy, will play a vital role henceforth.”
“Me, sir? How?” Stauffer was not sure he wanted any more “vital roles” in St. Cyr’s plans.
“Clouse, you will deliver my demands to the Confederation forces. I have a little business to clear up with the hostages, and then you will proceed to New Kimberly. Deliver a message to Brigadier Theodosius Sturgeon, commanding the 34th FIST, Confederation Marine Corps.”
“Brigadier...? But sir, won’t you deal with the Fleet Admiral himself? Why a mere brigadier?”
St. Cyr laughed. “Because I have his people, Clouse. And it was his job to protect the Ambassador; the Marines we captured with the Ambassador are his. He failed to protect her. I don’t know the man, have never met him, in fact, but it was his troops who spearheaded the breakout at Oppalia, and they did us a lot of harm. I’m going to rub the fellow’s nose in this business. Oh, don’t worry, Clouse, he’ll get the word to the admiral. But we start with him, my boy, and you have the honor of being my messenger.”
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